LECTURE II.
To
a theosophist the effects of Esotericism or Theosophy on the
etheric and astral bodies and the Self are naturally much more
important than the effects produced on the physical body.
Nevertheless, we shall gain a foundation for the next lectures,
when we have to consider the more spiritual principles of the
nature of man from this point of view, if we also bear in mind
what may be said about the changes in the physical body. It
should, however, be expressly noticed that the changes dealt
with here do not refer to the highest stages of initiation, but
rather to the early stages of the esoteric or theosophical
life, and are therefore of a certain general importance.
You
will have gathered from the last lecture that under the
influence of Esotericism, or the serious study of Theosophy,
the physical body of man becomes more alive, in a certain way,
more filled with movement inwardly; and it may on that account
become more uncomfortable. It is more felt than in the
external, exoteric, so-called normal life of man. We shall have
to speak later of the difference between vegetable and animal
food in connection with the other sheaths; but in the
construction and organisation of the physical body, the
difference between vegetable and animal food is greater to an
amazing degree. Emphasis must always be laid upon the fact that
it cannot be our mission to make propaganda for any particular
system of diet, but only to state what is right and true on
this subject; and as the soul develops, the matters now under
consideration become matters of personal experience. Above all,
it becomes a matter of experience that when meat is eaten our
physical body has more to bear, more to drag about, as it were,
than when we eat vegetable food.
We
emphasised in the last lecture the fact that in the course of
development the physical body seems to shrink; it separates
from the higher, spiritual principles. Now, when animal food is
taken, this is felt — as was described in the last
lecture — in the human organism as something like a
foreign substance, as a thorn in the flesh — if we may
use a common expression. In an esoteric or theosophical
development we feel the weight of the earth in animal food more
than we usually do, and above all, we experience the fact that
animal food inflames the instinctive life of the will. This
more unconscious life of the will, which flows more in emotions
and passions, is inflamed by animal food. Hence the observation
is an absolutely correct one which declares that warlike
peoples are more inclined to animal food than peaceful peoples.
But this need by no means lead to the belief that vegetable
food must take away all courage and energy. Indeed, we shall
see that all that a man loses in the way of instincts,
aggressive passions and feelings through refraining from animal
food — all of which will be dealt with when we speak of
the astral body — all this is compensated for from within
the soul. These things are all connected with the whole
position of man and the other kingdoms of nature towards the
Cosmos, and we gradually gain — though perhaps not yet
through higher clairvoyance — a sort of proof, a sort of
confirmation of what the Occultist affirms regarding the
relation of human life to the Cosmos. We gain a sort of proof
of this when, through experiencing the more mobile and living
processes of the physical body, we ourselves learn to a certain
extent the nature and properties of those substances of the
earth which are used for food.
It
is interesting to compare three kinds of food with respect to
their cosmic significance. These are: milk and all connected
with it; the plant world and all connected with that, and the
foods prepared from it; and animal food. We may learn to
compare milk, plants and animals as nourishment when, through
theosophical or esoteric development, we become more sensitive
to the effects of these foods; and it will then also be easier
for us to observe the verification obtainable from a rational
observation of the outer world.
If
you were to investigate the cosmos as an occultist, you would
find milk-substance on our earth, but on no other planet in our
solar system. That which is produced in a similar manner within
the living beings on other planets in our solar system would
appear as something quite different from earthly milk. Milk is
specifically earthly; and if you wished to speak about milk you
would have to say that the living beings on each planet have
their own special milk.
If
the plant system belonging to our earth be investigated by the
occultist, and compared with that of other planets, with what
there can be compared with it, we must admit that the forms of
the plant nature on our earth do indeed distinguish them from
the plant nature on other planets in our solar system, but yet
the inner being of the plants on the earth is not merely
earthly, but belongs to the solar system; this means that the
plant nature on our earth is related to that of the other
planets of our solar system. Thus there is in our plants
something that can also be found on other planets of our
system.
