VII
To-day we shall
begin to consider the inner activities of the soul which can
gradually lead man to acquire conceptions, to acquire thoughts, about
karma. These thoughts and conceptions are such that they can
ultimately enable a man to perceive, in the light of karma,
experiences which have a karmic cause.
Looking around our
human environment, we really see in the physical world only what is
caused by physical force in a physical way. And if we do see in the
physical world something that is not caused by physical forces, we
still become aware of it through external physical substances,
through external physical objects of perception. Of course, when a
man does something out of his own will, this is not caused by
physical forces, by physical causes, for in many respects it comes
out of the free will. But all that we perceive outwardly is exhausted
in the physical phenomena of the world we thus observe. In the entire
sphere of what we can thus observe, the karmic connection of an
experience we ourselves pass through cannot reveal itself to us. For
the whole picture of this karmic connection lies in the spiritual
world, is really inscribed in what is the etheric world, in what
underlies the etheric world as the astral world, or as the world of
spiritual beings who inhabit this astral outer world. Nothing of all
this is seen, as long as we merely direct our senses to the physical
world.
All that we
perceive in the physical world is perceived through our senses. These
senses work without our having much to do with it. Our eyes receive
impressions of light, of colour, of their own accord. We can at most
— and even that is half involuntary — adjust our gaze to
a certain direction; we can gaze at something or we can look away
from it. Even in this there is still much of the unconscious, but at
all events a fragment of consciousness. And, above all, that which
the eye must do inwardly in order to see colour, the wonderfully
wise, inner activity which is exercised whenever we see anything
— this we could never achieve as human beings if we were
supposed to achieve it consciously. That would be out of the
question. All this must, to begin with, happen unconsciously, because
it is much too wise for man to be able in any way to help in
it.
To attain a
correct point of view as regards the knowledge possessed by the human
being, we must really fill our thoughts with all the wisdom-filled
arrangements which exist in the world, and which are quite beyond the
capacity of man. If a man thinks only of what he can achieve himself,
then he really blocks all paths to knowledge. The path to knowledge
really begins at the point where we realise, in all humility, all
that we are incapable of doing, but which must nevertheless come to
pass in cosmic existence. The eye, the ear — yes, and the other
sense-organs — are, in reality, such profoundly wise
instruments that men will have to study for a long time before they
will be able even to have an inkling of understanding of them during
earthly existence. This must be fully realised. Observation of the
spiritual, however, cannot be unconscious in this sense. In earlier
times of human evolution this was possible even for observation of
the spiritual. There was an instinctive clairvoyance which has faded
away in the course of the evolution of humanity.
From now onwards,
man must consciously attain an attitude to the cosmos through which
he will be able to see through into the spiritual. And we must see
through into the spiritual if we are to recognise the karmic
connections of any experience we may have.
Now it is
necessary for the observation of karma that we at least begin by
paying attention to what can happen within us to develop the faculty
of observing karmic connections. We, on our part, must help a little
in order to make these observations conscious. We must do more, for
example, than we do for our eye in order to become conscious of
colour.
My dear friends,
what we must learn first of all is summed up in one word: to wait. We
must be able to wait for the inner experiences.
About this
“being able to wait”, I have already spoken. It was in
the year 1889 — I tell about this in the
Story of my Life
— that the inner spiritual construction of Goethe's
“The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”
first came before my mind's eye. And it
was then, for the first time, that the perception as it were of a
greater, wider connection than appears in the Fairy Tale itself
presented itself to me. But I also knew at that time: I cannot yet
make of this connection what I shall some day be able to make of it.
And so what the Fairy Tale revealed to me at that time simply
remained lying in the soul.
Then, seven years
later, in the year 1896, it welled up again, but still not in such a
way that it could be properly shaped; and again, about 1903, seven
years later. Even then, although it came with great definition and
many connections it could not yet receive its right form. Seven years
later again, when I conceived my first Mystery Play,
The Portal of Initiation
— then only did the Fairy Tale reappear,
transformed in such a way that it could be shaped and moulded
plastically.
