LECTURE 5.
MAN'S
CONNECTION WITH THE
SPIRITUAL
WORLD.
Berlin,
12th March, 1918.
In connection with human
souls which have passed through the gate of death, we have
endeavoured to trace the relations existing between the world in
which man lives between birth and death, and that in which he lives
between death and rebirth. We shall try to consider these connections
from various points of view.
In course of time humanity will be
obliged to approach the spiritual world with discernment — in
order to fulfil its mission. In the near future it must learn to know
through conviction that a true creative knowledge of the world and
its connection with man extends far beyond what can be fathomed by
physical science and the intellect connected with it. Man knows but a
small part of the real world, (viz. the world of that activity in
which he himself is active) if he applies himself only to what is
perceptible to the senses and the intellect fettered to them. We have
seen how man can, as it were, refine his observation, and extend it
to various things which exist but remain unobserved in life —
because he only turns his attention to what happens in waking life
from morning to evening, leaving out of account what might have
happened — what is in a sense prevented. In order to give at
least some idea of the things which man must feel rather than think,
it has been frequently pointed out that we need only reflect upon how
a man might, for instance, be prevented by a visitor from starting
out at the time he intended; having intended to start at eleven
o'clock, he was delayed half an hour. We realise that under certain
circumstances — though obviously only ‘under certain
circumstances’ — the course of the day would have been
quite different if he had gone out at the hour intended; how
something quite different would have befallen him in that half-hour
had he not been detained, and he therefore, escaped something. If we
reflect how many events of a similar kind meet us in the course of a
day, we shall gain an idea of all that might have happened. We shall
be able, through feeling, to compare the concept of what might have
happened between morning and night with what really did occur,
according to the connection of cause and effect.
To obtain a really clear idea of
these things, it is well to compare them with similar things in
nature; for certain things occur in nature which must be judged in
the same way. In this connection the great number of seed-forces that
are continually being lost is often pointed out as an instance.
Reflect too how little the herring spawn becomes herring, and how
much of it is lost in [the] course of a year. If we extend this idea
to life as a whole, we should try to realise how many germs organised
for life do not come to fruition in course of the seasons, how
many fail to attain to fully-developed, germinating, thriving life.
But we are not to believe that they do not also form part of reality.
They belong just as much to reality as does all that comes to
full development; only they stop short at a certain point and take a
different course, just as do the events in our own lives when
anything holds us back; the one kind are life-transactions, the other
nature-transactions, which are checked and for that reason continue
on a different course. This conception can be extended yet
further.
We ask ourselves whether something
else, which arises as a puzzling question in human life, does not
resemble these two examples. We know that the normal duration of
man's life is seventy to ninety years but that by far the greater
number die much earlier; that in them the perfection of life is not
attained. As in nature some seeds are held back at a certain
stage and do not come to full maturity, so also are the
life-processes of man; and again we see also that our daily actions
do not come to full maturity, for the above mentioned reasons. All
this will call our attention to the fact that there is a great deal
‘between the lines’ of life, that is not observed; which,
as it were, instead of passing into the region where it can become
physically perceptible, remains in a spiritual
sphere.
If we do not regard such things as
fancy, but really reflect fruitfully upon them, we find the bridge
leading — if not to conclusive proof, yet to the concept of
something full of significance. Thus, as we act in life, matters take
place in such a way, that for the ordinary transactions of life we
consider, we reflect upon our deeds, our impulses of will. We
consider what we ought to do and then carry out what we have decided
upon. The course of life however, does not run so simply that we have
only to decide what we shall do and then carry it out; on the
contrary many things intervene which often appear like a series of
‘accidents,’ or those irregular ‘chance’
happenings which we call ‘Fate.’ To those who think in a
materialistic sense, fate is simply made up of events which they
encounter from day to day. True, many have an inkling that a certain
‘plan’ underlies this fate; but to develop this
perception of a ‘plan’ further, by continuing to notice
in what way it is gradually worked out, is not as a rule considered
either necessary or important. To-day the so-called analytical
psychology, psycho-analysis, finds out many things which are making
themselves felt at the threshold of consciousness; but the
representatives of analytical psychology approach these things with
inadequate means of knowledge. Let us repeat a paradoxical
example often employed by the psychoanalyst, as a starting
point to show clearly that there are various ‘spiritual’
things in life of which the ordinary man has no
idea.
