LECTURE TEN
[As well as referring to Chapter III
in the book
Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man
in connection with this lecture, students are advised to turn to
Occult Science — an Outline,
Rudolf Steiner Press
1963 edition,
Chapter III,
pp. 74–101. (Note by translator.)]
We
have undertaken to study the life between death and rebirth from
certain points of view and the lectures given during the Winter
endeavoured to present many aspects of this life; moreover it has
been possible to make important additions to the more general
descriptions contained in the books
Theosophy
and
Occult Science — an Outline.
Today we shall occupy ourselves chiefly with the
question: How is the information given, for example, in the book
Theosophy
on the subject of the life between death and rebirth
related to what has been said in the course of the lectures given
during the Winter?
In
the book
Theosophy
there is a description of the passage of
the soul after death through the Soul-World. This Soul-World is
divided into a region of ‘Burning Desires’
(Begierdenglut), a region of ‘Flowing Susceptibility’
(fliessende Reizbarkeit), a region of ‘Wishes’
(Wunsche), a region of ‘Attraction and Repulsion’
(Lust und Unlust), and then into the higher regions of
‘Soul-Light’ (Seelenlicht), of ‘Active
Soul-Force’ (tatige Seelenkraft), and the true
‘Soul-Life’ (das eigentliche Seelenleben). That
was how the Soul-World through which the soul has to pass after death
was described. Thereafter the soul has to pass through what is
described as the Spiritland and this sphere, too, with its successive
regions, is described in the book
Theosophy
by using certain
earthly images: the ‘continental’ region of Spiritland,
the ‘oceanic’ region, and so forth.
In the course of these lectures descriptions have been
given of how the soul, having passed through the gate of death, lays
aside the physical body, then the etheric body, and then expands and
expands, lives through regions which for reasons that were explained
may be called the region of the Moon, then that of Mercury, of Venus,
of the Sun, of Mars, of Jupiter, of Saturn, and then of the starry
firmament itself. The soul or, let us say, the actual spiritual
individuality of the human being concerned, continually expands,
lives through these regions which enclose ever more extensive cosmic
spaces and then begins to contract, becoming smaller and smaller, in
order finally to unite with the seed which comes to it from the
stream of heredity. And through this union of the human seed which
the individual acquired through heredity with what has been absorbed
from the great macrocosmic spheres, there arises the human being who
is to embark on the course of earthly life, the being who is to live
through his existence between birth and death.
Now
as a matter of fact, what was said in the book
Theosophy
and in the lectures was fundamentally the same, and your attention has
been called to this. In
Theosophy
the description was given in
certain pictures more closely related to inner conditions of the
soul. In the lectures given here during the Winter the descriptions
dealt with the great cosmic relationships connected with the
functions of the several planets. It is now a matter of harmonising
the two descriptions.
During
the first period after death the soul has to look back upon what was
experienced on Earth. The period of Kamaloka, or call it what you
will, is a period during which the soul's life is still concerned
entirely with earthly conditions. Kamaloka is fundamentally a period
during which the soul feels bound to disengage itself gradually from
any direct connections still persisting from the last incarnation on
Earth. In the physical body on Earth the soul has experiences which
depend upon the bodily life, indeed very largely upon
sense-impressions. If you ‘think away’ everything that
sense-impressions bring into the soul and then try to realise how
much still remains in it, you will have a picture of a very meagre
content indeed! And yet on final consideration you will be able to
say: When the soul passes through the gate of death, everything given
by the senses comes to an end and whatever is left can at most only
be memories of earlier sense-impressions. If, therefore, you think
about how much of what is yielded by sense-impressions is left in the
soul, it will be easy for you to form an idea of what remains of
these impressions after death. Recall any sense-impressions
experienced, for example, yesterday, while they are still
comparatively vivid, and you will realise how pale they have already
become compared with their former vividness; that will give you some
idea of how little of what the sense-impressions have conveyed is
left to the soul as remembrance. This shows you that basically all
the soul's life in the world of the senses is specifically earthly
experience. When the sense-organs fall away at death, all
significance of the sense-impressions falls away as well. But because
the human being still clings to his sense-impressions and retains a
longing for them, the first region through which he passes in the
life after death is the region of Burning Desires. He would
like still to have sense-impressions for a long time after death, but
this is impossible because he has discarded the sense-organs. The
life spent in longing for sense-impressions and being unable to enjoy
them is life in the region of Burning Desires. It is a life
that does actually burn within the soul and is part of the existence
in Kamaloka; the soul longs for sense-impressions to which it was
accustomed on Earth and — because the sense-organs have been
laid aside — cannot have them.
