I have told you of the three meetings which the soul must go through
in its life between birth and death, and which even while still in
that life, bring it into touch with the Spiritual worlds. Today let us
return to this subject, which on the last occasion was touched on in a
preparatory way, as an episode, so to speak. We shall now go into it
more minutely.
We noted that man in the middle of the intermediary state between
sleeping and waking, has, as a rule, his meeting with the world which
is related to our spirit self. (I say as a rule, because I am alluding
to the normal sleep, at night.) He then meets with the world in which
we place the beings of that Hierarchy which we designate as that of
the Angels. Thus every time we pass through sleep, we pass in a sense,
through that world in which these beings dwell; through the world
which is nearest to our own physical world, reckoning upwards. Through
this meeting we refresh and strengthen our whole spiritual being.
Because this is so, because in the state of sleep man is in relation
with the spiritual world, no merely materialistic explanation of
sleep, such as is put forward by external science, can ever be
satisfactory. Much of what goes on in man can be explained by the
changes that take place in the body between waking up and going to
sleep; we may try to explain sleep itself by means of these same
changes; yet any such explanation must always prove unsatisfactory,
for the reason that in sleep the afore-mentioned meeting takes place,
and man enters into relation with the spiritual world; that makes the
whole difference. Thus it is just when we consider the state of sleep
that we can see that man, unless he consciously seeks a relation to
the spiritual world, only arrives at half-true concepts and ideas,
which indeed, because they change into life-falsify it, and at last
actually bring about great catastrophe. These half-true concepts are
indeed in some respects even worse than those which are quite false
ones, for those who form the partly-true concepts and ideas rely upon
them; they are able to prove them, for, being partly true they can be
proved. An attempt to disprove them would bring no further
illumination, for these ideas are, after all, partly true! Such
concepts really falsify life even more than do the entirely wrong
ones, which we can immediately recognise as false. One of these half
-true concepts which external science today is to some extent giving
up, though it is in a great measure still believed, is the idea I have
often alluded to before, that we sleep because we are tired. We may
say that this concept is only half-true, and is the result of a
half-true observation. People think that the day's life tires out the
body and because we are tired we must sleep! I have often, in former
lectures, called attention to the fact that this concept does not
explain how it is that people of independent means, who do no work at
all, often fall asleep when the most stirring things relating to the
outer world, are being discussed. It cannot be proved that these
persons are tired out and therefore in -need of sleep. It is
absolutely incorrect. If we believe that we are compelled to sleep by
fatigue, we are only half-observing. We only notice that this is so
when we compare the observations made on the one side, with what can
be observed on the other, when we come in contact with the other half
of the truth. You will presently see what I mean.
Sleeping and waking in individual human life follow each other in
rhythmic succession, yet man is a free being, and can consequently
interfere with this rhythm (this he does more by reason of
circumstance than from what may be called freewill; but the
circumstances are the bases of free life). Another rhythm which we
have often placed in the same order as sleeping and waking, is that of
the seasons of the year; the alternation of summer and winter (leaving
the intermediate seasons out of account), but the ordinary
consciousness does not connect them aright. It will occur to no one to
say that because the earth is hard at work during the summer,
unfolding the forces leading to the growth of plants and to much else
besides, that thereby it grows tired and needs the rest of winter.
