LECTURE TWO
HIGHER KNOWLEDGE AND MAN'S LIFE OF SOUL
In the last
lecture I gave a survey of our studies during the past year
and an indication of the purpose and spirit of those studies.
I said that the whole spiritual-scientific Movement must be
permeated by the same spirit which actuates our study, for
instance, of the many aspects of the Christ-problem. In all
our striving for knowledge we must display modesty and
humility and it is of this humility that I want to speak a
little more specifically.
I have often
said that while an object can be depicted in some way by
painting or photographing it from one side, it must never be
claimed that such a picture is in any sense a complete
presentation. We can get an approximate idea of an object if
we look at it from several sides and gather the single
pictures into one whole, but even in ordinary observation we
have to go all round an object if we want to get a
comprehensive idea of it. And if anyone were to imagine that
he could obtain the whole truth about some matter relating to
the spiritual world from a single glimpse of that world, he
would be greatly mistaken. Many errors arise from failure to
recognise this. The four accounts of the events in Palestine
given by the four Evangelists are actually a safeguard
against students taking such an attitude. People who do not
know that in spiritual life an object or a being or an event
must be contemplated from different sides will, with their
superficial approach to truth, find apparent contradictions
in the accounts of the individual Evangelists. But it has
been repeatedly pointed out that the four accounts present
the great Christ Event from four different aspects and that
they must be viewed as a whole, just as we should have to do
in the case of an object painted from four different sides.
If we proceed with careful attention to detail, as we have
tried to do in connection with the Gospels of St. Matthew,
St. Luke and St. John and later on shall try to do with that
of St. Mark, we shall see that there is wonderful harmony in
the four accounts. The mere fact that there are four Gospels
is a sufficient indication of the need to look at truth from
four different sides.
During the
past year I have often spoken of the possibility of
discovering different aspects of truth. At our General
Meeting last year I tried to supplement what is usually
called `Theosophy' by another view which I called that of
`Anthroposophy' and I showed how it is related to Theosophy.
I spoke of a science based upon physical facts and upon the
intellectual assessment of facts revealed to
sense-observation. When this science deals with Man, we call
it Anthropology, which comprises everything about Man that
can be investigated by the senses and studied by means of
rational observation. Anthropology, therefore, studies the
human physical organism as it presents itself to the methods
and instruments used by natural science. It studies the
relics of prehistoric men, the tools and implements used by
them and since buried in the earth, and then tries to form an
idea of how the human race has evolved through the ages. It
also studies the stages of development in evidence among
savages or uncivilised peoples, starting from the assumption
that these peoples are now at the stage of culture attained
by civilised humanity in much earlier times. In this way
Anthropology forms an idea of the various stages through
which man has passed before reaching his present level.
A great deal
more could be said to shed light on Anthropology. Last year I
compared it to a man who gains his knowledge of a country by
walking about on flat ground, noting the market-towns, the
cities, woods and fields, and describing everything just as
he has seen it from the flat countryside.
But there is a
different point of view from which man can be studied, namely
that of Theosophy. The ultimate aim of Theosophy is to shed
light upon the nature and purpose of man. If you
study my book,
Occult Science,
you will see that
everything culminates in a description of man's true being.
If Anthropology can be compared with a man who collects his
facts and data by walking about on flat ground and then tries
to understand them, Theosophy can be compared with an
observer who climbs to a mountain-top and from there surveys
the surrounding country, looks at the market-towns, the
cities, the woods, and so on. Much that he sees on the ground
below will be unclear and often he will see particular points
only. The standpoint adopted by Theosophy is on a lofty level
at which many of the qualities and idiosyncracies displayed
by man in daily life become unclear, just as villages and
towns are indistinct when they are viewed from the top of a
mountain.
What I have
just said will not, perhaps, be very enlightening to someone
who is only beginning his study of Spiritual Science. He will
try to understand and form certain ideas of the nature and
being of man, of the physical, etheric and astral bodies and
so on, but at first he will not come up against the
difficulties that lie ahead when he tries to make progress in
the deeper understanding of Spiritual Science. The greater
the progress he makes, the more he recognises how difficult
it is to find a connection between what has been attained on
the heights of Spiritual Science and the feelings and
perceptions of daily life.