A
second region of the life in Kamaloka is that of Flowing
Susceptibility. When the soul lives through this region it has
already ceased to long for sense-impressions but still longs for
thoughts, for thoughts which in life on Earth are acquired through
the instrumentality of the brain. In the region of Burning Desires
the soul gradually realises that it is nonsense to wish for
sense-impressions in a world for the experience of which the
necessary sense-organs have been discarded, a world in which no being
can possibly have sense-organs formed entirely of substance of the
Earth. The soul may long since have ceased to yearn for
sense-impressions but still longs to think in the way that is
customary on Earth. This earthly thinking is discarded in the region
of Flowing Susceptibility. There the human being gradually
recognises that thoughts such as are formed on Earth have
significance only in the life between birth and death.
At
this stage, when the human being has weaned himself from fostering
thoughts that are dependent upon the physical instrument of the
brain, he is still aware of a certain connection with the Earth
through what is contained in his Wishes. After all, wishes are
connected with the soul more intimately than thoughts. Wishes have
their own distinctive colouring in every individual. Whereas thoughts
differ in youth, in middle life and in old age, a particular form of
wishing continues throughout a man's earthly life. This form and
colouring of wishes are only later discarded in the region of Wishes.
And then finally, in the region of Attraction and Repulsion, man
rids himself of all longing to be connected with a physical body,
with the physical body which was his in the last incarnation. While a
man is passing through these regions, of Burning Desires, of Flowing
Susceptibility, of Wishes, of Attraction and Repulsion, a certain
longing for the last earthly life is still present. First, in the
region of Burning Desires the soul still longs to be able to see
through eyes, to hear through ears, although eyes and ears no longer
exist. When the soul has finally cast off any such longing, it still
yearns to be able to think by means of a brain such as was available
on Earth. Having got rid of this longing too, there still remains the
desire to wish with a heart as on Earth. Finally, the human being
ceases to long for sense-impressions or for thoughts formed by his
brain or for wishes of his heart, but a hankering for his last
incarnation on Earth taken as a whole, still lingers. Gradually,
however, he then rids himself of this longing too.
You
will find that all the experiences in these regions correspond
exactly with the passage of the expanding soul into the region called
the Mercury sphere, an expansion through the Moon sphere into the
Mercury sphere. On approaching the Mercury sphere, however, the soul
encounters conditions described in the book
Theosophy
as a kind of spiritual region of the Soul-World. Read the description of
the passage of the soul through this region and you will see from
what is said about the kind of experiences undergone there that what
is generally called the unpleasant element of Kamaloka already comes
to an end in the region of Soul-Light. This region of
Soul-Light corresponds with what I have said about the Mercury
sphere. If you compare what was said about the life of the soul when
it has expanded to the Mercury sphere with what is contained in the
book
Theosophy
about the region of Soul-Light, you will
realise that endeavours were made to describe this region first from
the aspect of inner influences of the soul and then from the aspect
of the great macrocosmic conditions through which the soul passes.
If
you read what is said in
Theosophy
about the ‘Active
Soul-Force’, you will realise that the inner experiences
undergone in that region are in keeping with what is decisive during
the passage through the Venus sphere. It has been said that if the
soul is to pass in the right way through the Venus sphere it must
have developed certain religious impulses during earthly life. In
order to progress through the Venus sphere with companionship and not
in compulsory isolation, the soul must be imbued with certain
religious concepts. Compare what was said about this with the
description given in the book
Theosophy
of the region of
Active Soul-Force and you will find that they agree, that in one case
the inner aspect of the conditions was described, in the other, the
outer aspect.
