The First Goetheanum
by
Rudolf Steiner
Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith
Lesson Two
Dornach, February 22, 1924
My
dear friends,
We
will relate what is said today to the previous lesson, partly
to preserve the thread, and partly because there are members
present who were not here last time. We shall therefore start
with a short recapitulation of the last lesson.
We
proceeded in thought to the place where the human being - who
with normal consciousness can grasp the sense-world, which is
the world that surrounds him - can feel himself related to the
super-sensible, related to a being which corresponds to his own
being. And we want to first develop this sensation before
proceeding to the mysteries of the spiritual life, which we
will do shortly.
The
first sensation should make us aware of how the human being, in
his normal condition, lives surrounded by the world of the
senses, which however he is not able to identify with his own
being. We shall therefore develop this theme. And although the
words “Know thyself!” have been enunciated
throughout the ages, encouraging man to perform his noblest
deeds, still he can find no answers, no satisfaction if, under
the influence of “Know thyself”, he only sees what
the senses provide - the exterior world. Now, however, he is
directed towards something else, something beyond the exterior
world.
If
with this sensation, which one can have when one gazes out to
the depths of cosmic space with the question of his own being
in mind, when in thought we approach super-sensible being,
which is one with the inner human being, then the corresponding
sensation will be given through the words I provided to you the
last time:
Where
on earth-foundations, color upon color,
Life creative manifests itself;
Where from earthly substance, form on form,
The lifeless world is fashioned;
Where the sentient beings, powerful in will,
Delight in the warm glow of their existence;
Where you yourself, O Man, derive
Your bodily existence from earth and air and light:
There you do enter, for your own true-being,
Cold, night-enveloped darkness.
In vain you ask of the dumb expanse
What you are, what you were, or will become.
For your own being, this light of day grows dim
To the soul's night, the darkness of the spirit.
Then do you turn your anxious seeking soul
Unto that light that shines out of the darkness.
We
can now observe and feel in our souls the beauty, the greatness
and the sublimity of the external world, but we also realize
that we can never find our own being in this world. For the
person who seeks the spirit, it is necessary to repeatedly feel
this sensation in his soul. Because by deeply experiencing the
sensation that by looking out into the external world we gain
no answer to the question of who we are, feeling this sensation
again and again gives the soul the impulse and the strength
that can carry us into the spiritual world. Yet just as by
having this sensation we will be carried up into the spiritual
world, we must also bear in mind that the person of normal
consciousness in normal life is unprepared to encounter that
world, which in reality is the world of his own being.
Therefore on the border between the sense-world and the
spiritual world that guardian stands who earnestly warns people
against crossing over into the spiritual world unprepared. And
it is the case, my dear friends, that we must always keep in
mind the fact that the Guardian stands before the [entrance to]
the spiritual world for the well-being of unprepared human
beings. And we must therefore be quite clear about the
necessity for a certain attitude of soul in order to achieve
real knowledge and insight.
If
such insight were provided to everyone walking down the street
it would be terrible for them because they wouldn't be
prepared. They would be receiving it without the preparatory
attitude of soul. Therefore we must deeply feel the second
sensation which over and over again tells us how we must
approach the Guardian:
And
from the darkness there appears,
In your own likeness manifesting you,
Yet forming you into a deeper parable,
Mightily working, in the cosmic ether,
The solemn spirit-word your heart can hear.
The Spirit-Messenger to you: he who alone
Can lighten up your path.
Before him lie the far-spread fields of sense-existence,
Behind him yawn the depths of the abyss.
And here, before the darkness of the spirit-fields,
Hard by the yawning chasm of existence,
Rings forth the ancient power of his creator-word:
Behold, I am the only gate of knowledge.
Then the Guardian himself speaks while we are still on this
side, in the sense-fields. He points to the other side where
for us is unmitigated darkness while we are on this side, but
which is to become light-filled, which must become light to us
through spirit-knowledge, from out of which he speaks who alone
is bright. He speaks, indicating the apparent darkness, this
maya-darkness:
From
the wide expanse of beings in space
Who experience existence in light,
From the tread of time's onward course
Which finds in creating its very activity,
From the depths of the feeling heart
Where in the Self the world is founded:
There resounds in the soul's utterance,
There shines from the spirit's thoughts
Which from divine healing forces
In the cosmic-creative powers
Weave the mighty existential words:
O Man, know thyself!