Someone might
ask why it is that spiritual truths seem illuminating and
right to many people in spite of the fact that they are
incapable of testing what they have been told from spiritual
heights by comparing it with their own observations in
everyday life. The reason is that there is an affinity
between the human soul and truth. This instinctive, natural
sense of truth is a reality and of untold value particularly
in our own day, because the spiritual level from which
essential truths can be seen is so infinitely high. If people
had first to scale these heights themselves they would have a
long road in the life of soul and spirit to travel and those
unable to do so could have no sense of the value these truths
have for human life. But once spiritual truths have been
communicated, every soul has the capacity to assimilate
them.
How is a soul
which accepts these truths to be compared with one which is
able actually to discover them? A trivial analogy can be
chosen here, but trivial as it is it means more than appears
on the surface. — All of us can put on our boots, but not
all of us can make them; to do that we should have to be
bootmakers. What we get out of the boots does not depend upon
being able to make them but upon being able to put them to
proper use. — This is precisely the case with the truths
given us through Spiritual Science. We must apply them in our
lives, even though we cannot ourselves discover them as
seers. When we accept them because of our natural feeling for
truth they help us to orientate our lives, to realise that we
are not limited to existence between birth and death, that we
bear within us a spiritual man, that we pass through many
earth-lives, and so on. These truths can be absorbed and
applied. And just as boots protect us from the cold, so do
these truths protect us from spiritual cold and from the
spiritual poverty we should experience if we were capable of
thinking, feeling and perceiving only what the external
sense-world presents to us. Spiritual truths are brought down
from the heights for the use and benefit of all human beings,
though there may be only a few who can actually find them,
namely those who have trodden the spiritual path already
described.
Any view of
the world around us — which, when it is a question of
studying Man is also the concern of Anthropology — shows us
how this world itself reveals behind it another world which
can be observed from the higher, spiritual standpoint of
Theosophy. The sense-world itself can reveal another world if
we do not just accept the facts with the intellect, but
interpret them; when, that is to say, we do not move so far
beyond the field of sense-perception as does Theosophy itself
but stand as it were on the mountain-side where a wider view
is possible without the details becoming unclear. This
standpoint was characterised last year as that of
Anthroposophy, showing that three views of Man are possible,
namely the views of Anthropology, of Anthroposophy and of
Theosophy.
This year, in
connection with our General Meeting, the lectures on
‘Psychosophy’ — which will be as significant as
those on Anthroposophy, only in a quite different sense —
will show how, on the basis of its impressions and
experiences, the human soul itself can be described in its
relation to spiritual life. Later lectures on
‘Pneumatosophy’ will conclude this series and
will show how our studies of Anthroposophy and Psychosophy
merge into Theosophy. The aim of all this is to show you how
manifold truth is. The earnest seeker discovers that the
further he progresses, the humbler he becomes and also the
more cautious in translating into the language of ordinary
life the truths attained at higher levels. For although it
has been said that these truths acquire value only when they
are thus translated, we must realise that this translation is
one of the most difficult tasks of Spiritual Science. There
are very great difficulties in making what has been observed
at high levels of the spiritual world intelligible to a
healthy sense of truth and acceptable to sound reasoning.
It must be
emphasised again and again that when Spiritual Science is
studied in our Groups the object is to create this feeling
for truth. We have not merely to grasp with the intellect
what has been communicated from the spiritual world; it is
much more important to experience it in our feelings and so
acquire qualities which everyone who strives earnestly for
spiritual truth should possess.
As we look at the world around us we can say that at every
point it displays to us an outer manifestation of an inner,
spiritual world. For us this is now a commonplace. Just as a
man's physiognomy is an expression of what is going on in his
soul, so all phenomena of the external sense-world are a
physiognomical expression, so to speak, of a spiritual world
behind them. We understand sense-perceptions only when we can
see in them expressions of the spiritual world. When by
following his own path to knowledge a man cannot reach the
stage at which spiritual vision is possible, he has only the
material world before him, and he may ask whether his study
of the material world provides any confirmation, any
evidence, of communications based upon spiritual vision.