The
highest region of the Soul-World, the region of pure Soul-Life, is
experienced by the soul in passing through the region of the Sun. So
we can say that the sphere of existence in Kamaloka extends to and
somewhat beyond the Moon sphere; then the more luminous regions of
the Soul-World begin and extend to the sphere of the Sun. The soul
experiences in the Sun sphere the region of true Soul-Life. We know
that in the Sun sphere after death the soul comes into contact with
the Light-Spirit, with Lucifer, who on Earth has become the tempter,
the corrupter. When the soul has expanded into the cosmos it comes
more and more closely into contact with those forces which now enable
it to develop what is needed for the next incarnation on Earth. Not
until the soul has passed through the region of the Sun has it
finished with the last earthly incarnation. As far as the region of
Attraction and Repulsion is concerned, that is to say the
region between the Moon and Mercury, the soul is still burdened
inwardly with yearning for the last life on Earth; moreover even in
the regions of Mercury, Venus and the Sun the soul is not yet
completely free from the ties of the last incarnation. But then it
must finally have finished even with everything that transcends
merely personal experience; in the Mercury region with whatever moral
concepts have or have not been acquired, in the region of Venus with
whatever religious conceptions have been developed, in the region of
the Sun with whatever understanding has been acquired of the
‘human-universal’ quality in existence — that which
is not confined to any particular religious creed but is concerned
with a religious life befitting all mankind. Thus it is even the
higher interests that can develop in the further evolution of
humanity with which the soul has finished by the time it enters into
the region of the Sun.
Then
the soul passes into cosmic-spiritual life and finds its place in the
Mars region. This region corresponds with what is described in
Theosophy
as the first sphere of the ‘Spiritland’.
This description portrays the inner aspect of the fact that the soul
is spiritual to the extent of being able to behold as something
external to itself the ‘archetype’, as it were, of the
physical bodily organisation and of physical conditions on the Earth
in general. The archetypes of physical life on Earth appear as a kind
of ‘continental’ mass of the Spiritland. The external
configurations of a man's different incarnations are inscribed in
this ‘continental’ region. There we have a picture of
what, in terms of cosmic existence, the human soul has to experience
in the Mars region. It might seem strange that this Mars region which
has repeatedly been described in these lectures as a region of
strife, of aggressive impulses until the beginning of the seventeenth
century, should be said to be the first region of Devachan, of the
true Spiritland. Nevertheless this is the case. Everything that on
Earth belongs to the actual material realm and causes the mineral
kingdom to appear as a purely material realm is due to the fact that
on Earth the forces are engaged in perpetual conflict among
themselves. This also led to the result that at the time when
materialism was in its prime and material life was assumed to be the
sole reality, the ‘struggle for existence’ was regarded
as the only valid law of life on Earth. That is, of course, an error,
because material existence is not the only form of existence evolving
on Earth. But when the human being assumes embodiment on Earth he can
only enter into the form of existence that has its archetypes in the
lowest region of what is, for the Earth, the Spiritland. Read the
description of the lowest region of Spiritland as given in the book
Theosophy.
I want to quote this particular chapter today in connection with our
present studies. Towards the beginning of the description of the
Spiritland you will find the following passage. [See
Section III.4 in
Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man,
Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1963.]
“The development of the spirit in Spiritland takes
place through the man throwing himself completely into the life of
the different regions of this land.”
Thus as the result of our studies in the course of the
Winter we could now say that from the Mars region onwards the human
soul begins to live more deeply into spiritual conditions of
existence.
To continue:
“His
own life as it were dissolves into each region successively; he takes
on, for the time being, their characteristics. Through this they
permeate his being with theirs, in order that his being may be able
to work, strengthened by theirs, in his earthly life. In the first
region of the Spiritland, man is surrounded by the spiritual
archetypes of earthly things. During life on earth he learns to know
only the shadows of these archetypes which he grasps in his thoughts.
What is merely thought on the earth is in this region
experienced, lived. Man moves among thoughts; but these
thoughts are real beings.”
Again, a little later:
“Our own embodiments dissolve here into a unity
with the rest of the world. Thus here we look upon the archetypes of
the physical, corporeal reality as a unity, to which we have
ourselves belonged. We learn, therefore, gradually to know our
relationship, our unity, with the surrounding world, by observation.
We learn to say to it: ‘That which is here spread out around
thee, thou art that.’ And that is one of the fundamental
thoughts of ancient Indian Vedanta wisdom. The sage acquires, even
during his earthly life, what others experience after death, namely,
ability to grasp the thought that he himself is related to all
things, the thought, ‘Thou art that’. In earthly life
this is an ideal to which the thought-life can be devoted; in the
Land of Spirit it is an immediate reality, one which grows ever
clearer to us through spiritual experience. And man himself comes to
know more and more clearly in this realm that in his own inner being
he belongs to the spirit-world. He is aware of himself as a spirit
among spirits, a member of the Primordial Spirits, and he will feel
in his own self the word of the Primordial Spirit: ‘I am the
Primal Spirit.’ (The Wisdom of the Vedanta says, ‘I am
Brahman’, i.e. ‘I belong to the Primordial Being in Whom
all beings have their origin’.)”