Everyone would consider such an idea absurd and would say that the
setting in of winter has nothing whatever to do with the summer-work
of the earth, but is caused by the changed position of the sun in
relation to the Earth. In this case everything is supposed to be
brought about from without; in sleeping and waking it all comes from
fatigue, from within. Now the one is just as incorrect as the other,
or rather the one is only partly true and so is the other for the
rhythm of sleeping and waking is just the same kind of rhythm as that
of winter and summer. There is just as little truth in saying that we
only sleep because we are tired, as in saying that winter comes
because the earth has exhausted herself in summer. Both these
statements rest on the independent working of a rhythm, brought about
by certain circumstances. The rhythm between sleeping and waking comes
about because the human soul has need of the continually recurring
meeting with the spiritual world. If we were to say we want to sleep
and consequently feel tired, if we were to say that we enter the state
in which we have need of one part of the rhythm, that of sleep, and
consequently feel tired, we should be speaking more correctly than
when we say that because we are tired, we must sleep. This whole
question will become still clearer to us, if we simply ask: What
then does the soul do when it sleeps? The non-spiritual science
of today has not the requisite understanding and cannot reply properly
to such a question. You see, while we are awake, we enjoy the external
world and the enjoyment of this lasts our whole life through. We do
not merely enjoy the outer world when we convey good food to our
palate, which is the sense in which we generally speak of
enjoyment because it is here directly applicable, but the
whole time we are awake we enjoy the outer world; all life is
enjoyment. Although there is much that is unpleasant in the world,
much that is apparently no enjoyment, this is only an illusion, of
which we shall speak in the subsequent lectures in other connections.
In our waking state we enjoy the external world; in sleep we enjoy
ourselves. Just as when we with our souls are in the body and through
the latter enjoy the external world, so when we with our souls are
outside our body, for in the life between birth and death we are still
connected with the body: even when outside it we then enjoy our
body. The condition of sleep, of normal sleep, consists essentially in
our having a deeper experience of our body, so that we enjoy it. We
enjoy our body from outside. The right interpretation of dreams, of
the ordinary chaotic dreams, is that they are the reflection of the
enjoyment of his body which a man has in dreamless sleep.
You see this explanation of sleep is approximately that of the need of
sleep felt by the man of independent means, of which I have already
spoken. We cannot easily believe that he is really tired; but we can
very readily believe that he may be so fond of his body that he would
rather enjoy that than what often comes to him from the external
world. He really loves it so much and is so fond of enjoying it, that
he may even prefer that to listening to a lecture, let us say, which
he is perhaps ashamed not to attend. Or perhaps a better example would
be to say he would rather enjoy his body than listen to a difficult
piece of classical music which sends him to sleep at once, if he is
compelled to listen to it sleep is self-enjoyment.
Now, as in sleep, in normal sleep, we have the meeting with the
spiritual world, our sleep does not therefore consist merely of
self-enjoyment, it is also self-understanding, to a certain degree
self-understanding, a sizing-up of oneself. In this respect our
spiritual training is really needed, so that people may learn to
realise that in normal sleep they actually plunge down into the spirit
and emerge from it when they wake up; it is necessary that they should
learn to feel reverence for this meeting with the spirit.
Now, in order that we may not fail to understand completely, I will
return once more to the so-called enigma of fatigue; for the
commonplace consciousness may very likely lay hold of this point. It
may say: Well, but we do really feel tired, and when we are tired we
feel sleepy. This is a point which demands that a really clear
distinction should be made. Certainly we do get tired with the day's
work and while we sleep we are able to get over our fatigue. This part
of the question is true: we are able to drive away fatigue by going to
sleep. Yet sleep is not a result of the fatigue, but consists in the
enjoyment we feel in ourselves. In this self-enjoyment, man acquires
the forces through which he is able to drive away fatigue, but it does
not follow that all sleep can do so; for while it is true that all
sleep is enjoyment of self, yet it is not true that all sleep drives
away fatigue. For a man who sleeps unnecessarily, who goes to sleep at
every opportunity without any need for it, may just as well bring
about a sleep in which there is no fatigue to be driven away, in which
there is nothing but the enjoyment of self. In this kind of sleep, a
man will certainly strive the whole time to drive away fatigue,
because he is accustomed to do so while asleep; but if there is no
fatigue, as in the case of the well-to-do man who falls asleep at a
concert, he will simply keep on sweeping out his body, as he would do
if the fatigue were there. If there is no fatigue, he goes on sweeping
out unnecessarily, with the consequence that he sets up all kinds of
bad conditions in his body. That is why these well-to-do men who sleep
so much are the most troubled with all those fine things known as
neurasthenia, and the like.
Through connection with spiritual knowledge, one may conceive a
condition in which a man will be conscious of the following: I
am living in a state of rhythm, in which I am alternately in the
physical world and in the spiritual world. In the physical world I
meet with the external physical nature; in the spiritual world I meet
with the beings who inhabit that world.