A lady was invited to an evening
party and took part in it; the party was given because the hostess
was about to start on a journey that evening. She was leaving for a
health resort. The entertainment went off well. The hostess started
for her destination, the guests leaving at the same time. One group
walked in the road, and as they went along, a cab came round the
corner — I say advisedly a cab, not a motor-car. The cab tore
through the street. One of the ladies separated from the others. The
rest all got out of its way, but the peculiar idea occurred to her,
to run along in front of the horse. As she ran on — and the
horse was behind her — the thought came to her that she must do
something to save herself from this situation. She came to a bridge
over the river, and she thought to herself that if she threw herself
into the water, she would be safe from the horse. But the other
guests, as you may imagine, ran after her and finally seized hold of
her. The result was that she was taken back to the house they had
just left and was thus able to continue a flirtation with the host,
begun at the party.
The psycho-analyst here seeks for
‘hidden provinces of the soul.’ He finds that when this
lady was a child, she had had certain adventures with horses, and
those now rose from the subconscious depths. Anyone who knows the
soul life of man however, will not be able to accept all this
nonsense of psychoanalysis; for if these hidden provinces of
the soul exist (which is not to be denied) it is only that they may
prepare the experience for which the soul is seeking; they themselves
are not involved in this experience. What is really involved is that
man — as also the lady here in question — has an
instinctive, a ‘sub-conscious’ consciousness which, under
certain circumstances is much more keen and subtle than the higher
consciousness. In this instance the consciousness of the lady acted
in a somewhat, as it were, clumsy way, but her lower instinctive
consciousness worked far more subtly. In this latter arose the
thought: To-day the lady of the house has gone away, I must see how I
can manage to meet the husband. I must think of something, and take
the first opportunity that occurs. The lower consciousness was
even a little prophetic; it divined in advance what would happen if
she ran before the horse. All this could be arranged with great
cunning by the lower consciousness. The higher consciousness was not
so clever; but the lower had this cunning which is greatly enhanced
when a certain prophetic gift steps in. This instance is cited as a
particular case of something which exists universally. Everyone hears
within him something which works in many different directions in a
far more comprehensive and intense manner than does his
ordinary consciousness. If a man were conscious of what he actually
knows in his lower consciousness, he would be exceedingly clever and
able to plan with great subtlety.
We might now ask: Is what lives in
the lower consciousness of man quite inactive? For those who
understand how to observe the world spiritually, it is not inactive.
On the contrary, it is continually active. In the case of this lady
— and in similar cases — it only comes to light in an
abnormal way under the influence of certain special experiences,
impulses and inclinations — but what in her case came to light
in a special way, is always present in man in certain spheres, and
accompanies him through his whole waking life. How is this? That it
came to light in this way in her case rested upon the fact that this
subconscious knowledge of life which man possesses, sometimes exceeds
its bounds. It even happens with ordinary consciousness that a man
does something which is really unusual, which is really
exceptional: So too in the subconsciousness life. In these
cases however, it is only something particular coming out of that
which is always active in man. How is it active?
What we call our destiny is really a
very complicated matter. It appears to approach us in such a way that
events ‘befall’ us. Let us take a striking example, one
known to many. Suppose someone makes acquaintance with another who
later becomes friend, husband, or wife. The higher
consciousness would explain this as ‘befalling’ us;
and declare that we ourselves have done nothing to bring the other
person into our own life. That, however, is not the fact, the truth
is quite otherwise.