From
this passage it is clear that when, during the life between death and
rebirth man enters into the Mars region, he grasps the full
significance of the saying, ‘Tat tvam asi’, ‘Thou
art that’, and of the other saying, ‘I am Brahman’.
‘Tat tvam asi’, ‘Thou art that’, is only an
earthly rendering of what is a self-evident experience in the Mars
region, the lowest region of Spiritland. If we now ask whence the
wisdom of ancient India derived the deeply significant affirmations,
‘Tat tvam asi’, ‘Thou art that’, ‘I am
Brahman’, we have now identified the region in question and
those Teachers in ancient India are revealed to us as beings
belonging to the Mars region but transferred to the Earth. To what
was said years ago in the book
Theosophy
Theosophy
about the Mars
region, the lowest region of Devachan, there can now be added what we
have heard in these lectures. Namely, that at the dawn of the modern
age the Buddha was transferred to this same region, the Mars region.
Half a millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Buddha —
regarded as one who was to prepare spiritually for this Mystery —
had come to the Earth, to the territory where Mars wisdom had been
proclaimed since times primeval. And centuries after the Mystery of
Golgotha he was, as we know, sent by an act of Rosicrucian wisdom to
the Mars region in order to continue working there. (See Lecture
Five.) In ancient times Brahmanism belonged intrinsically to the Mars
region of the Cosmos. At the beginning of the seventeenth century
after the Mystery of Golgotha, Brahmanism passed over into the
Buddha-impulse and the reflection of this on Earth was the absorption
of Brahmanism into Buddhism in the cultural life of India.
What takes place on Earth, therefore, is in a wide and
ample sense an image of happenings in the Heavens.
If
you have read the chapter in
Theosophy
which deals with what
you now know to be the Mars region and in which a self-evident
expression is the ‘I am Brahman’, you will be able, if
you read that chapter again, to picture how an event here on Earth is
also an event in a region of the Cosmos, how this event can be
understood, and how the Buddha-impulse as a cosmic happening is
related to the circumstances described in the relevant chapter of
that book. We shall realise that our studies during the Winter were
closely linked with the theosophical work we began more than ten
years ago. We then described the ‘Spiritland’ and a
‘continental’ mass of Spiritland; the lowest region of
Spiritland was characterised in relation to the inner life of the
soul. The description given was such that if you have understood it,
you will realise that the Buddha-impulse has its place in the lowest
region of Spiritland as described in these lectures. Here is an
example of how the details of spiritual research harmonise with each
other.
If
we now pass on to consider the cosmic aspects of the second region of
Spiritland as described from the inner point of view of the soul, we
shall find that this second region, the ‘oceanic’ region
of Spiritland corresponds with the Jupiter region. Further, if we
pass to the third region of Devachan, the ‘Airy’ region
of Spiritland, we shall find that it corresponds with the influences
of the Saturn region. What was described in
Theosophy
as the fourth region of Spiritland already extends beyond our planetary
system. There the soul expands into still wider spaces, into the
starry firmament itself. From the descriptions that were given from
the inner standpoint of the soul, it will be quite clear to you that
the experiences of the soul in the fourth region of Spiritland could
not be undergone in any realm where the spatial relationship to the
Earth is still the same as that of the planetary system. There is
something so utterly foreign in what is conveyed by the fourth region
of Spiritland that it can never correspond with what can be
experienced even within the outermost planetary sphere, the Saturn
sphere.
Therefore the soul passes into the starry firmament,
that is to say into distances more and more remote both from the
Earth and also from the Sun. These distant realms are described in
the account of the three highest regions of Spiritland traversed by
the soul before it begins to draw together again and to pass, in the
reverse order, through all the preceding conditions. On this journey
the soul acquires the forces by means of which it can build up a new
life on Earth.
In general it can be said that when the soul has passed
through the Sun region it has finished with every element of
‘personality’. What is experienced beyond the Sun region,
beyond the region of Soul-Life in the true sense, is spiritual; it
transcends everything that is personal. What the soul then
experiences as ‘Thou art that’ — and especially in
our time as the Buddha-impulse in the Mars region — is
something that seems strange here on Earth, though it is not so on
Mars; it is the impulse denoted by the word ‘Nirvana’.
