IV.
MAN'S FURTHER DESTINIES IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
Since it is our
task to-day to continue following, man's destinies in the
spiritual world, it will be advisable if we first form some
idea of what we designate as a world, in the
spiritual-scientific meaning.
We are
conscious of the world round about us, because we have
certain capacities and organs which enable us to perceive it.
If we had other organs, this world would present an entirely
different aspect. For example, if a man had no eyes enabling
him to see the light, but an organ enabling him instead to
perceive electricity, then he would not see this room flooded
with light, but he would perceive electricity in every wire,
flashing, streaming through it. — The world round about
us, what we call our world, is therefore dependent upon our
sense-organs.
The astral
world, too, is nothing but a sum of phenomena, which the
human being experiences in his environment , when he has
severed himself from his physical body and from his etheric
body, so that he can use forces enabling him to see what he
cannot otherwise see. This is the case, when he has discarded
his physical body and his etheric body. The perceptive organs
for the astral world are the organs of the astral body,
analogous to the sense-organs of the physical body.
Let us now
contemplate the astral world.
Through methods
which will be discussed later, a man endowed with spiritual
vision can perceive the astral world even here, in his
physical body. The astral world differs greatly from our
physical world. You may obtain some idea of what is round
about you in the astral world, if you summon up before your
soul the life of dreams, which is the last trace of that
early clairvoyance which man once possessed in times gone by.
You all know this life of dreams from your own experience, as
world of chaotic images. How does it come about that man
dreams at all? We know that while we dream, the physical body
and the etheric body lie on the bed, while the astral body
soars above them. In a sound, dreamless sleep, the astral
body is completely lifted out of the etheric body; but in a
sleep filled with dreams, certain tentacles of the astral
body still reach into the etheric body, and this enables man
to perceive the more or less confused pictures of the astral
world.
The astral
world is as transparent as the dream-pictures; it is, as it
were, woven out of dreams. But these dreams which constitute
the astral world differ from ordinary dreams, for they are
the images of a reality, just as “real” a reality
as the physical world. We perceive this reality in the same
way in which we perceive dreams, for the astral world, too,
is perceived symbolically. You all know that the world of
dreams is a symbolical world. Everything from the world
outside which enters our sleep, takes on a symbolical aspect
in our dreams. I will give you a few typical examples of
dreams, which will show you how a simple impression from
outside constitutes the foundation of a dream's symbolical
image.
For example,
you may be dreaming that you have caught a frog. You feel its
slippery body, and on waking up you find that you are holding
the cold end of the sheet in your hand. Or you may dream that
you are in a cellar, in a dark hole full of spiders' webs:
You wake up ... with a headache. Or you may see snakes in
your dream, and when you awake you will find that you have
abdominal pains. Or another dream: An academician has a long
dream of a duel, beginning with some insult and ending with
the pistol-shot: He hears the shot, awakes, and
discovers that a chair has fallen.
The whole
course of this last dream can also show you that the
conditions of time are quite different in dreams. Not only
does time run backwards, so to speak, but the whole
conception of time loses its meaning in a dream. During a
dream, we may pass through a whole life in the fraction of a
second, in the same way in which our whole life passes before
our soul's eye during the moment of drowning, or crashing.
The point to be borne in mind in all these dream-pictures is
that the cause which gave rise to them appears in the form of
IMAGES.
This is the
case in the astral world. Its images can be interpreted. The
same astral experience always appears in the form of the same
image; there is always regularity and harmony in these
pictures of the astral world, whereas our ordinary dreams are
chaotic. In the end, we can find our way about in the astral
world just as well as in the physical world.
The astral
world is woven out of such pictures, but they are the
expression of soul-beings. After death all human beings are
enveloped in such pictures, which are in part very rich in
colour and form. Also when we are asleep the astral body can
be seen in the midst of streaming, changing forms and
colours. If we have the astral power of vision, we can
perceive these astral beings in a surging sea of colours.
The astral
world has, however, one peculiar quality, which appears
strange to one who hears this for the first time. In the
astral world everything exists, as it were, in the form of a
picture reflected in a mirror, and a pupil of spiritual
science must therefore get accustomed little by little to see
things in the RIGHT way. For instance, you may see the number
365, but this really corresponds to 563. This applies to
everything which we see in the astral world. There,
everything that goes out of our own being appears as if it
were coming towards us. It is most important to consider this
fact.