We shall be able fully to understand this matter if we enter somewhat
more deeply into the whole nature of man, from a particular point of
view. You know that it is customary to consider the external science
known as biology as a unity, necessarily divided into the head,
breast, and lower part with the members attached thereto. In the olden
times when man still possessed an atavistic knowledge, he connected
other ideas with this division of the human being. The great Greek
philosopher,
Plato,
attributes wisdom to the head, courage to the
breast; and the lower emotions of human nature to the lower part of
the body. What pertains to the breast-part of man can be ennobled when
wisdom is added to courage, becoming a wise courage, a wise activity;
and that which is considered the lower part of man, which belongs to
the lower parts of his body, if it be rayed through with wisdom, that
Plato calls clothed with the sun. Thus we see how the soul
is divided and attributed to the different parts of the body. Today,
we, who have Spiritual Science, which to Plato was not attainable in
like manner, speak of these things in much fuller detail. In speaking
of the four-fold division of man, we begin at the top by speaking of
his I, his ego. All that a man can call his own in the
soul and spirit sense in his physical life between birth and death,
works through the instrument of the physical body; and we can ask
concerning each of the four principles of man: with which part of his
body is each physically connected A real and sufficiently penetrating
spiritual observation shows us that what we call the ego of man
strange as it may seem, for the truth is often very different from
what the superficial consciousness supposes strange as it may
seem, the ego of man is between birth and death, physically connected
with what we call the lower part of the body. For the ego, as I have
often said, is really a baby as compared to the other parts of man's
nature; the germ of the physical body was already laid down in the Old
Saturn epoch, the germ of the etheric body during the Old Sun, and
that of the astral body during the Old Moon; but the ego was only laid
down in our own earth-period; it is the youngest member of man's
being. It will only attain the stage at which our physical body now
stands, in the far-distant era of Vulcan. The ego is attached to the
lowest bodily part of man, and this part is really always asleep. It
is not so organised that it can bring to consciousness what takes
place within it; what takes place there is, even in the normal waking
periods, ceaselessly asleep. We are just as little conscious of our
ego as such, in its reality, in its true being, as we are of the
processes of our digestion. The ego of which we are conscious is but a
reflex conception, the image of which is reflected into our head. We
never really see or realise our ego, whether in sleep, when in normal
conditions we are quite without consciousness, or in our waking state;
for the ego is then also asleep. The true ego does not itself enter
our consciousness, nothing but t a the concept of the ego is reflected
therein. On the other hand, between sleeping and waking, the ego
really comes to itself; only a man in normal deep sleep knows nothing
of it, being himself still unconscious in this his deep sleep during
the earth-period. Thus the ego is in reality connected with the lowest
bodily part of man; during the day, in the waking time, it is
connected therewith from within; and during sleep from without.
If we now pass on to the second principle in man's nature, to what we
call the astral body, we find that as regards the instrument through
which it works, it is, from a certain point of view, connected with
the breast-part of man. Of all that goes on in this astral body
working through the breast-part, we can, in reality, only dream. As
earth-man we can only know something of the ego when we are asleep,
consciously we know nothing. Of all that the astral body works in us,
we can only dream. This is really why we dream constantly of our
feelings, of the sentiments that live within us. They actually live a
sort of dream-life within us. The ego of man is actually outside the
region which we human beings, with our ordinary sense-consciousness,
can grasp; for it is continuously asleep. The astral body is also in a
certain respect outside that region too, for it can only dream. With
respect to both these we are, in reality, whether asleep or awake,
within the spiritual world; we are really and truly within that world.
What we know as the Etheric body, is, however, as far as the body is
concerned, connected with the head. Through the peculiar Organisation
of the head, the etheric body is able to be constantly awake when in
the human body, when connected with the physical head. We may
therefore say: The ego is connected with the lowest parts of our body;
and the astral body with our breast-part. The heart as to the
workings of which we have no full consciousness, nothing but a
dream-consciousness beats and pulsates under the influence of
the astral body. When the head thinks, it does so under the influence
of the etheric body. We can then further differentiate our physical
body, for in its entirety, it is connected with the whole external
world.