Whoever can feel deeply enough the words which resound from the
Guardian's mouth, if he looks back upon himself, will realize
that this looking back, the perception in looking back,
constitutes the first stage of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge
which is preparatory for the true self-knowledge which reveals
spiritual cosmic knowledge of the being which is one with our
own humanity. And then the knowledge arises which one can
obtain on this side of the threshold of spiritual existence,
knowledge which reveals the contamination in our own thinking,
feeling and willing in terrible but true images; as three
beasts arising from the yawning abyss between the sense-world
and the spirit-world.
What we should feel at the abyss of being between the maya, the
illusion, and the real world, should appear before our souls as
the fourth sensation.
Yet
you must beware of the abyss;
Otherwise its beasts will devour
You, if you pass by me in haste.
Your cosmic age has placed them there
In you as enemies of knowledge.
Behold the first beast, the crooked back
The bony head, the scrawny body,
His skin is all a dullish blue;
Your fear of creative spiritual being
Begat the monster in your will;
Knowledge bravery alone will overcome it.
We
must be quite clear, my dear friends, that bravery in acquiring
knowledge is not present at first in the soul, but cowardice
for acquiring knowledge is what dominates. Especially in our
time that cowardice is what holds back most people from even
approaching an insight into the spiritual world.
Behold
the second beast, it bares
Its teeth in a warped face, scornfully it lies,
Yellow with gray spots is its body;
Your hate of spiritual revelation
Begat this weakling in your feeling;
Your burning thirst for knowledge must subdue him.
That is the second thing that we have within us - which plants
doubt in our soul, every kind of uncertainty about the
spiritual world. It is inherent in feeling, because feeling is
weak and cannot rise to enthusiasm. True knowledge must outgrow
superficial enthusiasm which trails all kinds of cheap external
life. Inner enthusiasm, inner fire which becomes a burning
thirst for knowledge; that is what overcomes the second
beast.
Behold
the third beast, with cloven muzzle,
Its eye is glassy, posture slouching,
Dirty-red its form appears to you;
Your doubts in the power of spiritual light
Begat this ghost within your thinking;
Your creative knowledge must make it yield.
We
must find the courage and the fire to bring activity to our
thinking. When we create with ordinary consciousness we create
arbitrarily, we create what is not real. When, however, we
correctly prepare ourselves for creative thinking, the
spiritual world streams into our creative thinking. And then,
due to knowledge-bravery, to a burning thirst for knowledge and
to creative knowledge, we are truly standing in the spiritual
world.
Only
When you have overcome all three
Will wings sprout from your soul
To fly the abyss over,
Which separates you from the knowledge fields
To which your heart desires
To consecrate itself in healing.
Such sensations can lead to feeling what we must activate in
ourselves in order to enter the spiritual world as genuine,
living human beings. In ordinary life it is often the most
banal things which cause us to realize that life is serious and
not a mere game. But what leads to knowledge does not impress
us as much as exterior life does. It is all too easily made a
game. And one is convinced that the game is in earnest. But one
harms one's self and others greatly by playing at spiritual
striving, by not being completely earnest about it.
This earnestness should not be expressed as sentimentality.
Humor may be called for with respect to some aspects of life.
But the humor must then be serious. When we compare earnestness
with mere game-playing, it is not sentimentality, false piety
or the rolling of eyes as opposed to games. Rather is it the
possibility of really concentrating on spiritual striving and
consistently and wholeheartedly living in it.
In
order to sense the importance of what I am saying, my dear
friends, it would be really good for spiritual striving if all
the friends who are sitting here - especially those who have
been in the Anthroposophical Society for a long time - to ask
themselves the following question: How often have I resolved to
undertake some task related to anthroposophical life, and how
often have I completely forgotten about it after a short time?
Perhaps I would have done it if I had thought about it, but I
did not think about it any more. It was extinguished, just as a
dream is extinguished.