When astral
images arise, for instance, in pathological conditions, we
must know how to deal with them. They often appear when
people are delirious; a delirious person often sees all kinds
of faces and forms rushing towards him, for the astral world
becomes accessible to him in this pathological condition.
Although these astral pictures seem to be rushing towards
him, they are in reality streaming out of him. Progressive
doctors should bear this in mind, for in future such symptoms
will be more and more frequent, arising out of a concealed
religious longing. The subject of a painting such, as for
instance, the well known
“Temptation of Saint Anthony”
is based on such astral experiences.
If you think
these things through to the very end you will no longer find
it strange that time too is reversed in the astral world. An
echo of this may be found in dreams. In this connection you
should remember the above-mentioned example of the duel in a
dream. In the astral world everything is reversed; even time.
When we observe the development of a tree astrally, we first
perceive its fruit, then its blossoms, and so on backwards to
the seed.
After death,
during the time in which we must lose our earthly habits, our
whole life in the astral world runs backwards. But this
process of living through our whole life once more backwards,
concluding it ,with our first impressions of childhood, is
faster than the one on the physical plane; it lasts about one
third of the duration of our life on earth. Thus we live
through our life again in a reversed order, but we experience
many other things too.
Let us suppose
that you were eighty years old when you died, and that now
you live through your life backwards as far as your fortieth
year. At that time you may, for instance, have boxed
someone's ear, thus causing him pain. In the astral world
this sensation of pain also appears as if in a mirror, i.e.
YOU now experience the pain felt by the other person when you
boxed his ear. But this also applies to every pleasant
experience.
Only when the
human being has thus passed through his whole life backwards,
is he ready to enter the heavenly world. Religious traditions
should always be taken literally. If you bear in mind what I
have just now explained to you, you will easily understand
that the human being can only enter the spiritual world
— and the spiritual world is the one which the Bible
designates as “Kingdom of Heaven” — when he
has lived through his whole life backwards as far as infancy.
This lies at the foundation of Christ's words: “Unless
you become as little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of
Heaven”. For on reaching the stage of childhood in his
reversed passage through life, the human being discards the
astral body and enters the spiritual world.
Now I must give
you a description of the spiritual world. The Kingdom of
Heaven differs from the physical world even more than the
astral world. But since it is only possible to describe the
spiritual world with expressions taken from the physical
world, it should be borne in mind even more than for
descriptions of the astral world, that everything I say about
the spiritual world should only be taken comparatively.
In the Kingdom
of Heaven we also find a triad, as here on earth. Even as
upon the earth we find the three aggregate states of solid,
liquid and gaseous, and accordingly divide the earth into
continents, oceans, and atmosphere, so we may also
distinguish three similar spheres — but, as stated,
only as a comparison — in the spiritual realm. The
continental sphere, however, consists of something which
differs from our rocks and stones. What constitutes the firm
ground of the spirit realm, are the archetypal images of the
physical world. For everything physical has its archetype,
even man. The clairvoyant seer perceives these archetypal
images as a kind of negative, that is to say, he sees space
as a kind of shadow-form, and round about it radiant light.
But corresponding, for instance, to the blood and nerves,
these shadows are not uniform. But a stone, or a mineral
reveal in their archetypal images a uniformly empty space
surround by raying light.
Even as you
walk, on firm ground here on earth, so in the spiritual realm
you walk on the archetypal images of physical things. This
forms the continents of the spiritual world.
When the human
being first sets foot on these continents, a definite aspect
always presents itself to him: It is the moment when he first
has a clear perception of his own body lying before him. For
he himself is spirit. Normally this takes place about thirty
years after death, and this is connected with the fundamental
experience: “This is you.” The Vedanta philosophy
based one of its fundamental teachings on this knowledge, the
“Tat twain asi” — this is you. All such
expressions are drawn out of a deep spiritual knowledge.
The second
sphere of the spiritual realm is the oceanic sphere. Whatever
is life here in the physical world, i.e. everything that
possesses an etheric body, exists in the spiritual realm as
if it were a liquid element. Streaming, surging life flows
through the spirit-realm. It even collects like the waters of
the ocean, in a kind of ocean-basin, or to be more precise,
like the blood streaming through the veins and collecting in
the heart.