We now see a remarkable connection: the ego is connected with the
lowest parts of the body, the astral body with the heart; the etheric
body with the head, the physical body with the whole outer world, with
the environment. The whole physical body is really during the waking
condition in constant connection with the outer environment. Just as
we, with our whole body are in relation to the outer environment, so
is our etheric body to our head, the astral body to the heart and so
on. This will show you how really mysterious are the connections in
which man lives in the world. In reality things are generally just the
opposite to what the superficial consciousness may lightly suppose.
The lowest parts of man's nature are at present the least perfected
forms of his being; hence these parts of the body, as such, correspond
to what we have called the baby our ego. Innumerable secrets of
human-life lie concealed in what I am here referring to, secrets
without number. If you go thoroughly into this subject you will
understand above all, that the whole man is formed out of spirit, but
at different stages. The head of man is formed out of spirit, but is
more fully moulded, it belongs to a later stage of formation than the
breast, of which indeed one might say, that it is just as much a
metamorphosis of the head, as, in the sense of
Goethe's
theory of the metamorphoses of plants, the leaf is a metamorphosis of the
flower. If we consider the rhythm between sleeping and waking from this point
of view, we may say that the ego actually dwells during the waking time
in all the activities in the human body, in all the lowest activities,
which finally culminate in the formation of the blood. The ego is
present in all these activities during the waking hours. These
activities are those which are in a sense at the lowest stage of
spirituality; for of course, everything connected with the body is
spiritual. Now it must be carefully noted that while during the waking
hours the ego stands at the lowest stage of spirituality, during the
hours of sleep it stands with respect to man, at the highest stage.
For consider the following: When we look at the head which we as human
beings have today, that head is, as regards its outer form, the
strongest manifestation of the spirit. It is the most representative
of the spirit, its greatest manifestation; here the spirit has entered
most deeply into matter. For that very reason there is here less left
behind in the spirit itself. So much work has been spent by man on his
head, to make its outer form a manifestation of the spiritual, that
but little is left behind in the spirit. Whereas the lower members of
the human bodily nature as regards their outer formation are the least
spiritualised, have least been worked upon in a spiritual sense, there
is on that account more of what pertains to them left behind in
the spiritual. The head, as head, least corresponds to the spiritual,
for the reason that it has more spirit within it; the lower part of
the body corresponds the most, because it has the least spirit within
it. But in this greater portion of spirit which does not dwell within
the bodily nature, the ego dwells during the hours of sleep.
Just reflect on this wonderful equalising process: while, as regards
his body, man possesses a lower nature into which the ego immerses
itself during the waking hours, this lower nature is only lower
because the spirit has worked less upon it., because it kept back more
of the spirit in the spiritual region. Yet in what it thus kept back,
dwells the ego during sleep. During sleep, the ego is even now already
present in that which man will only develop at a later epoch, which he
will only then be able to develop and unfold. This at the present day
is merely indicated and but little developed as yet in the bodily
nature of man. Hence when the ego becomes conscious of the conditions
in which it finds itself during sleep, when it really becomes
conscious of this, it will be able to say to itself: During
sleep I am within that which is my holiest human predisposition; and
when I come forth from sleep, I pass over from this holiest part of
me, into that which gives but a faint indication of it.'