It
is neither meaningless nor unimportant to ask yourselves such a
question. And perhaps it would not be unimportant if a large
number of our friends were to undertake something in this
direction now.
The
Christmas Conference [1923] was to be the beginning of true
esotericism pouring into the entire anthroposophical worldview
stream, supported by the Anthroposophical Society. How often -
one can ask - have I forgotten what I found to be quite
beautiful during the Christmas Conference and in my thoughts
and feelings continued as though the Anthroposophical Society
were the same as it was before the Christmas Conference. And if
someone says: that is not the case with me, it could be quite
important for that person to ask himself: Am I fooling myself
to think it is not the case with me? In respect to all
anthroposophical activity have I realized that a new phase of
the Anthroposophical Society has begun? To ask this question is
very significant, for then the correct earnestness enters the
soul.
And
you see, this is connected to the life-blood of the
Anthroposophical Society and therefore to the life-blood of
every member who has requested acceptance in the Class; and it
is good if it relates to something which exerts a strong
influence in life. Therefore it would be good if all those who
wish to belong to the Class ask themselves: Isn't there
something I can do - now that the Anthroposophical Society has
been re-founded - do differently than previously. Couldn't I
introduce something new into my life as an anthroposophist?
Couldn't I change the way I acted previously by introducing
something new?
That would be enormously important, if taken seriously, for
every individual who belongs to the Class. For thereby it would
be possible for the Class to continue without being burdened by
such heavy baggage. For everyone who keeps to the old humdrum
routine burdens the progress of the Class. It is perhaps not
noticeable, but true nevertheless. In esoteric life there is no
possibility of introducing what is so prevalent in life:
interpreting lies as truth. If one tries to do this in esoteric
life it is not the interpretation which matters, but the truth.
In esoteric life only the truth works, nothing else. You may
color something because of vanity, but what has been colored
makes no impression on the spiritual world. The unvarnished
truth is what is effective in the spiritual world.
From all this you can judge how different spiritual realities
are - which under the surface of life work today as always -
from what everyday life shows, patched up as it is with so many
lies. Very little of what passes today between people is true.
To continually remind ourselves of this belongs to the
beginning of work within the Class. For only with this notion
can we find the strength to cooperate here in the Class with
what will be unfolded in our souls from lesson to lesson in
order that we may find the path to the spiritual world.
For
we will only be able to recognize what must be cultivated in
our thinking, feeling and willing in order for the three beasts
to be defeated: thinking, the thought - phantom; feeling -
mockery; willing - the bony crookedness of spirit. For these
three beasts are the enemies of knowledge. We see them in the
mirror, but as realities from the yawning abyss of being.
And
deeply rooted with our humanity is everything which hinders us
from real knowledge, firstly in our thinking. Normal human
thinking is reflected in the thought-phantom of the first
beast, the form of which was described thus:
Behold
the third beast, with cloven muzzle,
Its eye is glassy, posture slouching,
Dirty-red its form appears to you;
It
is the image of ordinary human thinking which thinks about
things of the outside world and doesn't realize that such
thinking is a corpse. Where did the being live whose corpse
this ordinary thinking is?
Yes, my dear friends, nowadays - in accordance with
contemporary civilization - when thinking from waking in the
morning till retiring at night according to the guidance given
us in school and in life itself, our thinking is a corpse. It
is dead. When did it live, and where?
It
lived before we were born; it lived when our souls were in
pre-earthly existence. Just as you imagine, dear friends, that
the human being lives on the physical earth animated by his
soul within and he goes around in this physical body until his
death, when the animating soul is invisible to external
observation and the corpse is visible - the dead form of the
human figure. You must imagine this related to thinking. A
living, organic, growing, moving being possessed it before the
human being entered into earthly existence. Then it becomes a
corpse buried in our own heads, in our brains. And just as if a
corpse in the tomb were to declare: I am the man! so declares
our thinking when it lies buried in the brain as a corpse and
thinks about the external things of the world. It is a corpse.
It is perhaps depressing to realize that it is a corpse, but it
is true, and esoteric knowledge must hold to the truth.
That is the meaning of the Guardian of the Threshold's words.