As
far as the animal kingdom is concerned it follows, indeed, from
what has been said about milk, and, apart from that, it can
easily be proved by the occultist, that the animal kingdom of
our earth is radically different from any corresponding kingdom
to be found on other planets.
Now
let us consider the experience of milk-food. To the vision and
experience of the occultist this milk-food appears in such a
way that to the human body — we will only consider man
— it signifies that which binds him, as it were, to the
earth, to our planet; it connects him with the human race on
the earth as a member of it belonging to a common family. Owing
to the production of nourishment by the living for the living
in the animal nature, mankind, as regards the physical system
of sheaths, forms one whole. And we may say that all that is
carried into the human organism through milk prepares man to be
an earthly human creature, it unites him with earthly
conditions, but it does not really chain him to the earth. It
makes him a citizen of earth, but does not hinder him from
being a citizen of the whole solar system.
It
is different with animal-food. Animal-food which is taken from
the kingdom that is specifically earthly, and which is obtained
not, like milk, directly from the life-processes of the human
or animal living being, but from that part of the animal
substance which is already prepared for the animal — this
animal-food chains man specially to the earth. It makes him
into a being of earth, so that we have to say: To the extent
that a human being fills his own organism with the effects of
animal-food, he deprives himself of power to become free from
the earth at all. Through animal-food he binds himself in the
highest degree to the planet earth. Whereas milk renders him
capable of belonging to the earth as the temporary scene of his
development, animal-food condemns him — unless he is
uplifted by something else — to make his sojourn on earth
permanent, a residence to which he adapts himself exactly. The
resolve to live on milk diet means: ‘Though I will stay
on the earth, and fulfil my mission there, I will not be
attached exclusively to the earth.’ The will to eat meat
means: ‘I so pledge myself to the earth-existence that I
renounce all heaven, and prefer to be wholly and solely
engrossed in the conditions of earthly existence.’
Plant diet is of such a nature as to bring into action in the
organism those forces which bring man to a certain cosmic union
with the whole of the planetary system. That which a human
being has to accomplish when he continues the assimilation of
plant nourishment in his own organism is to call forth forces
contained in the whole solar system, so that in his physical
sheath he becomes a partaker of these solar forces; so that he
does not become alienated from them, he does not tear himself
away from them. This is something which the soul developing
theosophically or esoterically is really able gradually to
experience within; with the vegetable food it takes into itself
something not pertaining to the heaviness of the earth, but in
a certain sense the peculiar property of the sun, that is, of
the central body of the entire planetary system. The lightness
in his organism which he obtains through a plant diet lifts a
man above the heaviness of earth, and gradually develops a
certain inner perception of taste in the human organism, so
that it is as though the latter really in a way shared with the
plant the enjoyment of the sunlight, which accomplishes so much
work in the plant.
From what has been said you will gather that in the case of
occult, esoteric, or theosophical development, it is extremely
important not to chain oneself to the earth, as it were, not to
make the heaviness of earth a part of our nature through the
enjoyment of an animal diet, if, according to individual
conditions and conditions of heredity, it can be dispensed
with; the actual decision can, of course, only be made
according to the personal conditions of the individual.
It
would facilitate the whole evolution of a man's life if he
could refrain from eating meat. On the other hand, serious
consequences might ensue if a person were to become such a
fanatical vegetarian that he avoided milk and all
milk-products. In the development of the soul towards the
spiritual, certain dangers may easily step in, because in
avoiding milk and all milk-products, a person may very easily
acquire a love of striving to get away from the earth and lose
the threads uniting him to his human tasks upon the earth.