This means liberation from everything that is significant on the
Earth, for the soul begins to realise the great cosmic significance
of universal space. In living through all this the soul emancipates
itself entirely from the element of personality. In the Mars region,
the lowest region of Spiritland, where the soul acquires
understanding of the ‘Thou art that’, or, as we should
put it today, receives the Buddha-impulse, it frees itself from
everything that is earthly. After the soul has become inwardly free
of this — and the Christ Impulse is needed here — it also
liberates itself spiritually by recognising that all ties of blood
are forged on Earth and therefore belong by nature to the Earth. But
the soul then passes on to new conditions.
In the Jupiter region, conditions which force the soul
into some particular creed are dissolved. We have heard that the soul
can pass through the Venus region with companionship only if it had
adopted a creed; without religion in some form it would be lonely and
isolated. We have also heard that the soul can pass through the Sun
region only when it has learnt to understand the creeds of all
religions on the Earth. In the Jupiter region, however, the soul must
liberate itself entirely from the particular creed to which it
belonged during life on Earth. This was not an essentially personal
attachment but something into which it was born and was shared in
company with other souls. Thus the soul can pass through the Venus
region only if it has acquired religious ideas in earthly life; it
can pass through the Sun region only if it has developed some measure
of understanding of all such beliefs. The soul can pass through the
Jupiter region only if it is able to liberate itself from the
particular confession to which it belonged on Earth; merely to
understand the others is not enough. For during the passage through
the Jupiter region it will be decided whether in the next life the
soul will have to be connected with the same creed as before, or
whether it has experienced everything that can be offered by one
particular creed. In the Venus sphere the soul garners the fruits of
a particular faith; in the Sun sphere the fruits of an understanding
of all forms of religious life; but when it reaches the Jupiter
region the soul must be able to lay the foundation for a new
relationship to religion during the next life on Earth.
These are three stages experienced by the soul between
death and the new birth: first it experiences inwardly the fruits of
the faith to which it belonged in the last life; then the fruits of
having developed the capacity to appreciate the value of all other
religious beliefs; and then it must free itself so completely from
the beliefs held in the last life that it can wholeheartedly adopt a
different religion. This cannot be achieved by attaching equal value
to all creeds; and we know that on its return journey through these
regions the soul comes once again into the Jupiter region and there
prepares the traits enabling it to live in the fullest sense in a
different religion in the next life. In this way the forces which the
soul needs in order to shape a new life are gradually impressed into
it.
If
you now read what is said in the book
Theosophy
about the third region of the Spiritland, the ‘airy’ or
‘atmospheric’ region, you will find again what has been
said here in connection with the Saturn region. In this region,
companionship and the avoidance of terrible loneliness is possible
only for souls already able to exercise a certain degree of genuine
self-knowledge, of completely unbiased self-knowledge. Only by being
able to put self-knowledge into practice can the soul find entrance
to the regions beyond Saturn, therefore even beyond our solar system
and leading into that cosmic life from which souls must bring the
qualities that ensure progress on the Earth. If souls were never able
to live in companionship in realms beyond the Saturn region progress
on Earth would not be possible. Think, for example, of the
individuals sitting here today. If the souls incarnated in the world
at the present time had never passed beyond the Saturn region between
death and rebirth, culture on Earth would still be at the stage
reached, for example, in the epoch of Ancient India. The Ancient
Indian culture was able to progress to that of ancient Persia only
because in the intervening periods souls had passed beyond the Saturn
region; and again, the progress from Ancient Persian culture to
Egypto-Chaldean culture was made possible by impulses for progress
brought into the Earth from the realms beyond the Saturn region. What
human beings have contributed to the progress of culture on Earth has
been gathered by their souls from realms beyond the Saturn region.
The external progress of mankind originates in the new
impulses brought from beyond the Saturn region; in this way the
various culture-epochs progress and new impulses take effect. But as
well as this there is the stream of inner experiences which is to be
distinguished from the progress of external culture and has its
‘centre of gravity’ in the Mystery of Golgotha. When we
know that the stream of experiences in man's inner life of soul on
Earth has its centre of gravity in the Mystery of Golgotha, while on
the other hand this Mystery of Golgotha is connected with the Sun
region, a question arises; it is a question that might well occupy
our minds for a very long time but we will at least consider it
today. It is good that on the basis of what can already be found in
lectures and lecture-courses, we should be able to form our own
thoughts about such questions — thoughts which can then be
rectified by reports of investigations given here.
On
the one hand we have the fact that Christ is the Sun Spirit who
united Himself with the life of the Earth through the Mystery of
Golgotha. You will find the most detailed account of this in the
lecture-courses entitled
The Gospel of St. John — in its Relation to the Other Three Gospels, particularly to the Gospel of St. Luke,
given in Kassel, and
From Jesus to Christ.