Such things,
therefore, demand a real waiting, a time for ripening. We must bring
our own experiences into relation with that which exists out there in
the world. At a moment when only the seed of a plant is present, we
obviously cannot have the plant. The seed must be brought into the
right conditions for growth, and we must wait until the blossom, and
finally the fruit, come out of the seed. And so it must be with the
experiences through which we pass. We cannot take the line of being
thrilled by an experience, simply because it happens to be there, and
then forgetting it. The person who only wants his experiences when
they are actually present will be doing little towards ultimate
observation of the spiritual world. We must be able to wait. We must
be able to let the experiences ripen within the
soul.
Now the
possibility exists for a comparatively quick ripening of insight into
karmic connections if, for a considerable time, we endeavour
patiently, and with inner activity, to picture in our consciousness,
more and more clearly, an experience which would otherwise simply
take its course externally, without being properly grasped, so that
it fades away in the course of life. After all, this fading away is
what really happens with the events of life. For what does a man do
with events and experiences, as they approach him in the course of
the day? He experiences them, but in reality only half observes them.
You can realise how experiences are only half observed if you sit
down one day in the afternoon or in the evening — and I advise
you to do it — and ask yourself: ‘What did I actually
experience this morning at half-past nine?’ And now try to call
up such an experience in all details before your soul, recall it as
if it were actually there, say at half-past seven in the evening
— as if you were creating it spiritually before you. You will
see how much you will find lacking, how much you failed to observe,
and how difficult it is. If you take a pen or pencil to write it all
down, you will soon begin to bite at the pen or the pencil, because
you cannot hit upon the details — and, in time, you want to
bite them out of the pencil!
Yes, but that is
just the point, to take upon oneself the task of placing before the
mind, in all precision, an experience one has had, — not at the
moment when it is actually there, but afterwards. It must be placed
before the soul as if one were going to paint it spiritually. If the
experience were one in which somebody spoke, this must be made quite
objectively real: the ring of the voice, the way in which the words
were used, clumsily or cleverly — the picture must be made with
strength and vigour. In short, we try to make a picture of what we
have experienced. If we make a picture of such an experience of the
day, then in the following night, the astral body, when it is outside
the physical body and the etheric body, occupies itself with this
picture. The astral body itself is, in reality, the bearer of the
picture, and gives shape to it outside the body. The astral body
takes the picture with it when it goes out on the first night. It
shapes it there, outside the physical and etheric
bodies.
That is the first
stage (we will take these stages quite exactly): the sleeping astral
body, when outside the physical and etheric bodies, shapes the
picture of the experience. Where does it do this? In the external
ether. It is now in the external etheric world; it does this in the
external ether.
Now picture to
yourself the human being: his physical and etheric bodies lie in bed,
and the astral body is outside. We will leave aside the ego. There
outside is the astral body, reshaping this picture that has been
made. But the astral body does this in the external ether. In
consequence of this the following happens — think of it: the
astral body is there outside, shaping this
picture. All this happens in the external ether which encrusts, as it
were, with its own substance that which is formed as a picture within
the astral body. So the external ether makes the etheric form (dotted
(dark) outline) into a picture which is clearly and precisely
visualised by the eye of spirit.
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
In the morning you
return into the physical and etheric bodies and bear into them what
has been made substantial by the external ether. That is to say: the
sleeping astral body shapes the picture of the experience outside the
physical and etheric bodies. The external ether then impregnates the
picture with its own substance. You can imagine that the picture
becomes stronger thereby, and that now, when the astral body returns
in the morning with this stronger substantiality, it can make an
impression upon the etheric body in the human being. With forces that
are derived from the external ether, the astral body now stamps an
impression into the etheric body.
The second stage
is therefore: The picture is impressed into the etheric body by the
astral body.
There we have the
events of the first day and the first night. Now we come to the
second day. On the second day, while you are busying yourself with
all the little things of life in full waking consciousness, there,
underneath the consciousness, in the unconscious, the picture is
descending into the etheric body. And in the next night, when the
etheric body is undisturbed, when the astral body has gone out again,
the etheric body elaborates this picture.
Thus in the second
night the picture is elaborated by the man's own etheric body.
There we have the second stage: — The picture is impressed into
the etheric body by the astral body; and in the next night the
etheric body elaborates the picture. Thus we have: the second day and
the second night.