Therefore it should be carefully noticed that in a certain
sense it is well if the earnestly striving theosophist does not
allow himself to become a fanatical spiritual dreamer by
creating the difficulty in his physical sheath, which will
separate this physical sheath from all that relates it to what
is earthly and human. In order that we may not become too
eccentric when striving for psychic development, in order that
we may not become estranged from human feeling and human effort
on the earth, it is well for us to load ourselves in a certain
way like travellers upon the earth, by the use of milk and
milk-products. And it may even be a really systematic training
for a person who is not in the position to be always living
only in the spiritual world, as it were, and thereby becoming
estranged from the earth, but who, besides this, has to fulfil
his duties upon the earth, it may be part of his training not
to be a strict vegetarian, but to take milk and milk-products
as well. He will thereby relate his organism, his physical
sheath, to the earth and to humanity, but not chain it to the
earth, and weight it with earthly existence, as he would were
he to enjoy meat.
Thus it is interesting in every way to see how these things are
connected with cosmic secrets, and how through the knowledge of
these cosmic secrets we can trace the actual effect of food
substances in the human organism.
As
people interested in occult truths, you must gradually realise
more and more that that which appears on our earth — and
our physical body belongs above all to our earthly existence
— is not merely dependent on the forces and conditions of
the earth but is also absolutely dependent on the forces and
conditions of supra-mundane life, of cosmic life. This comes
about in various ways. Thus, for example, if we consider the
animal albumen contained, let us say, in hens' eggs, we must
clearly understand that such animal albumen is not merely what
the chemist finds by analysis, but that it is in its structure
the result of cosmic forces. When we speak of albumen, this in
its construction is the product of cosmic forces. Essentially,
the cosmic forces really only work upon this albumen after they
have first worked upon the earth itself, and, moreover, chiefly
upon the moon which accompanies the earth. Thus the cosmic
influence upon animal albumen is an indirect one. The cosmic
forces do not work directly upon albumen, but indirectly; they
work first upon the earth, and the earth reacts upon the
construction of animal albumen with the forces it receives from
the cosmos. Chiefly the moon takes a share in it, but only in
such a way that it first receives the forces from the cosmos,
and only then, with these forces that it rays forth from
itself, reacts upon the animal albumen. In the tiniest cells of
animals, and thus also in albumen, one who is able to look into
these things with occult vision can see that not merely the
physical and chemical forces belonging to the earth are to be
found there, but that the smallest cell in a hen's egg, let us
say, is built up of the forces which the earth first obtains
from the Cosmos. Thus the substance we call albumen is
indirectly connected with the cosmos, but this animal
albumenous substance as we know it on the earth would never
come into being if the earth were not there. It could not
originate directly out of the cosmos; it is absolutely a
product of what the earth has first to receive from the
cosmos.
Again, it is different, for example, with what we know as fatty
substance of earthly living beings, which also forms part of
the foods of those who eat meat. We are speaking of animal fat.
What we call fatty substance, whether a person eats it or
whether it forms part of his own organism, is formed according
to entirely different cosmic laws from those forming albumen.
While the cosmic forces proceeding from the beings of the
Hierarchy of Form are concerned with the latter, pre-eminently
those beings whom we call the Spirits of Motion are concerned
with the building-up of fatty substance. Now, it is important
to relate these things, because only in this way does one
really gain an idea how complicated is such a matter, which
external science may conceive of as infinitely simple. No
living being could have either albumen substance on the one
hand or fatty substance on the other if the Spirits of Form and
the Spirits of Motion did not work from the cosmos — even
though indirectly.
Thus we can trace the effects proceeding from the beings of the
various Hierarchies even into the substance of which our
physical sheath consists. Therefore, in the experience which
comes when the student undergoes a theosophical development,
the experience which he has in respect of the albumen and the
fat which he bears in his physical sheath becomes more
differentiated, more mobile in itself. This is one perception.
The forces which in a man living the ordinary life are combined
in a single sensation, namely, that which in his organism makes
the fat and that which makes the albumenous substance, are now
felt separately. As the whole physical organism becomes more
mobile, the evolving soul learns to distinguish two different
sensations in his own body, one which so pervades him inwardly
that he feels: ‘This constructs me, and gives me
stature’ ... he is then perceiving the albumenous
substances within him. When he feels: ‘This makes me
callous to my inner limitations, this uplifts me in some sense,
above my form, this makes me more sluggish with respect to my
inner human feelings,’ when he disdains those perceptions
of his feelings (in theosophical development these perceptions
differ very greatly) — this last sensation is aroused by
his experiencing the fatty substance in his physical
sheath.