After he has described the warning of the three beasts, he
continues. And the words which resound in our hearts are
these:
The
third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.
I
will repeat it:
The
third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.
Thinking, with which we achieve so much here in the
sense-world, for the gods of the cosmos is the corpse of our
soul's being. By entering into an earthly existence we have
died in thinking during this time on earth. The death of
thinking had gradually been preparing itself since the year 333
A.D. The middle of the fourth post-Atlantean period. Before
that life had poured into thinking, which was the heritage of
pre-earthly existence. The Greeks felt that vitality, as did
the Orientals, in that they thought of thinking as being the
work of the spirit, of the gods. They knew, in that they
thought, that in every thought the god lived. That has been
lost. Thinking has become dead. And we must heed the message of
the times that reaches us through the Guardian:
Yet
you must beware of the abyss;
Otherwise your beasts will consume you
If you hastily pass me by;
Your cosmic age has put them in
You, as enemies of knowledge.
This cosmic age began in the year 333 after Christianity began,
after the first third of the fourth century had passed. And now
thinking, devoid of the force of life, is clearly present in
everything. And the dead thinking of the nineteenth century
forced dead materialism to the surface of human
civilization.
It
is different with feeling. The greatest enemy of humanity,
Ahriman, has not yet been able to kill feeling in the same way
he killed thinking. Feeling also lives in human beings in the
present cosmic age. But man has to a great extent driven this
feeling down from full consciousness into the halfway
unconscious. Feeling arises in the soul. Who has it in his
power, as he has thinking in his power? To whom is it clear
what lives in feeling as it is clear to him what lives in
thinking?
Take one of the saddest - to the spirit saddest - occurrences
of our times, my dear friends. When people think clearly they
are citizens of the world, for they well know that thinking
makes you human, even when it is dead in the present age.
But
people are separated by their feeling into nations, and
especially today they let this unconscious feeling dominate in
the worst possible way. Because people feel themselves as only
belonging to a certain group, all kinds of conflicts arise.
Nevertheless, world karma places us in a certain human group,
and it is our feeling that acts as an instrument of world karma
when we are placed in this tribe, in that class, in that
nation. It is not through thinking that we are so placed.
Thinking, if it is not colored by feeling and willing, is the
same thinking everywhere. Feeling, however, is graduated
according to the different regions of the world. Feeling lies
halfway in the unconscious, alive yes, but in the unconscious.
Therefore the ahrimanic spirit, unable to exert influence on
the living part, uses the opportunity to agitate in the
unconscious. And he concentrates this agitation on the
confusion between truth and error. All our prejudices based on
feeling are colored by ahrimanic influences and impulses.
If
we want to enter the spiritual world this feeling must rise up
before our souls. We must be able to include feeling in the
development of knowledge. Through constant review of our own
being, we must be able to know what kind of persons we are as
feeling human beings. This is not easy. With thinking it is
relatively easy to achieve clarity about ourselves. We don't
always do it, but it is still easier to admit: you are not
exactly a genius, or you lack clear thinking about this or
that. At the most, it is either vanity or opportunism which
prevents us from achieving clarity about our thinking.
But
with feeling we never really get to the point of observing
ourselves in our souls. We are always convinced that the
direction of our feeling is the correct one. We must delve most
intimately into our souls if we wish to know ourselves as
feeling human beings. Only by facing ourselves directly with
complete conscientiousness do we lift ourselves up, do we lift
ourselves up over the obstacles which the second beast places
before us on the path to the spiritual world.
Otherwise, if we do not occasionally practice this
self-knowledge as feeling human beings, then we will always
develop a mocking countenance with respect to the spiritual
world. Because we are not conscious of our ailing feeling
capacity, we are also unconscious of being mockers of the
spiritual world. We disguise the mockery in all possible forms,
but we are still mocking the spiritual world. And it is just
those, of whom I spoke previously, who lack earnestness, who
are the scoffers. They are sometimes embarrassed to express the
mockery even to themselves, but they are still mocking the
spiritual world. For how can one lack seriousness regarding the
spiritual world, playing games about it, without mocking it. To
such as they the Guardian speaks:
The
second beast's mocking countenance
Is the evil counter-force of feeling,
Which hollows out its own soul
And creates an empty life
Instead of fullness of spirit
With light from the force of the sun
Before earthly existence.