Now if you do
this, if you actually do not give up occupying yourself with the
picture you formed on the preceding day — and you can continue
to occupy yourself with it, for a reason which I shall immediately
mention — if you do not disdain to do this, then you will find
that you are living on further with the picture. What does this mean
— to continue occupying yourself with it? If you really take
pains to shape such a picture, vigorously, elaborating it plastically
in characteristic, strong lines on the first day after you had the
experience, then you have really exerted yourself spiritually. Such
things cost spiritual exertion. I don't mean what I am going to
say as a hint — present company is, of course, always excepted
in these matters! — but after all, it must be said that the
majority of men simply do not know what spiritual exertion is.
Spiritual exertion, true spiritual exertion, comes about only by
means of activity of soul. When you allow the world to work upon you,
and let thoughts run their course without taking them in hand, then
there is no spiritual exertion. We should not imagine, when something
tires us, that we have exerted ourselves spiritually. Getting tired
does not imply that there has been spiritual exertion. We can get
tired, for instance, from reading. But if we have not ourselves been
productive in some way during the reading, if we merely let the
thoughts contained in the book act on us, then we are not
exerting ourselves. On the contrary, a person who has really exerted
himself spiritually, who has exerted himself out of the inner
activity of his soul, may then take up a book, a very interesting
one, and just “sleep off” his spiritual exertion in the
best possible way, in the reading of it. Naturally, we can fall
asleep over a book if we are tired. This getting tired is no sign at
all of spiritual exertion.
A sign of
spiritual exertion, however, is this: that one feels — the
brain is used up. It is just as we may feel that a demand has been
made on the muscle of the arm when lifting things. Ordinary thought
makes no such strong claims upon the brain. The process continues,
and you will even notice that when you try it for the first time, the
second, the third, the tenth, you get a slight headache. It is not
that you get tired or fall asleep; on the contrary, you cannot fall
asleep; you get a slight headache from it. Only you must not regard
this headache as something baleful; on the contrary, you must take it
as actual proof of the fact that you have exerted your
head.
Well, the process
goes on ... it stays with you until you go to sleep. If you have
really done this on the preceding day, then you will awake in the
morning with the feeling: “There actually is something
in me! I don't quite know what it is, but there is something in
me, and it wants something from me. Yes, after all it is not a matter
of indifference that I made this picture for myself yesterday. It
really means something. This picture has changed. To-day it is giving
me quite different feelings from those I had previously. The picture
is making me have quite definite feelings.”
All this stays
with you through the next day as the remaining inner experience of
the picture which you made for yourself. And what you feel, and
cannot get rid of through the whole of the day — this is a
witness to the fact that the picture is now descending into the
etheric body, as I have described to you, and that the etheric body
is receiving it.
Now you will
probably experience on waking after the next night — when you
slip into your body after these two days — that you find this
picture slightly changed, slightly transformed. You find it again ...
precisely on waking the third day you find it again within you. It
appears to you like a very real dream. But it has undergone a
transformation. It will clothe itself in manifold pictures until it
is other than it was. It will assume an appearance as if spiritual
beings were now bringing you this experience. And you actually
receive the impression: Yes, this experience which I had and which I
subsequently formed into a picture, has actually been brought to me.
If the experience happened to be with another human being, then we
have the feeling after this has all happened, that actually we did
not only experience it through that human being, but that it was
really brought to us. Other forces, spiritual forces, have been at
play. It was they who brought it to us.
The next day
comes. This next day the picture is carried down from the etheric
body into the physical body. The etheric body impresses this picture
into the physical body, into the nerve-processes, into the
blood-processes. On the third day the picture is impressed into the
physical body. So the third stage is: The picture is stamped into the
physical body by the etheric body.
And now comes the
next night. You have been attending throughout the day to the
ordinary little trifles of life, and underneath it all this important
process is going on: the picture is being carried down into the
physical body. All this goes on in the subconscious. When the
following night comes, the picture is elaborated in the physical
body. It is spiritualised in the physical body. First of all,
throughout the day, the picture is brought down into the processes of
the blood and nerves, but in the night it is spiritualised. Those who
have vision see how this picture is now elaborated by the physical
body, but it appears spiritually as an altogether changed picture. We
can say: the physical body elaborates the picture during the next
night.