Thus his inner experience, even as regards his physical body,
becomes more complex. This is perceived very strongly when the
experience of starch or sugar is in question. Sugar has
especially distinct characteristics. In a classification of
tastes, sugar stands out very strongly amongst other
substances. This appreciation of difference can easily be
observed in ordinary life, not only in children, but also very
often in older people, in their preference for sweet
substances; but usually this does not go beyond the taste. When
the soul undergoes development, it then experiences all the
sugar it takes into its body, or already has within it, as
something giving it inner firmness, supporting it inwardly,
permeating it to a certain extent with a sort of natural sense
of selfhood. And in this respect a sort of eulogy might even be
pronounced on sugar. In passing through a soul development a
person may even often notice that he needs to take sugar,
because the psychic development inevitably tends to make him
become more and more selfless. Through an orderly theosophical
development the soul of itself becomes more selfless. Now, in
order that a man — by virtue of his physical sheath,
having an earthly mission — may not lose, as it were, the
connection of his Ego-organism with the earth, it is well to
create an counterpoise in the physical, where, indeed,
realisation of the Ego is not of such great importance as in
the realm of morals. It might be said that, through eating
sugar, a sort of blameless ego-sense is produced, forming a
counterpoise to the necessary selflessness in the spiritual
realm of morals. Otherwise there might all too easily be the
temptation not only to become selfless, but also dreamy and
fantastic, to lose the healthy capacity for judging earthly
conditions. An addition of sugar to the food gives the power,
in spite of the ascent into the spiritual world, to stand
firmly on the earth with both feet, and to cultivate a healthy
estimate of earthly things. You see that these matters are
complex; but everything grows complex when one begins to
penetrate the actual secrets of life. Thus to the student as
his soul progresses in theosophy it becomes evident now and
then that in order not to acquire a false selflessness —
namely, a loss of his personality — it is necessary at
times to eat sugar; and then his experience when eating sugar
is such that he says: ‘Now I am adding to myself
something that, without lowering myself morally, gives me, as
though automatically, as though by higher instinct, a certain
firmness, a certain sense of my Ego.’ On the whole, we
may say the consumption of sugar intensifies physically the
character of the human personality. We may be so certain of
this that we may even say that it is easier for those who take
sugar to imprint the character of their personality upon their
physical body than for those who do not; but it stands to
reason that this must be kept within healthy limits.
These things may even lead to the understanding of something
that can be observed externally. In countries where, according
to statistics, little sugar is eaten, the people have less
character as personalities than where more sugar is eaten. If
you go to countries where the people have more personality,
where each one is conscious in himself, as it were, and then
from there go into countries where the people have more of the
common race-type and have less personality as external physical
beings, you will find that in the former a great deal of sugar
is consumed, and in the latter very little.