Through Spiritual Science such things as these must find their way
into our feelings and inner sentiments, and live in them. Life itself
will then become spiritualised by a magical breath of holiness. We
shall then have a definite and positive idea of what is called the
Grace of the Spirit, of the Holy Ghost. For we shall connect the
realisation of this collective existence which runs its course in the
rhythm between sleeping and waking, with the idea: I am allowed
to take part in the spiritual world, I am allowed to dwell in
it. When we have once realised and felt this idea, this
conception: I am allowed to be within the spiritual world; grace
is given me whereby I am permeated with the spiritual world, which is
inaccessible to my ordinary earth-consciousness, when we
have thoroughly filled ourselves with that thought, we shall have also
learnt to look up to the Spirit which reveals itself just as clearly,
I might say, between the lines of life, as the outer world of nature
reveals itself to our external eyes and ears. But the age of
materialism has led man far from the consciousness of being rayed into
and permeated in his whole collective existence by the Grace of the
Spirit. It is of immense importance that this consciousness should be
re-acquired: for the depths of our souls are more affected than we
suppose by the general materialism prevalent in this age of ours. Yet
the human soul is now as a rule too weak to be able to realise in
itself those conceptions which could lift it out of and above
materialism. One such conception is that of the holiness of sleep,
which if once understood, we should then ascribe all those thoughts
and conceptions in our waking life which do not connect us with
matter, to that inward working of the spirit which follows upon sleep.
We should not then look upon our waking state, which unites us with
matter, as the only important thing to man, which would be like
considering the winter as the important time for the earth; we should
contemplate the whole. As regards the earth we contemplate it as a
whole when we take the winter in connection with the summer; and as
regards man, we contemplate him as a whole when we take the day, i.e.,
man in relation to matter in connection with sleep, i.e., his
relation to the spirit.
Now a superficial observation might lead one to say: As man in
his waking state is bound up with matter, he can know nothing of the
spirit; yet he does know something of the spirit, even while
awake. Now, man has a memory; and this memory does not only work
in his consciousness, it also works subconsciously. If we had no
memory, sleep could not help us at all. I want you to fix this fact
very firmly in your minds, for it is very important. No matter how
much we slept, if we had no memory it would not help us. For if we had
no memory we should of necessity be led to believe that there was
naught else but material existence. It is only because we preserve in
our subconscious memory what we experience during sleep although we
may know nothing of it in our outer consciousness only because
we have a subconscious recollection of what we then go through, that
we are not entirely given over to a materialistic mode of thinking. If
man does not think merely materialistic thoughts, if he has any sort
of spiritual ideas during the day, he owes it to the fact that his
memory acts. For man, as he now is, as earth-man, only comes
into touch with the spirit during sleep.
The point is that if, on the other hand, we were now able to develop
as strong a consciousness of what happens to us during sleep as, under
certain circumstances, men of bye-gone times could do, we should never
think of doubting the existence of the spirit. We should then be able
to remember not only subconsciously, but in full consciousness, what
we encounter during our sleep. If a man were to experience in full
consciousness what he passes through in sleep, it would be just as
absurd for him to deny the existence of spirit as it would be for a
waking man to deny the fact that there were tables and chairs. The
crucial point now is that mankind should once more become capable of
properly appreciating the meeting with the spirit in sleep. This can
only be done by making the pictures of the days experiences
sufficiently vivid; it can only be done by entering deeply into
Spiritual Science. In this study we occupy ourselves strongly with
ideas drawn from the spiritual world. We compel our head the etheric
body of our head to picture things which are in nowise connected with
outer matter, but only have reality in the world of the spirit. This
requires more application than it does to picture the things which are
real in the world of matter. Indeed that is the true reason why many
people do not go in for Spiritual Science. They find all kinds of
reasons against it. They say it is not logical. If they were driven to
prove in what it is illogical, they would be embarrassed: for it could
never be proved that Spiritual Science is illogical. The real reason
they turn away from Spiritual Science comes from something very
different! In a scientific refutation it is perhaps allowable not to
be quite polite, and we may, therefore, say that the non-recognition
of Spiritual Science comes solely from laziness of soul. However
industrious certain learned people may be as regards all the concepts
relating to outer matter, yet when it comes to the force necessary for
understanding the things of the spirit, they are idle and lazy; and it
is because they will not arouse in themselves this necessary force,
that they refuse to recognise Spiritual Science. For it requires more
effort for thinking the ideas of Spiritual Science, than it does for
thinking the ordinary thoughts connected with the things of sense. The
latter really come of themselves; but the ideas not connected with
material things, must be thought; one must wrestle with them and make
a big effort. It is this shrinking from the necessary effort which is
at the bottom of the non-acceptance of Spiritual Science; and this is
what we have to realise. When however, the effort really is made to
accept such concepts and ideas as are not connected with the material,
and to think them out, such activity is aroused in the soul that it is
gradually able to develop the consciousness of what goes on between
falling asleep and waking, to realise that a meeting with the Spirit
takes place then. It will certainly be necessary to unlearn certain
ideas. Just think how little some of the leaders of spiritual life are
capable of developing such ideas. What I am about to relate is of less
frequent occurrence now, but those who are the present leaders were in
many cases, in the days of their youth, so deeply immersed in the life
of their day, that they drank themselves into the state called in
German Bettschwere. They drank so much that the necessary
gravitation was established. Well, in such cases a man's ideas as well
as his feelings as to what goes on in sleep, are certainly not adapted
to elucidate the whole significance of sleep. A man may be extremely
learned as regards everything connected with matter, but he is
naturally not then able to gain an insight into what happens to him
between his falling asleep and awaking.