This search
for evidence is always possible but it will have to be
carried out with precision and not superficially. If, for
example, you have followed my lectures and have read the book
Occult Science,
you will know that there was a time
when the Earth and Sun were one, when Earth and Sun formed
one body. If you bear in mind what I have said, you will
agree that the animal forms and plant forms on the Earth
to-day are later elaborations of those already in existence
when the Earth and the Sun were one. But just as the animal
forms of to-day are adapted to the conditions prevailing on
the present Earth, so must the animal forms of that earlier
epoch have been adapted to the conditions of the planetary
body of Earth plus Sun. It follows that the animal forms
which have survived from those times are not only survivors
but developments of creatures which were already then in
existence but could not, for instance, have possessed eyes:
for eyes have purpose only when light is streaming in upon
the Earth from outside, from the Sun. Accordingly, among the
different creatures belonging to the animal kingdom there
will be some which developed eyes after the Sun had separated
from the Earth, and also animal forms which are survivors
from the time when Sun and Earth were still united. Such
animals will have no eyes. They would naturally belong to the
lower species of animals. And we find that such creatures
actually exist. Popular books tell us that animals below a
certain stage of evolution have no eyes. This is confirmed by
Spiritual Science.
The world
around us, the world in which we ourselves live, can
therefore be pictured as the ‘physiognomical’
expression of the spiritual life weaving and working behind
it. If man were simply confronted by this sense-world and it
did not anywhere reveal to him that it points to a spiritual
world, he could never feel longing for that world. There must
be a point in the sense-world where a longing for spiritual
reality springs up, some point where the spiritual streams as
through a door or window into the world of our everyday life.
When does this happen? When does a spiritual reality light up
in us? As you will know from lectures given by me and by
others as well, this happens when we experience our own
‘I’, our own Ego. At this moment we actually do
experience something that has a direct relation with the
spiritual world. Nevertheless this experience of the
‘I’ is at the same time very meagre. It is as it
were a single point amid all the phenomena of the world. The
single point which we express by the little word,
‘I’, does indeed indicate something truly
spiritual but this has contracted into a point. What can we
learn from this spiritual reality that has contracted into
the point, into the ‘I’? Through experiencing our
own ‘I’ we can know no more of the spiritual
world than has contracted into this single point unless we
widen the experience. Nevertheless this point does contain
something of great importance, namely that through it we are
given an indication of the process of cognition that is
necessary for knowledge of the spiritual world.
What is the
difference between experience of the ‘I’ and all
other experiences? The difference is that we are ourselves
actually within the experience of the
‘I’. All other experiences come to us from
outside.
Someone may
say: ‘But my thinking, my willing, my desires, my
feelings — I myself live in all that.’ In regard to
willing, however, a man can convince himself by a very simple
act of introspection that he cannot be said to be actually
within it. The will is something that seems to be driving us
on, as if we were not within it; our actions seem to be due
to the pressure of some thing or some incident from outside.
And it is the same with our feelings and with most of our
thoughts in everyday life. How little we are really within
our thinking in everyday life can be realised if we try
conscientiously to note how dependent it is upon education,
upon the conditions we have encountered in life. This is the
reason why human thinking, feeling and willing vary so
greatly in different nations and in different periods. Only
one thing remains the same in all nations, in all regions and
in all societies: it is the experience of the
‘I’.
Let us now ask
in what this experience of the ‘I’ really
consists. The matter is not as simple as it might appear. You
may easily think, for instance, that you experience the
‘I’ in its real nature. But this is by no means
so. We do not actually experience the ‘I’ itself
but only a mental concept, a mental picture, of it. If we
could really experience the ‘I’, it would present
itself as something raying out on all sides to infinity.
Unless the ‘I’ could confront itself as an image
in a mirror, even though the image is only a point, we could
not experience the ‘I’, nor could the
‘I’ create a mental picture of itself. What man
experiences of the ‘I’ is a mental picture of it;
but that is sufficient, for it differs entirely from every
other picture in that it is identical with its original. When
the ‘I’ makes a mental picture of itself it is
concerned with itself alone and the picture is only the
return of the ‘I’ experience into itself. There
is a kind of obstruction, as if we wished to check the
experience and compel it to return into itself; and in this
return it confronts itself as a mirror-image. Such is the
experience of the ‘I’.