If
we wish to have still more obvious ideas of this experience of
various substances we can do so by considering the so-called
luxuries, such as coffee and tea, of the effects of which we
have already become vividly aware in external life. The
experience of a normal person is greatly heightened in a
theosophical student. As said already, all this is not an
agitation either for or against coffee, but simply a statement
of things as they are, and I beg you to take it only in this
sense. Even in an entirely normal human life, coffee and tea
act as stimulants, but these excitations are felt more vividly
by the soul that is undergoing a theosophical development. Of
coffee, for example, it may be said that it so works as to
cause the human organism to lift its etheric body out of the
physical body, but in such a manner as to feel the latter as a
solid foundation for the former. That is the specific action of
coffee. When coffee is taken, the physical body and the etheric
body are felt as differentiated, but in such a way that the
physical body — especially in its qualities of form
— seems under the influence of coffee to radiate into the
etheric body, like a sort of solid basis for what is then
experienced through the latter. Truly this ought not to be
considered as an agitation for the use of coffee, for it rests
upon a physical basis; a person relying too much on the use of
this substance would become a completely dependent being; we
are only concerned with describing the influence of this food
or stimulant. But as logical, consecutive thinking depends very
much upon the structure and form of the physical body, so
through the peculiar action of coffee, which, as it were, gives
a sharper emphasis to the physical structure, logical accuracy
is assisted physically. By drinking coffee logical accuracy,
the arrangement of facts in logical sequence is promoted by
physical means. And it can be said that even though there may
be healthy doubts about drinking much coffee, yet for those who
wish to ascend to the higher regions of spiritual life, it is
not amiss; it may be very good, occasionally, to obtain logical
accuracy by means of coffee. We might say that it seems quite
natural for one whose profession necessitates a good deal of
writing, and who cannot readily find the logical sequence from
one sentence to another, and has to get it all out of his pen,
to make use of the stimulus of coffee. This seems quite
comprehensible to one who understands how to observe these
things in their secret occult foundations. Though such a drink
may be necessary for us for a time as citizens of the earth,
according to personal and individual conditions, it must also
be emphasised that the use of coffee, with all its faults, can
contribute a great deal towards the acquisition of stability.
Not that it is to be commended as a means of developing
stability, but it must be said that it has the power of so
doing, and that if, for example, a student's thoughts have a
tendency to stray in the wrong direction, we need not take it
amiss if he makes himself somewhat more stable by drinking
coffee.
It
is different in the case of tea. Tea produces a similar effect
— viz., a sort of consciousness of difference between the
physical nature and the etheric nature; but the structure of
the physical body is disconnected in a certain way. The etheric
body appears more in its own fluctuating nature. Thought
becomes volatile when tea is taken, less fitted to keep to the
facts; indeed, fancy is stimulated by it, very often in a way
neither sympathetic to nor in conformity with truth or with
sound proportion. Hence one may say that it is comprehensible
that in gatherings where flashes of thought and the development
of sparkling mentality are in question, the stimulus of tea
might be preferred; on the other side, it is also
comprehensible that when tea-drinking gets the upper hand, it
gives rise to a certain indifference to the demands arising
through the healthy structure of the physical earthly body. So
that dreamy fancy and a certain careless, nonchalant nature, a
nature that likes to overlook the demands of the sound external
life, is awakened by tea-drinking. And in the case of a soul
undergoing a theosophical development we feel tea less
suitable, as a beverage, than coffee, since it leads more
easily to shallowness. The latter tends to soundness, the
former more to charlatanry, although this word applied to these
things is much too severe.
All
these are things which — as we have said — are
experienced through the mobility acquired by the physical
sheath of the student undergoing a theosophical development.
Only I might add — you may meditate further upon this
afterwards or try really to experience such things — that
while coffee-drinking promotes something like stability in the
physical sheath, and tea-drinking favours shallowness,
chocolate promotes prosaic thought. Chocolate can be felt by
direct experience as the true beverage of the commonplace
merry-maker, when the physical sheath becomes more mobile in
itself. Therefore, chocolate may well be recommended for
commonplace festivities, and thus we can now understand very
well — excuse this aside — that at family
festivals, birthday festivals, christenings, especially in
certain circles, on certain festive occasions, chocolate is the
beverage.
Then when we bear in mind these things which are means of
enjoyment, the case appears to us still more significant,
because that which usually is experienced concerning the means
of nourishment throws its rays upon the ordinary so-called
normal life; moreover, not only in such a way as to bring to
notice the material substance from which the body is
constructed and continually renewed, but also — as was
mentioned in the last lecture — the inner disconnection,
the separation of the organs from each other. That is
important; that is significant.
And
here we must bring specially into prominence the fact that
occult observation makes clear the experience of the relation
between the physical sheath and the physical heart. The
physical human heart is to the occultist an extremely
interesting, an extremely important organ; for it can only be
understood when we bear in mind the entire mutual relationship,
including the spiritual relationship, of the sun and the earth.