1st Day
and 1st Night:
When outside the
physical and etheric bodies, the astral body shapes the picture of
the experience. The outer ether impregnates the picture with its own
substance.
2nd Day
and 2nd Night:
The picture is
stamped by the astral body into the etheric body. And the etheric
body elaborates the picture during the next day.
3rd Day
and 3rd Night:
The picture is
stamped by the etheric body into the physical body. And the physical
body elaborates the picture during the next night.
| Diagram 2 Click image for large view | |
Now this is
something of which you must make an absolutely correct mental
picture. The physical body actually works up this picture
spiritually. It spiritualises the picture. So that when all this has
really been gone through, it does happen — when the human being
is asleep — that his physical body works up the whole picture,
but not in such a way that it remains within the physical body. Out
of the physical body there arises a transformation, a greatly
magnified transformation of the picture. And when you get up in the
morning, this picture stands there, and in truth you hover in it; it
is like a kind of cloud in which you yourself are. With this picture
you get up in the morning.
So this is the
third day and the third night. With this picture, which is entirely
transformed, you get out of bed on the fourth day. You rise from
sleep, enveloped by this cloud. And if you have actually shaped the
picture with the necessary strength on the first day, and if you have
paid attention to what your feeling conveyed to you on the second
day, you will notice now that your will is contained in the picture
as it now is. The will is contained in it! But this will is unable to
express itself; it is as though fettered. Put into somewhat radical
terms, it is actually as if one had planned after the manner of an
incredibly daring sprinter, who might resolve to make a display of a
bravado race: I will run, now I am running to Ober-Dornach, I make a
picture of it already, I've got it within me. It is my will ...
But in the very moment when I want to start, when the will is
strongest, somebody fetters me, so that I stand there quite rigidly.
The whole will has unfolded, but I cannot carry out the will. Such,
approximately, is the process.
When this
experience of feeling yourself in a pillory develops — for it
is a feeling of being in a pillory after the third night — when
you again awake in it, feeling in a pillory as it were, with the will
fettered through and through, then, if you can pay attention to it,
you will find that the will begins to transform itself. This will
becomes sight. In itself it can do nothing, but it leads to
our seeing something. It becomes an eye of the soul. And the picture,
with which one rose from sleep, becomes objective. What it shows is
the event of the previous earth-life, or of some previous earth-life,
which had been the cause of the experience that we shaped into a
picture on the first day. By means of this transformation through
feeling and through will, one gets the picture of the causal event of
a preceding incarnation.
When we describe
these things, they appear somewhat overpowering. This is not to be
wondered at, for they are utterly unfamiliar to the human being of
the present time. They were not so unknown to the men of earlier
culture-epochs. Only, according to the opinion of modern men who are
clever, those other men — in their whole way of living —
were stupid! Nevertheless, those ‘stupid’ men of the
earlier culture-epochs really had these experiences, only modern man
darkens everything by his intellect, which makes him clever, but not
exactly wise.
As I said, the
thing seems somewhat tumultuous, when one relates it. But after all,
one is obliged to use such words; for since the things are utterly
unknown to-day, they would not appear so striking if they were worded
more mildly. They must appear striking. But the whole experience,
from beginning to end, throughout the three days, as I have described
it to you, must take its course in inner intimacy, in rest and peace
of mind. For so-called occult experiences — and these are such
— do not take their course in such a way that they can be
bragged about. When one begins to brag about them, they immediately
stop. They must take their course in inner repose and quietude. And
it is best when, for the time being, nobody at all notices anything
of the consecutive experiences except the person who is having
them.
Now you must not
think that the thing succeeds immediately, from the outset. One
always finds, of course, that people are pleased when such things are
related. This is quite comprehensible ... and it is good. How much
there is that one can learn to know! And then, with a tremendous
diligence people start on it. They begin ... and it doesn't
succeed. Then they become disheartened. Then, perhaps, they try it
again, several times. Again it does not succeed. But, in effect, if
one has tried it about 49 times, or, let us say, somebody else has
tried it about 69 times, then the 50th or the 70th time it does
succeed. For what really matters in all these things is the
acquisition of a kind of habit of soul concerning them. To begin
with, one must find one's way into these things, one must
acquire habits of the soul. This is something that certainly ought to
be carefully observed by the Anthroposophical Society which, since
the Christmas Foundation, is intended to be a complete expression of
the Anthroposophical Movement.