With that force which rests in the
subconscious depths, already described, we lay out our life from the
moment we are born into this earth existence — and even more
when we begin to say ‘I’ — so directing our life's
course that at a definite moment it crosses the path of another. A
man does not notice what remarkable discoveries he would make if he
were to follow a definite path of life, like that of someone who at a
definite moment became engaged, for instance. If he were to
follow up his life, observing how he developed through his childhood
and youth, passing from place to place, until he met the one to whom
he was to be betrothed, he would find that events had not taken place
without purpose; that things did not merely befall him, but that he
moved with purpose towards his meeting with the other. His whole life
was pervaded by the quest; his whole destiny was such a quest. We
must of course, realise that this quest does not run its course as do
actions undertaken as a result of ordinary reflection. The latter
follow a straight line; the actions which arise from the
subconsciousness take place strongly and personally. But then they
are fraught with meaning and purpose. It is not correct to speak of
‘unconsciousness,’ we should say
‘subconsciousness’ or lower consciousness, for it is only
‘unconscious’ to our ordinary consciousness. In the case
of the lady who so cunningly contrived to return to the house of her
host, the lower consciousness was much more conscious in itself
than was the lady herself in her higher consciousness. So too, is it
with what leads us in life; so that our destiny is a specially woven
tissue which leads us and is very, very conscious. This does not
prevent man from finding constant fault with his destiny; but if he
could survey all the factors, he would find that he agreed to
everything. The higher consciousness not being so alert as the lower,
judges the facts of the latter falsely, and says to itself: Something
which I do not like has befallen me; — whereas, he has in
reality, from a deep deliberation sought what in his higher
consciousness he considers ‘unsympathetic.’ A
knowledge of the deeper connections would show that a more
intelligent thinker within him sought the things which became his
destiny. Upon what does all this rest?
This is due to the fact that our
ordinary head-consciousness, of which many are so vain, is so to say,
a sieve. When we discuss things for which ordinary language has no
suitable words, we can, of course only speak by comparisons, but the
‘comparisons’ correspond to realities. This is a
comparison, but an adequate one, and it points to a reality. When one
pours water into a sieve it runs through; it does not fill the sieve.
Things thought and pondered over, when fulfilled in the web of
destiny, pass through our head-consciousness as through a sieve, but
the lower consciousness retains them. Now, because they pass through
the higher consciousness as through a sieve, the man knows nothing of
them; yet they are retained within him.
Some day when Natural Science is
studied logically, people will ask themselves: What is the
difference between man and the animal as regards this fact? In the
case of the animal these experiences go right through it; the whole
animal is a sieve. In the case of man they are certainly not retained
in the head, yet they are retained by the whole man. Man does not as
a rule think these experiences because in ordinary life the head
alone thinks and not the whole man. Only when hysteria for instance,
arises, which is due to the other part of man beginning to think
— (which in man arises through conditions of illness, but in
general ought not to arise,) then exceptional cases may appear when
man, so to speak, ‘makes destiny,’ as this lady did. Thus
a person does after all retain the experience and something very
remarkable consequently presents itself: — Why does the
experience pass through the whole animal and why is it retained by
man?
Because the animal has no hands; that
is, its limbs whether legs or wings are always united with the earth,
which alters the case. Because man had remodelled the limbs which in
animals are either legs or wings, his arms and hands are so inserted
in his organism that he retains his thoughts within him, in his
destiny. Only man cannot think with his hands, he can only hold his
destiny with them, hence he overlooks his destiny. The hands are just
as much ‘organs of thought’ as the etheric part of the
head. As regards thought the latter does something very similar to
what man does in life with his hands; with his hands he arrests
within himself the stream of actions which traverses his destiny. Man
is so organised that only the coarser reasoning activity of hands and
arms comes to expression. Everyone knows that in the hands, above all
in the finger-tips, he has a special sense of perception; though
there it only presents its coarsest aspect. Here we refer to
something very delicate. The thinking which man there develops and
can bring to expression through artistic activity, is very faint,
scarcely a glimmer; nevertheless the hands are so inserted into man's
general organism that they are the organs of thought for his destiny.
In the present cycle of evolution, man has not yet learnt to think
with his hands. Were he to do so, were he to know their
mysteries, they would introduce him to the fundamental laws of
the relations of destiny.