When people make the necessary effort to think out to their conclusion
ideas not connected with material things, they will be able to develop
understanding of what I have called the first meeting, the meeting
with the Spirit during sleep. Unless the world is to fall into a state
of decadence, this understanding must before very long illuminate
life, and fill it with sunshine. For if men do not take up these
ideas, on what are their concepts to be based? They will only be able
to form them by observing external conditions, by studying the
external world. Ideas formed in this way alone, leave the inner part
of the human being, his soul-part, in a state of inertia; that part of
man which must under other circumstances be strongly exercised in
spiritual concepts and ideas is left inert, unused: it dies. What is
the result of this? The result is that man becomes blind, spiritually
blind in his whole relation to the world. If he develops no ideas or
concepts except such as he forms under the influence of outer
impressions, he becomes spiritually blind; and spiritual blindness
does indeed prevail to a great extent, in this materialistic age. In
science this is only injurious up to a point, but in practical life
this blindness to the real world is extremely harmful. You see, the
further we descend into matter, the more things correct themselves in
this materialistic age. For if a man builds a bridge, he is forced by
circumstances to learn the proper rules of construction, otherwise
when the first wagon crosses it, that bridge will collapse. It is
easier to apply wrong conceptions in trying to cure anyone, for it can
never be proved what a man dies of, or what makes him well. It does
not at all follow that the ideas put into practice are necessarily the
right ones. If one wishes to work in the realm of the spiritual, it is
a much more serious matter; and it is, therefore, particularly serious
that things are in a bad way in what are generally known as the
practical sciences, Political or National Economy and the like. In
this materialistic age people have become accustomed to be guided by
the impressions and ideas formed in the outer world and to apply these
to their doctrines of national or political economy, and in this way
their ideas have become blind. Almost all that has hitherto been
developed along these lines is but a blind idea. It must, therefore,
follow as a natural consequence, that people with these blind notions
are led along in leading strings by events, they yield themselves
blindly to the course of events. If in this state they then intervene
in them, well, what can we expect?
One possibility formed as a result of not taking up Spiritual Science
is these blind ideas. Another possibility is that instead of being
stimulated to form ideas by outer circumstances people may let
themselves be stimulated from within; that is to say, that nothing but
what lives in the emotions and passions is, in a sense, allowed to
arise in the soul in this way a man certainly does not acquire blind
ideas, but rather what we might call intoxicated ideas. People of the
present day who are acknowledged materialists constantly swing
backwards and forwards between blind ideas and intoxicated ideas.
Blind ideas, in which they allow themselves to be blindfolded to what
is going on, so that when they intervene they do so in the clumsiest
way possible! Intoxicated ideas, in which they only give way to their
emotions and passions, and confront the world in such a way that they
do not really understand things, but either love or hate everything;
and judge everything according to their love or hatred, their sympathy
or antipathy. For it is only when, on the one hand, a man makes
efforts in his soul to acquire spiritual ideas, and on the other
develops his feelings for the great concerns of the world, that he can
attain to clear-sighted ideas and conceptions. When we lift ourselves
up to the thoughts given us in Spiritual Science of the great
connections concerning which the materialistic view of the world
merely laughs: of the ages of Saturn, Sun and Moon and of our
connection with the Universe, when we fructify our moral feelings with
the great goals of humanity, we can then rise above all the emotions
displayed in sympathy or antipathy for anything in the world around
us. And these emotions can be overcome in no other way.