And now we have heard of the other fact, namely that all external
progress on Earth from one culture-epoch to the next is dependent
upon influences from beyond the Saturn region. A question arises
here: Progress on Earth from one culture-epoch to another is
dependent upon influences connected with a world beyond the Saturn
sphere — a world altogether different from the one where
progress is brought about by the stream of spirituality that flows
through the evolution of humanity, that approached humanity in
ancient times, has its centre of gravity in the Mystery of Golgotha
and thereafter took its course in the way often described. How do
these two facts harmonise? The truth is that they harmonise
completely.
You need only picture to yourself that our Earth
evolution as it is today was preceded by the earlier incarnation of
the Earth, namely Old Moon. Now think of Old Moon as we have often
described it, followed by the present Earth. Midway in the process of
evolution between Old Moon and Earth something like a condition of
cosmic sleep took place. During the transition from Old Moon to
Earth, everything that had existed on Old Moon passed into a kind of
germinal state from which, at a later stage, everything in existence
on Earth came forth. But all the planetary spheres also came forth
from that cosmic sleep. During the epoch of Old Moon, therefore, the
planetary spheres were not in the state in which they exist today.
Old Moon passes into the cosmic sleep and out of this condition the
planetary spheres develop into what they now are. Everything that
evolved in the Cosmos between the era of Old Moon and that of the
Earth is contained within the range of the Saturn sphere. The Christ
Impulse, however, does not belong to what evolved in the Cosmos
during the period of transition from Old Moon to Earth, but it
already belonged to the Old Sun and remained in the Sun sphere when
Old Moon eventually separated from it. The Christ Impulse continued
to evolve onwards towards the Earth but remained united with the Sun
sphere after the Saturn sphere, the Jupiter sphere and so forth, had
separated from it. And so, in addition to what the human soul was,
before the Mystery of Golgotha, it now has within it something that
is more than all that is contained in the planetary spheres,
something that is founded in the depths of the Cosmos, that does
indeed come over from Sun to Earth but belongs to far deeper regions
of the spiritual world than do the planetary spheres. For these
planetary spheres are a product of what took place when Old Moon
evolved to become Earth. What streams to us from the Christ Impulse,
however, comes from Old Sun which preceded Old Moon.
From this we realise that external culture on Earth is
connected with the Cosmos, whereas the inner life of soul is
connected in a much deeper sense with the Sun. Thus in all these
connections — in their spiritual aspect too — there is
something of which the following can be said: When we look out into
the stellar spheres there is revealed to us, as it were outspread in
space, a world that is embodied in culture on Earth because souls of
men have entered into these stellar spheres between death and
rebirth; but when we gaze at the Sun we behold something that has
become what it is today because behind it there is an infinitely long
period of evolution. In an age when it was not yet possible to speak
of a connection between culture on Earth and the stellar worlds as
can be done today, even then the Sun was already united with the
Christ Impulse. Thus everything brought from the stellar worlds for
the promotion of culture on the Earth is to be regarded as a kind of
Earth-body which needed to be — and actually was —
ensouled by what came to the Earth from the Sun, namely by the Christ
Impulse. The Earth was ensouled when the Mystery of Golgotha took
place; it was then that culture on Earth received its ‘soul’.
The death on Golgotha was only seemingly a death; in
reality it was the birth of the Earth-Soul. And everything that can
be brought to the Earth from cosmic expanses, also from beyond the
Saturn sphere, is related to the Earth-Sphere as the Earth-Body is
related to the Earth-Soul.
These
reflections can show us that the presentation given in the book
Theosophy
— in rather different words and from a
different point of view — contains what has been described as
the cosmic aspect in the lectures given this Winter. You need only be
reminded that in the one case the account is given from the point of
view of the soul, and in the other from that of the great cosmic
conditions, and you will find that the two descriptions are in
complete harmony.
The conclusion which I should like to be able to draw
from these lectures is that you realise how vast is the range of
Spiritual Science and that its method must be to gather from every
possible side whatever can throw light on the nature of the spiritual
world. Even when additions are made to what had been said years ago,
there need be no contradiction, for what is said is not the outcome
of any philosophical argument or reflective thinking, but of occult
investigation. Yellow today will still be yellow ten years hence,
even though the essential quality of yellow as a colour is grasped
for the first time ten years later. What was said years ago still
holds good, although light is shed upon it from the new points of
view which it has been possible to contribute during last Winter.
|