It can
therefore be said that we recognise the experience of the
‘I’ in the mental picture of it. But this mental
picture of the ‘I’ differs radically from all
other mental pictures, all other experiences which we may
have. For all other mental pictures and all other experiences
we need something like an organ. This is obvious in the case
of outer sense-perceptions. In order to have the mental
picture of a colour we must have eyes. It is quite obvious
that we must have organs through which ordinary
sense-perceptions reach us. You may think that no organ is
necessary for what is so intimately related to our inmost
self. Here too, however, you can quite easily convince
yourselves that you do need an organ. You can find more
precise details in my lectures on Anthroposophy; at the
moment I am making it possible for you to hear in
theosophical terms what was presented in those lectures
rather for the benefit of the general public.
Suppose that
at some period in your life you grasp a thought, an idea. You
understand something that confronts you in the form of an
idea. How can you understand it? Only through those ideas
which you have previously mastered and made your own. You can
see that this is so from the fact that when a new idea comes
to a man it is accepted in one way by one person and
differently by another. This is because the one person has
within him a greater number of ideas than the other. All our
old ideas are lodged within us and confront the new idea as
the eye confronts the light. A sort of organ is formed from
our own previous ideas; and for anything not formed in this
way in the present incarnation we must look to earlier
incarnations. This organ was formed then and we confront new
ideas with it. We must have an organ through which to receive
all experiences that come to us from the outer world, even
when they are spiritual experiences: we never stand
spiritually naked, as it were, in face of what comes to us
from the external world, but we are always dependent upon
what we have become. The only time we confront the world
directly is when we attain a perception of the
‘I’. The ‘I’ is always there, even
while we sleep, but perception of it has to be aroused every
morning when we wake up. If during the night we were to
journey to Mars, the conditions surrounding us would
certainly be very different from those on the Earth — indeed
everything would be different — except the perception of the
‘I’. This is always the same because no external
organ is needed for it, not even an organ for concepts. What
confronts us here is a direct perception of the
‘I’ in its true form. Everything else comes
before us as a picture in a mirror and conditioned by the
structure of the mirror. Perception of the ‘I’
comes to us in its own intrinsic form.
In fact we can
say that when we have a mental picture of the
‘I’, we are ourselves within it and it is in no
sense outside us. And now let us ask how this unique
perception of the ‘I’ differs from all other
perceptions. The difference lies in the fact that in the
perception, the mental picture of the ‘I’, there
is the direct imprint of the ‘I’, and in
no other perception is this the case. But from everything
around us we get pictures which can be compared with
the perception of the ‘I’, for through the
‘I’ we transform everything into an inner
experience. If we are to see any meaning or significance in
the external world it must become a mental picture in us.
Thus we form pictures of the external world which then live
on in the ‘I’, no matter which organ is the
channel for a sense-experience. We may smell some substance;
when we are no longer in direct contact with it we still
carry an image within us of the smell. The same is true of a
colour we have seen; the pictures or images which come from
such experiences remain in our ‘I’. The
characteristic feature of all these pictures or images is
that they come to us from outside. All the pictures which, as
long as we live in the world of the senses, we have been able
to unite with our ‘I’, are the relics of
impressions received from the sense-world. But there is one
thing the sense-world cannot give us — namely, perception of
the ‘I’. This arises in us quite spontaneously.
Thus in perception of the ‘I’ we have a picture
which rises up within ourselves, contracted into a point.
Think now of
other mental pictures which have not arisen from any external
stimulus given by the senses but arise freely in the
‘I’ like the concept of the ‘I’
itself, and are consequently formed in the same manner.
Images and pictures if this kind arise in the astral
world. There are, then, mental pictures which arise in
the ‘I’ without our having received any
impression from outside, from the sense-world.