It is undoubtedly necessary, that through Spiritual Science, a great
deal that lives in our age, should be purified. For man, after all,
does not allow himself to be entirely cut off from the spiritual
world. He does not really allow himself to be cut off at all, he only
allows himself to be apparently cut off. I have already called your
attention to the way this is apparently done. When man, on the one
hand swears only by the material and the impressions of the external
world, the forces which are intended for the spirit still remain
within him, but he then directs them to a false region and gives
himself up to all kinds of illusions. That is why it is chiefly the
most practical and materialistic people who are subject to the
strongest illusions and give way to them. We see people going through
life denying the existence of spirit and laughing heartily if they are
told of anyone having had spiritual experiences. He sees
ghosts! they exclaim. Having said that, they consider they have
broken the back of the matter. They themselves certainly do not see
ghosts, in their sense of the word. But they only believe they see no
ghosts; in reality they are incessantly seeing ghosts, they see them
the whole time. One can put a man who is thus rooted in his
materialistic view of the world to the test, and it will be evident
that as regards what the next day may bring forth, he gives way to the
worst illusions. This giving way to illusions, is nothing but a
substitute for the spiritual, which he denies. If he denies the
spiritual, he must then necessarily fall into illusion. As has been
said, it is not easy to prove the illusions, existing in the many
different departments of life, but they are everywhere prevalent,
really everywhere. People are really fond of giving way to illusion.
For instance, the following is a very frequent experience. Some one
may say: If I invest my money in this or that undertaking, it
may be used for the brewing of beer. I refuse to use my money in that
way, I will take no part in that. So he takes his money to the
bank. The bank, without his knowledge, invests the money in a brewery.
It makes no difference at all to the objective fact, but he is under
the illusion that his money is not used for such base purposes as
beer!
Of course, it may be objected that this is far-fetched, but it is not,
it is really a thing that rules all life. People do not take the
trouble today to become really acquainted with life, to be able to see
through it. This, however, is of great significance. It is immensely
important that we should learn to know what we ourselves are in the
midst of. This is not easy today, because life has become complicated;
nevertheless, what I have drawn attention to, is true. For, you know,
under certain circumstances one might easily conceive an absurd
situation. I will give you an example. There was once an incendiary,
(this is a true story,) who ran out of a house which he had set on
fire, having so arranged things that he allowed himself time to do so.
He was caught and brought before the magistrates. On being questioned,
he answered that he considered he had done a good piece of work, that
he was not the one to be blamed, but the workmen, who had left a
lighted candle in the house when they left it in the evening. If the
candle had burnt out at night, it would have set the house on fire.
He, therefore, set it on fire himself, before it was quite dark. In
either case the house would have been on fire; he only set it on fire
so that the fire might be speedily extinguished: for if a house is on
fire in the daytime it may be saved, but at night it is a more
complicated matter, and the whole house would then have been burnt to
the ground. He was then asked why he did not put the candle out; to
which he replied I am a teacher of humanity; if I had blown out
the candle, the workers, who were the ones to blame in the matter,
would have gone on being careless, whereas now they can see for
themselves what happens when they forget to blow out their
lights.
We may laugh at such an example as this, for we do not observe that we
are continually doing the like. People are constantly acting in the
same way as the man who did not put out the lighted candle, but set
fire to the house. Only we do not notice this when we are disturbed by
our emotions and passions, which cause an intoxication of ideas, and
when the whole thing relates to the spiritual world. If we accustom
the soul to that elasticity and flexibility, which is necessary for
the forming of spiritual ideas, we shall so mould our thought that it
will really find its way into life and be properly adapted to it. If
we do not do this, our thought will never be fit to deal with life; it
will not even be affected by it, except on the surface. That is why-to
turn now to the deeper side of the question the materialistic
age really leads one away from an connection with the spiritual world.