The
first beast is the reflection of our will. The will does not
only dream, it does not lie only half in the unconscious; it
lies completely in the unconscious.
I
have often described to you, my dear friends, how the will lies
deep in the unconscious. And deep in the unconscious is where
man seeks the paths of his karma, at least for ordinary
consciousness. Every step that a person takes in life related
to karma is measured. But he knows nothing about it. It is all
unconscious. Previous earth-lives work forcefully into his
karma. Karma leads us to our life's crises, to our decisions,
to our doubts. Here we meet the individual's aberrations, the
person who lives only for himself, and seeks only his own way.
In thinking: one seeks the path which all men seek. In feeling:
one seeks the path which his group seeks. In feeling we
recognize if someone is from the north, from the west or the
south, from eastern, southern or central Europe. One must
concentrate on the will's unconscious impulses in order to see
another human being as a single individual, rather than merely
a human being in general or a member of a group. This is an act
of will - but also deep in the unconscious. The first beast
shows the aberrations of the will.
The
Guardian reminds us:
The
first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods.
In
our willing work the spiritual powers which want to strip our
bodies from us during our earthly existence and therewith take
a portion of our souls with it, in order to build an earth
which does not continue to develop as Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan.
Rather the earth is to be sundered from divine intentions and
stolen at some point in the future. Together with the earth
stolen from the gods, the human being would be united with
certain powers which work in his will ... the same will through
which he seeks his karma.
The
first beast is surely capable of revealing in a mirror-image
what is working in the will: bony head, dried-out body with
dull blue skin, the crooked back. It is the Ahrimanic spirit,
which acts in the will when karma is being sought and which can
only be overcome by the courage of knowledge. So the Guardian
of the Threshold speaks about this beast as I have just
described.
I
will read it again:
The
first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods.
In
these words from the Guardian of the Threshold's mouth resound
further the warning to the human being seeking knowledge and
insight.
Let
the following words live most intensively in our souls, my dear
friends, and let us listen often to the Guardian's words:
The
third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.
Once again, you must grasp the concordance in these verses
[The
first stanza of this mantram is written on the blackboard:]
The
third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.
At
first we feel what each stanza contains.
The
second stanza refers to feeling:
[The second stanza is written on the blackboard.]
The
second beast's mocking countenance
Is the evil counter-force ...
[counter-“force”, no longer “part”, but
“force”!] ... of feeling,
Which hollows out its own soul
And creates an empty life
Instead of fullness of spirit
With light from the force of the sun
Before earthly existence.
Now
we feel first: “denies”, and then “hollows
out” and feel the nuance that enters into the verses by
“denies” becoming “hollows out”.
The
Guardian's words directed to willing:
The
first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods.
This third stanza is written on the blackboard:
The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
[Now no longer “image” or “force”, but
“power”. You must feel the escalation.]
Which would estrange your own body
[and now you have here the escalation: first the intellectual:
“denies”; then instigation in inner life:
“hollows out”: then what completely eliminates
inner life: “estrange”.]
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods.
Note that in all three stanzas the word “evil”
echoes. [The word is underlined.] And if you observe and feel
the critical points in the escalations and in the difference
between thinking, feeling and willing [the words are
underlined], and if you correctly sense how all three are
united by the always recurring word “evil”, then,
my dear friends, each stanza will become a mantram for you,
according to its inner meaning. And they can become a guide on
the three stages to the spiritual world - that of the third
beast, of the second beast and of the first beast. And if you
never omit these three concordances and never fail to unite the
three by the one decisive word towards an inner soul- then they
will become your guide, my dear friends, on the path past the
Guardian of the Threshold and into the spiritual world.
We
will get to know him better in the following lessons.
The
third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.
The second beast's mocking countenance
Is the evil counter-force of feeling,
Which hollows out its own soul
And creates an empty life
Instead of fullness of spirit
With light from the force of the sun
Before earthly existence.
The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods.
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