This may seem very strange, but it is
true. We have here a point where, on the one hand, Spiritual Science
says: in the hands, which develop a subconscious thinking,
destiny is thought. Natural Science does not yet observe this; since
it only observes the human organism very crudely, and naturally comes
to the conclusion that man is only a more perfect animal. This he is
too, but in what is not observed lies the essential difference
between man and the animal. Let us reflect: What is the position of
the head in the animal? Its head rests directly over the earth. The
head is so placed in man that he carries it himself, whereas in the
case of the animal it is the earth which carries it; in man the
central line of gravity of the head falls, so to speak, into the
human organism before meeting the earth; it passes through the
diaphragm. Man stands in the same relation to himself as the animal
stands to the earth. If we take the central line of gravity of the
animal's head, it falls directly to the earth, without going through
the diaphragm of the organism. The orientation of his organism to the
whole cosmos is the essential point in man; and with this orientation
the fact is connected that his arms and hands are organised
differently from the corresponding limbs of the animal. In future,
Natural Science will begin to ask this question: How is man connected
with dynamics; with the relation of forces to the universe? That man
is not a quadruped but a two-handed being is due to the cosmos. He so
deals with himself, when thus organised from the cosmos, that
the central line of gravity of his head falls within himself, and he
becomes his own earth. Because in a particular way he has
disconnected his hands and arms, he so lives as regards them that the
hands on their part can grasp destiny, just as the organisation of
the head is connected with his upright position. Man has his more
perfect brain because the central line of gravity of his head passes
through him instead of falling directly to the earth. In the universe
there are forces everywhere, and when something is differently
orientated, the whole is differently proportioned. This is admitted
as regards inorganic nature, but is not as yet observed with regard
to man. How the material works over against the spiritual in man is
not at present considered, nor how in him the spiritual
everywhere works through the material.
This is one side of the subject. Here
we may say: We fix our attention on man, and observe how he rests on
his own diaphragm; and when with our subconscious being we
think right down to the diaphragm, we are understanding our destiny,
whereas in our surface consciousness we live only in the
understanding of our considered acts. But man stands within
life in yet another way. For as we have seen — if we do not
only consider his head but his whole organism — man does in
reality ponder his destiny: subconsciously he ponders his destiny,
and so determines it and knows it. There is yet another thing in
human life. We perform actions. These actions in our life call forth
in us a certain satisfaction — or dissatisfaction. Suppose we
have done a good action which has given satisfaction; or suppose we
have to embark on an undertaking to guard against something
unpleasant. Thus we have various things that man brings about in life
by his actions, but we do not only form actions and experience
conscious satisfaction or otherwise in so doing. We can see this best
if with Spiritual Science we investigate actions that enter less
deeply into our lives, actions that need not even have moral
significance, e.g., the act of chopping wood. The action we
achieve when we are chopping wood causes us fatigue. Now people have
various ideas about fatigue. We know from the public lecture on
‘Nature and her Riddles in the Light of Spiritual Research’
(7th March, 1918) that people imagine they fall
asleep from fatigue, that the cause of falling asleep is fatigue.
Everyone knows that fatigue arises as an attendant phenomenon of
actions such as chopping wood; but this fatigue has a far deeper
significance when examined in the light of Spiritual Science. It
really is not in the least what it appears to us to be. We experience
it as what we call fatigue, but it is something quite different. We
can easily realise that the fatigue aroused by such actions is a dual
process. (Actions that enter more into our moral or intellectual life
are only more subtle in this respect; the thing is not always so
easily discerned as is an elemental act such as woodcutting.)
It is a dual process. First we must use the springing and thriving
forces of life connected with our growth; when these are exhausted a
process of destruction takes place in our organism. This process is
experienced as fatigue, which is really a stunning of consciousness,
the deeper significance of which we experience as something quite
other than as a mere consequence — in this case — of
wood-cutting. Fatigue, for our ordinary life, is only a stunning of
consciousness. What do we really experience?