Just as we undermine our bodily health if we do not get our proper
sleep, so do we undermine our soul-life if we do not spend our
waking-time in the right way. If we only give way to outer impressions
and live without being conscious of our connection with the spiritual
world, we are not awake in the right way. Just as a man may by reason
of certain conditions sleep restlessly, turning and twisting about,
and thus undermine his physical health, so does a man undermine his
spiritual health if he only yields to the external impressions of the
world, if he is only subject to physical matter. This will prevent his
experiencing in the right way that first meeting with the spiritual
world, of which I have spoken. In this way he loses all possibility of
rightly connecting himself with the spiritual world, during his
physical existence. The connection with that world in which we spend
our time when not in incarnation, into which we ourselves pass when we
go through the Gates of Death, is thereby cut off.
Man must once again learn to understand that we are not here merely to
build in the physical universe during our physical existence; he must
learn to understand that we, during the whole of our existences are
bound up with the whole world. Those who have already passed through
the Gates of Death want to work with us on the physical world. This
co-operation of theirs appears to be only a physical working with us,
but everything physical is only an outer expression of the spirit. The
age of materialism has estranged man from the world of the dead;
Spiritual Science must re-establish the friendship between them. The
time must once more come, when we shall cease to make the work of the
dead for the spiritualisation of the physical world impossible, by
estranging ourselves from them. For the dead cannot take part with
hands in the events of the physical, they cannot accomplish physical
work in that direct way. It would be foolish to believe that. The dead
can work in a spiritual way. But to do so they need to have
instruments placed at their disposal; they require the spiritual
matter that lives here in the physical world. We are not merely human
beings, we are also instruments, instruments for the spirits who have
passed through the Gates of Death. As long as we are incarnated in
physical bodies we use the pen or the hammer or the axe; when we are
no longer incarnated in physical bodies the instruments we use are the
human souls themselves. This rests upon the peculiar way in which the
dead perceive, which I will just touch upon once more I referred
to this subject once before here.
Suppose you have before you a small vessel containing salt; you can
see that. The salt looks like a white substance, like white powder.
The fact that you see the salt as a white powder depends on your eyes.
Your spirit cannot see the salt as a white powder; but if you put a
little salt on your tongue and taste the peculiar salt taste, it is
possible then for the spirit to become aware of it. Every spirit is
able to perceive the taste of the salt in you. Everything that takes
place in man through the external world, can be perceived by every
spirit, including the human souls which have passed through the Gates
of Death. Just as within us the world of sense extends to our tasting,
smelling, seeing and hearing, so does the world of the dead reach down
into what we hear, see and taste, etc. The experiences we have in the
physical world are shared in by the dead, for these experiences do not
only belong to our world but to theirs. They belong to their world
when we spiritualise what we experience in the outer world with
spiritual ideas. Unless we do this, if we merely experience the laws
of matter, that to the dead is something which they cannot comprehend,
it remains dark. To the dead a soul devoid of spirit seems dark. For
this reason the dead have become estranged from our earth-life during
the age of materialism. This estrangement must be got rid of. An inner
common life of the so-called dead with the so-called living must take
place; but that can only be when people develop in their souls those
forces which are really spiritual, that is, when they develop such
ideas, concepts, and images as deal with spiritual matters. When a man
in his thinking makes an effort to reach the spirit, he will gradually
reach it in reality. It signifies that a bridge is thrown across
between the physical and the spiritual world. That alone can lead men
across from the age of materialism to that age in which they will face
the realities, neither blindfolded nor intoxicated, but with vision
and poise. Having learnt to see through the spirit, they will attain
vision and poise, and through the feelings and sentiments aroused in
them by the great concerns of the world, they will attain the right
balance between sympathy and antipathy, with respect to what our
immediate surroundings demand of us.
We shall continue the considerations of these subjects in our next
lecture, and go still more deeply from this aspect, into the ideas to
be gained from the spiritual world.
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