What
distinguishes the images or pictures we derive from the
sense-world from the rest of our inner experiences? Images
derived from the sense-world can remain with us as images of
experiences only after we have come into contact with that
world; they become inner experiences although they
were stimulated by the outer world. But what experiences of
the ‘I’ are there that are not directly
stimulated by the outer world? Our feelings, desires,
impulses, instincts and so on, are such experiences. Even if
we ourselves are not actually within these feelings,
impulses, etc., in the sense already described, it must
nevertheless be admitted that there is something which
distinguishes them from the images that remain with us as a
result of what our senses have perceived. — You can feel
what the difference is. An image derived from the outer world
is something that is at rest within us, that we try to retain
as faithfully as possible. But impulses, desires and
instincts represent something that is active within us,
something that is an actual force.
Now although
astral pictures arise without the external world having
played any part, something must nevertheless have been in
action, for nothing can exist as an effect without a cause.
What causes a sense-image is the impression made by the outer
world. What causes an astral picture is what lies at the root
of desires, impulses, feelings, and so on. In ordinary life
to-day, however, man is protected from developing in his
feelings a force strong enough to cause pictures to arise
which would be experienced in the same way as the picture of
the ‘I’ itself. The significant feature of modern
man's soul is that its impulses and desires are not
strong enough to create a picture of what the ‘I’
sets before them. When the ‘I’ confronts the
strong forces of the external world it is stimulated to form
pictures. When it lives within itself, in a normal man it has
only one single opportunity of experiencing an emerging
picture, namely, when the picture is that of the
‘I’ itself.
Impulses and
desires are therefore not strong enough to create pictures
comparable with the ‘I’-experience. If they are
to work strongly enough they must acquire a certain quality,
a most important quality that is inherent in all
sense-experiences. Sense-experiences do not behave just to
suit us: if, for instance, someone lives in a room in which
he hears an irritating noise, he cannot get rid of it by
means of his impulses and desires. Through a mere impulse or
desire nobody can turn a yellow flower into a red one because
he prefers it. It is characteristic of the sense-world that
its manifestations are quite independent of us. This is
certainly not true of our impulses, desires and passions
which are entirely consonant with our personal life. What,
then, must happen to them in the process of intensification
that is necessary to make them into pictures? They must
become like the external world which does not consult our
wishes in regard to its structure and the production of
sense-images but compels us to give to the image we make the
form imparted to it by the surrounding world.
If pictures of
the astral world are to be correctly formed a man must be as
detached from himself, from his personal sympathies and
antipathies, as he is from sense-images he forms of the outer
world. What he desires or wishes must be a matter of complete
indifference to him. In the last lecture I said that this
requirement simply means the complete absence of egoism. But
this must not be taken lightly. It is no easy matter to be
without egoism.
The following
must also be borne in mind. Our interest in what comes to us
from the outside world is vastly different from our interest
in what arises within ourselves. The interest a man takes in
his inner life is infinitely greater than his interest in the
external world. You certainly know people who, when they have
transformed something in the external world into an image,
are apt to make it conform with their subjective feelings.
Such people often spin the wildest yarns even when they are
not actually lying, and believe what they say. Sympathy and
antipathy always play a part here and create delusions about
the external reality, causing the subsequent image to be
distorted. But these are exceptional cases, for a man would
not get very far if he were himself to create delusions in
his daily life. There would be perpetual clashes with the
circumstances of outer existence, but willy-nilly he is bound
to acknowledge the truth of the external world; reality
itself puts him right. It is the same with ordinary
sense-experiences: the external reality is a sound
corrective. This is no longer the case when a man begins to
have inner experiences: it is not so easy for him then to let
the external reality set him right and he therefore allows
himself to be influenced by his own interests, his own
sympathies and antipathies.
If we aspire
to penetrate into the spiritual world, it is all-important
for us to learn to confront our own self with the same
absence of bias with which we confront the external world. In
the ancient Pythagorean schools this truth was formulated in
strictly precise terms, particularly for the department of
knowledge concerned with the question of immortality. Think
of all the people who are interested in the subject of
immortality. It is normal for men to long for immortality,
for a life beyond birth and death. But that is a purely
personal interest, a personal longing. You will not be
particularly interested if a tumbler gets broken; but if
people had the same personal interest in the continued
existence of a tumbler, even if broken, as they have in the
immortality of the soul, you may be sure that most of them
would believe in the immortality of a tumbler!