This, of course, we can only answer
from a genuine research of Spiritual Science. When we are fatigued
from wood-cutting, we see at those parts which we know belong to
man's spiritual organism — also called lotus-flowers (see
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment)
— a certain radiation, a real radiation of one of them. This is
one effect; it does not come to our consciousness; we are not aware of
this spiritual effect. What does come to our consciousness is
what sends us to sleep; so that the spiritual effect is not in itself
perceived, for what rays out is truly something spiritual. We can
understand this even better if, in order to keep in mind the
spirituality of this radiation, we observe an action that is exposed
to moral judgments. Suppose that instead of cutting wood we have done
something to which a moral judgment is applicable. Moral
judgments are as a rule thought of only within the narrow spheres of
life; but they have in reality a far wider significance. Everything
man does has a value for the whole course of human evolution. Even
the individual action has a value in the general course of human
evolution. This judgment as to how much an action is worth in the
progress of human evolution is usually just as little understood by
the head as are the acts of destiny; but instead of allowing this
judgment to pass through man's being as through a sieve, man rays it
forth through the lotus-flowers, an it becomes a radiation of man's
being. Man continually exercises a subconscious judgment, a valuation
of each one of his actions. He may be an ‘angelic’ being
and do good to all men. The value of such modes of action as regards
the whole evolution of humanity is judged in his subconsciousness
— indeed very objectively — and often falls out quite
other than one would suppose in the surface consciousness. Again a
man may be a thief; while he commits the theft he judges his action
quite objectively in its effects on the whole process of human
evolution; and this he rays out before him unhesitatingly through the
lotus-flower. In the same way as the judgments of our own destiny,
which pass through our head as through a sieve, are retained by our
arms and hands, so will the judgments which we pass on our actions
and even on the actions of our thoughts, be guided by us with the
help of our astral lotus-flower organisation; they will ray through
our lotus-flower organisation as a light going from us — and
this light extends very far. It passes over into time, it does not
remain in space. That is why the lotus-flowers are so difficult to
imagine, for they are in continual movement, are continually making
the transition to time. Space there actually becomes time. Man casts
a light before him in such a way that it passes into time, a
continuous light which extends far beyond death. Throughout life
there is One Who judges in our subconsciousness. As there is One
within us Who thinks our destiny, so there is One Who passes judgment
on all our actions; and we ray out this judgment as a
light.
This again, being an
‘imaginative’ action, is expressed in a picture, but the
picture corresponds to a reality. Life is, as it were, irradiated by
a searchlight. This must not be imagined spatially but in time. A man
of 40 performs some act, his life passes on through the 50's and the
60's, then through death, and further — into the existence
between death and rebirth; and as he passes through that existence,
he experiences, stage by stage, what during his earthly life
continually streamed out into it through his lotus-flowers. He meets
with all he rayed into the future. This again, expressed pictorially,
is as though he were roused by a searchlight which shines far out,
and he follows its course, saying to himself: “All my deeds
shine out there; I shall meet them all again.” Only it is the
judgment of his deeds which he thus meets in the life between death
and rebirth. In this connection man is no sieve — or if a
sieve, he only allows to pour through it what he himself
subconsciously engenders.
Thus again an entity exists in man as
a permanent critic of his own deeds, and of what is thrown forward by
him into his own future. Here, too, if we wish, we can approach
Natural Science. Because man is so fashioned as to stand upright and
his mechanism of ordinary consciousness rests upon himself as upon
its own earth, therefore at the places of the lotus-flowers, that
which emanates from his wanderings over the earth — in the
fullest sense of the words — is retained. There it is retained,
broken at right angles and sent out into life.
Thus we see that which in a
complicated, yet fully discernible way, is set into life and which is
usually comprised in the general term, “the unconscious.”
Precisely because man is shut off below by his diaphragm, he is
linked by his subconsciousness to his destiny. In the case of the
animal this radiation through the lotus-flowers does not come into
consideration. Why? This is connected with the orientation of the
animal in the universe. Because man's spine is vertical, at right
angles to that of the animal, he develops all that the animal cannot
develop. For the animal's spine is horizontal and not vertical, and
the two things neutralise one another. Hence the animal can set no
‘critic’ by its side, nor send any judgment of its
actions in animal life into the future. Much will transpire when
Natural Science realises that it is required to do more than merely
hold the trivial view that the limbs of the animal can be compared in
structure and form with those of man, or the head of the animal with
that of man. Man has indeed a more perfect brain, but otherwise the
human head does not differ so much from that of the animal; therefore
the materialistic theory attaches man to the animal kingdom. What
does, however, distinguish man from the animal kingdom is his
orientation in the universe: were the scientists to study this, they
would arrive at something very different from Natural Science. Here
Spiritual Science will lead the way, as in all else, by pointing to
definite life processes which will only be perceived when one
has received appropriate direction from Spiritual
Science.
Thus we see how man is so organised
that we can say there is, on the one hand, much in him that is far
more intelligent — often more subtle than he himself is,
— in relation to the judgment of destiny, and on the other hand
there is in him a more objective critic than he is himself in his
conscious life. There is in man, in a complicated way, what may be
called ‘another man;’ and this comes to expression in
life. As a rule, man does not watch his actions. The critic within
him remains subconscious; he only becomes conscious between death and
rebirth, when that light already mentioned is discerned step by step.