Really a very
great deal has been given within the Anthroposophical Society. It is
enough to make one giddy to see standing in a row all the
Lecture-Courses that have been printed. But in spite of it, people
come again and again, asking one thing or the other. In the majority
of cases this is not at all necessary, for if everything that is
contained in the Lecture-Courses is really worked upon, then most of
the questions find their own answer in a much surer way. One must
have patience, really have patience. Truly, there is a great deal in
anthroposophical literature that can work in the soul. We must take
to heart all that has to be accomplished, and the time will be well
filled with all that has to be done. But, on the other hand, in
regard to many of the things which people want to know, it must be
pointed out that the Lecture-Courses exist, that they have been left
lying there, and after they have been given many people trouble about
them only inasmuch as they want a “new” Course; they just
lay the old ones aside. These things are closely connected with what
I have to say to-day.
One does not reach
inner continuity in following up all that germinates and ripens in
the soul, if there is a desire to hurry in this way, from the new to
the new; the essential point is that things must mature within the
soul. We must accustom ourselves to inner, active work of the soul,
work in the spirit. This is what helps us to achieve such things as I
have explained to you to-day; this alone will help us to have, after
the third day, the inner attitude of soul in connection with some
experience we may wish to see through in the light of
karma.
This must always
be the mode of procedure if we are to learn to know the spiritual. To
begin with, we must say to ourselves: the first moment when we
approach the spiritual in thought in some way, was the first
beginning; it is quite impossible to have any kind of result
immediately; we must be able to wait. Suppose I
have an experience to-day that is karmically caused in a preceding
incarnation. I will make a diagrammatic sketch. Here I am, here is my
experience, the experience of to-day (right). This is caused by the
quite differently-constituted personality in the same ego in a
previous earth-life (left). There it is. It has long ceased to belong
to my personality, but it is stamped into the etheric world, or into
the astral world, which lies behind the etheric world. Now I have to
go back, to retrace the way backwards.
| Diagram 3 Click image for large view | |
I told you that at
first the thing appears as if some being were really bearing the
experience towards me. This is so, on the second day. But after the
third day it appears as if those who have brought it to me, those
spiritual beings, withdraw, and I become aware of it as something of
my own, which I myself, in a previous incarnation, laid down as
cause. Because this is no longer within the present, because this is
something I must behold in the past earth-life, I seem to be
fettered. This state of being fettered ceases only when I have
perceived the thing, when I have a picture of what was in the
previous incarnation, and when I then look back to the event which I
have not lost sight of through the three days. Then I become free, as
I return, for now I can move about freely with the effect. As long as
I am only within the cause, I cannot move about with the cause. Thus
I go back into a previous incarnation, there become fettered as it
were by the cause, and only when I now enter right into this present
earth-life, is the thing resolved.
Now let us take an
example: suppose somebody experiences at a certain time on a certain
day that a friend says something to him that is not altogether
pleasant — perhaps he had not expected it. This friend says to
him something not altogether pleasant. He now ponders what he
experiences in listening to what his friend says. He makes a vivid
picture of what he has experienced, how he got a slight shock, and
how he got vexed, perhaps he was also hurt, or the like. This is an
inner working, and as such it must be brought into the picture. Now
he lets the three days elapse. The second day he goes about and says
to himself: ‘This picture which I made yesterday has had a
strange effect upon me. The whole day long I have had within me
something like an acid, as it were, something that comes from the
picture and makes me feel inwardly out of sorts ...’ At the end
of the whole process, after the third day, he says to himself:
‘I get up in the morning and now I have the definite feeling
that the picture is fettering me.’ Then this event of the
previous incarnation is made known to me. I see it before me. Then I
pass over to the experience which is still quite fresh, which is
still quite present. The fettering ceases, and I say to myself:
‘So this is how it was in the previous earth-life! This is what
caused it; now there is the effect. With this effect I can live again
... now the thing is present again.’
This must be
practised over and over again, for generally the thread is broken on
the very first day, when we make the first effort. And then nothing
comes.