For this
reason it was felt in the Pythagorean schools that no-one is
really ready to know the truth about immortality unless he
could endure it if he were told that man is not immortal and
his question whether man is immortal had to be answered with
a ‘no’. If immortality is to mean anything for a
man himself in the spiritual world, then — so said the
teacher in the Pythagorean schools — he must not yearn for
it; for as long as a man yearns for immortality, what he says
about it will not be objective. Weighty opinions about the
life beyond birth and death can come only from those who
could contemplate the grave with equal calm if there were no
immortality. This was the teaching in the Pythagorean schools
because it was essential that the pupils should understand
how difficult it is to be mature enough to face the
truth.
To state a
truth on the basis of this maturity calls for very special
preparation, which requires us to be entirely uninterested in
its implications. Especially with regard to immortality, more
than other problems, it is quite impossible to think that
many people have no interest in the subject. Of course there
are people who have been told about reincarnation and the
eternity of man's existence, in spite of the fact that they
are by no means disinterested. Everyone can take in the truth
and use it for the benefit of life — including those who
have not the task of formulating it themselves. There is no
reason to reject a truth because one does not feel ready for
it. On the contrary, it is quite sufficient for the needs of
life to receive the truth and dedicate one's powers to its
service.
What is the
necessary complement to the reception of truths? They can be
received and assimilated without misgiving even if we are not
completely ready for them. But the necessary complement is
this. — To make ourselves ready for truth with the same
ardour with which we long for it in order to have inner
peace, contentment and a sure footing in life, and at the
same time to be cautious in proclaiming higher truths
ourselves — truths which can only be confirmed in the
spiritual world.
An important
precept for our spiritual life can be gained from this. We
should be receptive to anything we need and apply it in life;
but we should be duly suspicious of truths we ourselves
proclaim, especially if they are connected with our own
astral experiences. This means that we must be particularly
careful about making use of astral experiences at points
where we cannot be disinterested, especially at the point
where our own life comes into consideration.
Let us assume
that through his astral development a man is mature enough to
ascertain something that will be his destiny tomorrow. That
is a personal experience. He should, however, refrain from
making investigations in the book of his personal life for
there he cannot possibly be disinterested. People may ask why
it is that clairvoyants do not try to ascertain the time of
their own death. The reason is that they could never be
wholly disinterested about such a happening and they must
hold aloof from everything relating to their personal
concerns. We can only investigate in the spiritual worlds,
with any hope that the results will have objective validity,
matters which we are quite sure are unrelated to our personal
concerns. A man who resolves to promulgate only what is
objectively valid, apart altogether from his own interests,
must never speak about anything that concerns or affects
himself as the result of investigations or impressions from a
higher world. He must be quite certain that his personal
interests have played no part whatever in these results. But
it is extremely difficult for him to be quite sure of
this.
It is
therefore a fundamental principle at the beginning of all
spiritual aspirations that efforts should be made not to
regard as authoritative anything that affects one personally.
Everything personal must be strictly excluded. I need only
add that this is extremely difficult to do: often enough when
one thinks that everything of a personal nature has been
excluded it proves not to have been so. For this reason, most
of the astral pictures which appear to people are nothing
more than a kind of reflection of their own wishes and
passions. These spiritual experiences do no harm at all as
long as people are strong-minded enough to remind themselves
that they must be suspicious of them. Only when that strength
of mind fails, when a man comes to regard these experiences
as authoritative in his life — only then does he lose his
bearings. It is then rather as if he were trying to get out
of a room at a place where there is no door and consequently
he runs his head against the wall. Hence this principle must
never be forgotten: Test your spiritual experiences with
extreme caution. No other value save that of being a
means of knowledge, of enlightenment, should attach to these
experiences; our personal life should not be governed or
directed by them. If they are regarded as means of
enlightenment then we are on safe ground, for in that case,
as soon as a contradictory idea crops up it can also be
corrected.
What I have
said today is only part of the many studies we shall
undertake this winter. I also wanted to give you something
that can be a preparation for the study of Psychosophy, of
man's life of soul, which will be the subject of the lectures
during the week following the General Meeting.
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