By a logical, incisive consideration of life, however, we can arrive
at seeing the different way in which this critic behaves in different
individuals.
Let us compare two types of men in
life. One type is frequently called a ‘busy-body.’ People
are to be met with who never have time for anything; they must be
continually on the move; their hands — one might even say their
noses — must take part in everything. People do not think much
about it; they regard it as a mere habit of life which rests on
sundry subconscious things. What is connected with this, however, is
that the critic in the incarnation in which the man is a busy-body is
in a peculiar position. These critics also have their own particular
individuality. That is discovered after death. In such a case, and it
is well to be able to speak of these things with humour, for if
humour is allowed to have play when a man enters Spiritual Science,
he can overcome the mood which is so inharmonious to Spiritual
Science, which encroaches very much upon it — in the case of a
busy-body, this critic is a sort of ‘actor,’ liking very
much to be seen, not only by men but by all sorts of spiritual
beings; he is pleased that the swarming, teeming life in the
spiritual world should always see him when he runs about. This type,
in the spiritual world, is one who always runs about and wishes to be
seen, and from this desire to be seen, which turns into an
unconscious driving force, arises a busy-body.
Let us take the opposite character;
take a man who fulfils the tasks laid upon him by life, the tasks to
which life urges him. He is not to be seen everywhere; but acts
where he is not seen, where life requires him to be. In this case,
too, the critic occupies a peculiar position. These things are to be
discovered when examined by Spiritual Science. The critic
occupies a special position, which arises from the unconscious belief
that whatever a man does — even if not seen by the swarming
spirits as the busy-body would wish — is not unavailing; that
no force is unavailing in the world, but has its significance there.
This beautiful belief, that ‘Whatsoever I do, even if the
result should not appear for a thousand years, will in some way have
its significance in the general life of the world;’ this
consciousness is at the base of the opposite type to the busy-body. A
certain tranquility in the world, a certainty, arises from the above
belief.
We see from this how life is
elucidated when we bear in mind the fact that man's connections in
life are not only those visible in the outer world of sense, but that
he has real connections in life based on his relation to the
spiritual world.
These arguments have been brought
forward to-day chiefly to present two elements in the human being;
one, the element so connected with the physical organisation of man
between birth and death that it reveals itself as a lower
consciousness, of which the arms and hands are the organs of thought;
organs of thought in this remarkable way, that they give peculiar
methods of expression to what passes through the head as
through a sieve. In this respect man is a remarkable vessel; as
regards his knowledge of destiny his bead is a sieve; but when the
thoughts which make destiny have run through, they are retained by
the hands and arms.
The other element in man is that
which rays through the lotus-flowers and passes into the life between
death and rebirth. Much of importance depends upon the relations
which are set up between these two streams. If we consider the whole
man in this way, thinking actually of the plane of the diaphragm, we
have him ever there as a dual being; in the one being something, an
experience, entering into man, stops short there, at the plane of the
diaphragm, arrested by the force of the arms and bands, and this
happens because man is a vertical being, not horizontal like the
animal. The other being — strange as it may sound, but the
world is full of riddles — reveals himself in such a way that
the legs and feet stand to him in the same relationship as do the
hands and feet of the first being. This second being is connected
with the earth; for one really sees the rays coming through the earth
and penetrating man, through whom they are conducted by the
lotus-flowers and ray out into the future. These are the two streams,
showing man as a dual being. In ordinary life these two streams are
separated, and on this fact life rests. Were they united life would
not be as it actually is. For if they flowed together, man could not
develop the ego-consciousness, since that depends upon their being
kept apart. And yet, they are only partly separated, for in one sense
they do still flow together. It is so indeed. The stream which rays
out from man, raying into the life between death and a new birth, can
be united by man's own effort and development — outside the
human being — with those other, incoming radiations which
otherwise pass through the ‘sieve’ and are arrested
by the arms. That is to say, it can be united with them before they
pass through the ‘sieve.’ The two streams which otherwise
pass through the body but cannot come together: if man takes hold of
them in this way, they can be united with one another. It is this
union which makes it possible for man to meet with the dead —
with those who have passed through the gate of
death.
In order that it may be further
considered from other standpoints, the description given to-day of
these two streams will form an introduction to this relationship of
the living to the dead.
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