And thirdly we
have the atmosphere of the spirit realm, consisting of all
the passions, instincts, feelings, etc. You have all these
sensations up there as an external perception, resembling the
atmospheric phenomena here on earth. All this blows through
the atmosphere of Devachan. As a clairvoyant, you can
perceive in the spirit-realm all the sufferings and joys
experienced on earth. Every passion, every feeling of hatred
and such like, appears in the spirit-realm as if it were a
storm. A battle, for example, appears in such a form that in
the Devachan world the seer experiences a tremendous storm.
The whole spiritual world is thus permeated with wonderful
joys which pass through it, but also with terrible
passions.
In the same way
it is possible to speak of spiritual ears. When you have
advanced to the stage of having an insight into the Devachan
world, you may both see and hear these floating phenomena,
and what you thus hear is the HARMONY OF THE SPHERES.
We have thus
characterised the spiritual region up to this stage. But
there is a fourth region in Devachan. Up to now we have found
in it:
1. The prototypes of all physical
forms; as the continents
2. The prototypes of all life, as the oceans
3. The prototypes of all soul-life, feelings, etc., as
the atmosphere
Now there is
something in human life which cannot have its origin in the
external world, and its spiritual content constitutes the
fourth sphere of Devachan. There we find every original idea,
going as far as the creative productions of genius. All that
is original, that is to say, all that man puts into the
world, thus enriching the world, the prototypes of all these
creations form the fourth sphere of Devachan. This concludes
the description of the lower parts of Devachan.
Beyond this
there are three higher spheres, but during his physical life
man can only reach them through a higher initiation. They are
only accessible to an initiate, and after death, they can
only be perceived by more highly developed individuals.
What does such
an advanced initiate experience when he penetrates into the
next higher sphere of Devachan? At first he experiences that
which is designated in Occult Science as the Akasha
Chronicle. Everything that occurs in the world and that has
ever occurred in it in the past, is preserved as an
impression in a fine substantiality, which is
imperishable.
Let me
illustrate this through at example: Now I am speaking to you,
but you would not hear me if my voice were not able to
produce vibrations in the air. Thus every word which I utter
exists in the air in the form of fine movements. These fine
movements of course vanish, but everything which occurs here
on earth becomes impressed in that fine substantiality which
we experience when reaching the spiritual world. This
impression is everlasting. Every word, every thought,
everything which has ever taken place in humanity, can be
read in the Akasha Chronicle. This entails either initiation,
or that moment after death when the human being enters the
higher devachanic sphere, that is to say, when he has
developed so far as to perceive this high sphere of Devachan
after death. In that case he is able to look into the
past.
The Akasha
Chronicle is a writing which preserves everything that has
ever occurred. But it is not really a writing in the ordinary
physical meaning, for it consists of images. You see, for
example, Caesar in every situation of his life, — you
do not see what he has done, but the inner impulses which led
him to his deeds. These Akasha pictures possess a high degree
of life, and if we cannot interpret them in the right way,
they can give rise to great delusions. The source of many
spiritistic aberrations is, for example, the appearance of an
Akasha picture at one of these seances. If you summon Goethe,
and the Akasha picture of November 25th 1797 appears before
you, giving you information concerning some question, this
picture will reply as Goethe would have replied had he been
asked that question on November 25th 1797. Only those who
really know the spiritual world can judge whether they are
dealing with a reality or with a shadow. These descriptions
can show you what aspect the higher spheres of the spiritual
world present.
The first
experience is therefore the perception of one's own body, and
this experience is the starting point for all other
experiences. The human being feels strongly that he has
emancipated himself from his bodily involucres, for the most
blissful of moments is the one in which he discards the last
body, the astral corpse. Even as a plant wedged in the
fissure of a rock would experience it as bliss to be freed,
so this feeling of blissfulness becomes a fundamental
sensation of the human being. It permeates him and
transfigures the other feelings which were once experienced
in an earthly manner, for instance, feelings of friendship,
which may perhaps undergo certain transformations here on
earth, but which are deepened and purified in the spiritual
realm.
Also a mother's
love for her child undergoes such a purification, and
viceversa. The originally animal feeling of belonging to one
another, which even here upon the earth took on a moral
character, unfolds a still higher moral-power in Devachan,
Every tie on earth becomes deepened in the spiritual realm,
and all connections interpenetrate.
Through love
man works his way up from the narrowness of egotism to the
encompassing experience of cosmic life. There, nothing, is
divided or severed; each one works for the others, for even
in the spiritual world activity and work constitute the
element which carries, furthers and unites the souls. But
Love is the inexhaustible source of all life.
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