Even at the time when, after the Saturn period, the ancient Sun
was a sort of planetary predecessor of the earth, even then
began the preparation, as it were, of the relation which now
exists between these two heavenly bodies, the Sun and the
Earth. And we must so bear in mind this relation between Sun
and Earth that we thereby really comprehend how the earth of
to-day, being nourished, as it were, by the solar activities,
takes in these solar activities and transmutes them. What the
solid substance of the earth takes in as solar forces, what the
earth takes up in its envelopes of air and water, in its
changing conditions of heat, what it takes up in the light that
encompasses the earth, what it takes up in that part of the
earth which is now no longer physically perceptible in any way
— the Earth-part of the harmony of the spheres —
what the earth receives as life-forces directly from the sun
— all this is in connection with the inner forces that
work upon the human heart through the circulation of the blood.
In reality all these act upon the circulation of the blood, and
through this upon the heart. All external theory with respect
to this process is radically wrong. External theory calls the
heart a pump that pumps the blood through the body, so that one
has to look upon the heart as the organ regulating the
circulation of the blood. The reverse is the truth. The
heart-circulation responds to the impulse given by the
circulation of the blood, which is the original source of
action. The blood drives the heart; not the reverse, the heart
the blood. And the whole of this organism just described, which
is concentrated in the activity of the heart, is none other
than the human microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic
activities first received by the earth from the sun. The
impulse received by the earth from the sun is reflected in that
which the heart receives from the blood.
It
is different with the brain. Some details of the correspondence
of the brain were given in the last lecture. The human brain
has very, very little to do directly with the solar activities
on the earth. Directly, I say. Indirectly, as an organ of
perception it is concerned with them; it perceives the external
light and colour, for instance; that, however, is only
perception. But directly, in its construction, in its inner
mobility, in the whole of its inward life, the brain has
little, scarcely anything, to do with the effects of the sun
upon the earth; it is much more concerned with all that streams
to the earth from outside our solar system; it is concerned
with the cosmic relationship of the whole starry heavens, but
not with the narrower relationships of our solar system.
However, in a more limited sense, what we have to describe as
the brain-substance is connected with the Moon, though only in
so far as the Moon does not depend upon the Sun, but has
preserved independence of it. So that what goes on in our brain
corresponds to activities lying outside the forces which are
imaged microcosmically in our heart. Sun dwells in the human
heart; all else besides the sun in the cosmos dwells in the
human brain.
Thus man, as regards these two organs, is a microcosm, because
through his heart he is given up to the influences exercised by
the sun on the earth, and reflects these, as it were; but
through his brain he has an inner life directly connected with
the cosmos outside the sun. That is a connection of extreme
interest and significance. The brain is only connected with the
effect of the sun on the earth through external perception. But
just this very thing is overcome in theosophical development.
Theosophical development surmounts the external sense
world.
Hence the brain is set free for an inward life so cosmic that
it is unsuitable for the specialised influence of the sun
itself. When the student surrenders himself in meditation to
some imagination, processes take place in his brain which have
nothing at all to do with our solar system, but correspond to
the processes outside it. Hence, in fact, the relationship
between the heart and the brain is like that between the sun
and the starry heavens, and this manifests, in a certain
respect, in the experience of the soul developing through
theosophy through the fact that while this soul is devoted
seriously and deeply to purely theosophical thought, the heart
forms, as it were, an opposite pole, and comes in opposition to
what one might call the starry-brain. This opposition is
expressed in the fact that the student learns to feel that his
heart and brain begin to go different ways; while previously he
had no need to give attention to both separately, because they
were indistinguishable, he must now begin so to do — if
he is developing through Theosophy.