It is particularly
favourable to let things run parallel, so that we do not stop at one
event, but bring a number of. events of the day into picture-form in
this way. You will say: ‘Then I must live through the next day
with the greatest variety of feelings.’ But this is quite
possible. It is not at all harmful. Only try it; the things go quite
well together. ‘And must I then be fettered so and so often
after the third day?’ This does not matter either. Nothing of
this matters. The things will adjust themselves in time. What
belongs, from an earlier incarnation, to a later one, will find its
way to it. But it will not succeed at once; it will not succeed at
the first attempt; the thread breaks. We must have patience to try
the thing over and over again. Then we feel something growing
stronger within the soul. Then we feel that something awakens in the
soul, and we say to ourselves: ‘Until now you were filled with
blood. You have felt within you the pulsation of the blood and the
breath. Now there is something within you besides the blood. You are
filled with something.’
You can even have
the feeling that you are filled with something of which you can say
quite definitely that it is like a metal that has become aeriform.
You actually feel something like metal, you feel it in you. It cannot
be described differently; it really is so. You feel yourself
permeated with metal, in your whole body. Just as one can say of
certain waters, that they ‘taste metallic’, the whole
body seems to ‘taste’ as if it were inwardly permeated by
some delicate substance, which, in reality, is something
spiritual.
You feel this when
you come upon something which was, of course, always in you, but to
which you only now begin to pay attention. Then, when you begin to
feel this, you again take courage. For if the thread is always
breaking and everything is as it was before — if you want to
get hold of a karmic connection, but the thread is always breaking
— you may easily lose courage. But when you detect within
yourself this sense of being inwardly filled, then you get courage
again. And you say to yourself: it will come right in
time.
But, my dear
friends, these things must be experienced in all quietude and
calmness. Those who cannot experience them quietly but get excited
and emotional, spread an inner mist over what really ought to happen,
and nothing comes of it.
There are people
to-day in the outside world who know of Anthroposophy only by
hearsay. Perhaps they have read nothing at all of it, or only what
opponents have written. It is really very funny now. — Many of
the antagonistic writings spring out of the earth like mushrooms
— they quote literature, but among the literature they quote
there are none of my books at all, only the books of opponents! The
authors admit that they have not really approached the original
sources, that they know only the antagonistic literature. Such things
exist to-day. And so there are people outside who say: “The
Anthroposophists are mad.” As a matter of fact, what one can
least of all afford to be in order to reach anything at all in the
spiritual world is to be mad. One must not be mad in the very
slightest degree if one hopes to come to anything in the spiritual
world. Even the tiniest fragment of madness is a hindrance to
reaching anything. This simply must be avoided. Even a slight
fancifulness, slight capriciousness, must be avoided. For all this
giving way to the moods of the day, the caprices of the day, forms
obstacles and handicaps on the way to progress in the spiritual
world. If one desires to progress in the field of Anthroposophy,
there is nothing for it but to have an absolutely sane head and an
absolutely sane heart. With doting sentimentality
(Schwärmerei) which is already the beginning of madness,
one can achieve nothing.
Things such as I
have told you to-day, strange as they sound, must be experienced in
the light of absolute clarity of mind, of absolute soundness of head
and heart. Truly, there is nothing that can more surely save one from
very slight daily madness, than Anthroposophy. All madness would
[disappear] by means of Anthroposophy if people would only devote
themselves to it with real intensity. If somebody were to set himself
to go mad through Anthroposophy, this would certainly be an
experiment with inadequate means!
I do not say this
in order to make a joke, but because it must be an integral part of
the mood and tenor of anthroposophical endeavour. This is the
attitude that must be adopted towards the matter, as I have just
explained to you, half in joke, if we want to approach it in the
right way, with the right orientation. We must set out to be as sane
as possible; then we approach it in the right spirit. This is the
least we can strive for, and above all, strive for in respect to the
little madnesses of life.
Once I was friends
with a very clever professor of philosophy, now long since dead, who
used to say on every occasion: “We all have some point or other
on which we are a little mad!” He meant, all people are a
little mad ... but he was a very clever man. I always believed there
was something behind his words, that his assertion was not altogether
without foundation! He did not become an
Anthroposophist.
We will continue,
then, to-morrow.
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