It
gives us an accurate idea of man's place with regard to the
whole Cosmos when we thus consider the physical sheath, and
bear in mind the position of man here upon the earth. Through
his blood-system and heart there is within him the whole
relationship between the sun and the earth, and when his inner
powers are devoted solely to that for which on earth he needs
the brain as his instrument, then in that brain there are
cosmic processes at work extending beyond our solar system. It
will be evident that the pupil has an entirely new experience
with respect to his heart and brain. His sensations really
classify themselves, so that in the serene course of the stars
displayed in the heavens at night he learns to feel the
processes of his brain, and he feels the movements of the solar
system in his heart. In this you see at the same time a path
which becomes more important at a higher stage of initiation;
you see the doors, as it were, which open from man to the
cosmos. The student who, through higher development, steps out
of himself — as has been described even in exoteric
lectures — and looks back at his own body, learns to
recognise all the processes in his physical body; in the
circulation of the blood and the activity of the heart a
reflection of the hidden forces of the solar system, and in the
processes of his brain, which he then sees spiritually from the
outside, the secrets of the cosmos.
The
matters expressed in this last sentence are connected with an
observation which I once made in Copenhagen, and which then
appeared in my book,
The Spiritual Guidance of Man.
From this you may gather that, in a certain respect, even the
structure of the brain is a sort of reflection of the position
of the heavenly bodies at the time of a man's birth as seen
from that part of the earth where he is born. It is profitable
to approach such things from time to time from a different
aspect, for in this way you may appreciate the method of occult
science and the narrow-mindedness that many critics show when
such an observation is made from one aspect or another. Of
course, one may explain important facts like this of the
mirroring of the world of stars in the human brain from a
definite point of view, and it may appear arbitrary. But when
other points of view are added, these all support one another.
Later you will become aware of what I might call other streams
of occult science which combine and flow together, and their
meeting will show you more and more clearly what you feel to be
a complete proof, even to external reason, of things which, if
they were expressed from one aspect only, might often seem open
to question.
From this also you may gain an idea of the delicacy of the
whole human structure. And if now you reflect that man, in the
taking in of food, binds himself completely to earth, and only
through some substances, such, for instance, as vegetarian
food, releases himself again, if you reflect that precisely
through taking in food does man make himself a citizen of the
earth, you will then comprehend the threefold division of man
with respect to his physical sheath. Through his brain he
belongs to the whole of the starry heavens, through his heart
and all connected with it to the sun; through all his digestive
system and all appertaining to that, he is, in another sense,
an earthly being. This also may be experienced, and is
experienced, when the external physical sheath of man becomes
more mobile within. Through what comes into him from the earth
alone, a man may very greatly sin against what is reflected in
him through the pure forces of the cosmos. By producing
disturbances through his bodily food, by the purely earthly
laws which act in the digestion and which work further as
sun-laws in the activity of the heart, and as the cosmic laws
outside the solar system in the activity of the brain — a
man can, because through external nourishment he causes
disturbances, sin very deeply against the cosmic activities in
his brain; and this can be experienced by the theosophically
developing soul, particularly at the moment of waking. During
sleep it also comes about that the digestive activity extends
to the brain, flashes into the brain. On waking, the power of
thought works upon the brain; and the digestive activity in the
brain then withdraws. When thinking is at a standstill during
sleep, the digestive activity then works into the
consciousness; and when a man awakes and notices an
after-effect of it, his experience may then very well be a true
barometer for the suitability or unsuitability of his food. He
feels this extension of his organism, as it were, into his
brain as deadening, stabbing sensations, sensations which
— if he has eaten something unsuitable — may often
seem like little benumbed centres in his brain. All this is
experienced in the most delicate manner, particularly by the
theosophically developing soul. And the moment of waking is
tremendously important, I mean as regards the perception of the
conditions of health in the physical sheath depending upon the
digestion. In perceptions which gradually become finer and
finer, localising themselves in the head, the student perceives
whether in his digestion he is placing himself in opposition to
the cosmic laws outside our solar system or in harmony with
them. Here you see the wonderful relationship of this physical
sheath to the whole cosmos, the moment of waking as a barometer
showing the student whether through his digestion, he is
setting himself against the cosmic conditions or placing
himself in harmony with them. These observations will gradually
lead us to the changes which take place in the etheric body and
astral body through esoteric or theosophical development.
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