The First Goetheanum
by
Rudolf Steiner
Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith
Lesson Four
Dornach, March 7, 1924
My
dear friends,
In
the previous lessons, we were concerned with meeting the
Guardian of the Threshold. And we must understand this meeting
well, to the extent that its earnestness can really occupy our
minds. For here we enter an area which is essentially different
from other areas of spiritual life, what is called
spiritual life by today's civilization, that is. The encounter
with the Guardian of the Threshold is the first thing one
experiences when a relationship with the spiritual world truly
and earnestly takes place. A relationship with the spiritual
world cannot take place without this understanding of the
meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold, because the
spiritual world is on the other side of this threshold. So when
communications are received from the spiritual world, they
should be understood as merely in preparation for a
relationship with the spiritual world.
As
an example of what we will receive today, my dear friends, I
would like to tell you a story taken from ancient esoteric
tradition.
Once upon a time a student was accepted into the mysteries. He
completed the preliminary stages. And when he had achieved a
certain stage of maturity - not that he became what most people
nowadays consider clairvoyant, but he entered into a
relationship with the spiritual world, the relationship where,
as far as feeling is concerned, one correctly receives
communications from the spiritual world - the teacher said to
him:
Behold, when I talk to you the words I speak are not human
words; what I have to say is merely clothed in human words.
What I have to say to you are the gods' thoughts, and these
gods' thoughts are imparted to you by human words. But it must
be clear to you that I am thus appealing to everything in your
soul. You must meet the words which I direct to you on behalf
of the gods with all your thinking, all your feeling, all your
willing. You must receive these words with all your soul's
enthusiasm, all its inner warmth, all its inner fire. You must
receive them with total alertness, to the limit of your mind's
capacity.
But
there is one soul-force in you to which I am not appealing.
Your memory. And I will be satisfied if you do not hold in your
memory what I am now saying to you. I will be satisfied if
tomorrow you forget what I have said today. Because what you
usually call your memory, and what others call your memory, is
only meant for earthly things, and not for godly things. So,
when you appear before me again tomorrow, and when I again
speak to you, appealing to your thinking, feeling, willing, and
to all your enthusiasm, all your warmth, all your inner fire,
to your mind's alertness, then these soul forces will be
renewed for what is to be received. Everything should be new
and freshly vital the next day, and the day after, and every
day.
I
said that I do not appeal to your memory, to your capacity for
remembering. That does not mean that tomorrow you should
remember nothing of what is said to you today. But you should
not preserve it in your memory alone. You should wait and see
what your memory makes of it. What should lead you to me
tomorrow in a new attitude, however, should be your feelings,
the innermost feelings of your soul; they should preserve what
is said to you today. For you see, memory, that capacity for
remembrance, is for learning. What the esoteric has to say,
however, is not merely for learning, but for life, and every
time it approaches you it should be relived without the help of
memory's concepts. [Although there is no indication in the
original, this appears to be the end of the story. Trans.]
It
is in fact true that whenever we are dealing with esoteric
truths we should not think: Oh, I know that already. For the
essence of the esoteric does not lie in knowledge, but in
direct experience. And inwardly, in deeper levels of our souls
than where memory has its roots, is where we should grasp and
retain the esoteric.
If
you reflect on this, my dear friends, it will be of great help
in understanding true esoteric life as we continue. For what
must be taken seriously is that in the moment that we accept
the esoteric, our very understanding of it brings about a
different relationship of thinking, feeling and willing in us
than our everyday consciousness is accustomed to.
For
everyday consciousness, thinking, feeling and willing are bound
together. A trivial example may be used to demonstrate how
closely bound together thinking, feeling and willing are in
normal consciousness. Let's say you know someone, anyone, with
whom you had an intimate or a more distant relationship. The
things you experienced with him or her have been retained in
your memory and permeate your feelings. When you are together
with her these things lead you to certain actions in your
behavior towards her. You go on in life with such thoughts and
feelings. One day someone reminds you of this person, says
something about her and your memory is stimulated. If you had
loved her, your love is recalled; if you hated her, your hate
is recalled. If you had wanted to undertake something together
with her, this is also recalled. You cannot separate what you
feel and will towards this person with what you think about
her. [In German, the gender of this person is not specified; it
is immaterial. Trans.]
With this kind of attitude it is not possible to understand
esoteric truths correctly. Such truths can only be understood
correctly when, for example, the following happens. You know
someone with whom you have a certain relationship. Certain
aspects of this person are most antipathetic to you. When you
are reminded of this person, you can think of her without the
antipathy arising. You can simply think about her.
It
is quite difficult, my dear friends, to just think about your
enemy without letting the animosity towards him arise. One can
practice this with a correct grasp of art. You could ask
yourself: Am I able to exclusively think about certain
despicable characters in Shakespeare's works? If I were to meet
such characters in real life, I would feel great antipathy
towards them. When artistically presented, however, I can
regard them objectively, perhaps just because they are
such excellent villains. This is possible in the artistic area,
for people do not always feel the urge to jump across the
footlights and throttle these Shakespearean villains. It is
possible to separate thinking from feeling in the artistic
area.
But
in order to be a true esotericist one must also be able to do
so in real life. At the moment when something derived from the
esoteric is said, it must be possible to separate thinking from
feeling in this way in order for it to be absorbed by the soul.
For they do not separate on their own. At first when we think
esoteric things, they are so strongly present within the
thoughts, and they are so distant from personal feelings, that
we do not understand them if we do not use pure thinking to do
so. So if we do not wish to listen to the esoteric like couch
potatoes and let everything pass over us with indifference, we
must develop feelings and will-impulses apart from those
engendered through thinking. Such feelings should be developed
in order that the esoteric not remain a cold, icy field, which
merely pours through our understanding, when it should immerse
us in the brightest enthusiasm. But this enthusiasm, this world
of feeling, must come from somewhere else if it does not come
from thinking.
For
you see, if we want to make our feelings warm in the right way,
we must be clear about the fact that when one speaks correctly
from out of the esoteric, he is speaking from the godly sphere
and therefore our feelings do not encounter thoughts, but
realities.
That is why when I gave the first lesson I said that it is the
School that speaks here, that is, the true spirit which goes
through the School, and that it is necessary to realize that
the School has not been born of some personal intention, but
that it has been willed and instated by the spiritual world. If
we see it in this way, the School's existence will give us the
enthusiasm we need.
And
then we will understand something else. Yes, my dear friends,
in ordinary life and in ordinary science, we are spoken to in
words. And when we understand the words, the thoughts they are
meant to express come to us because they are contained in the
words. The esotericist must also use words, for he must speak.
But he uses words only as a means to show how the spirit flows
toward us in streams and seeks to pour itself into human
hearts.
Therefore, it is necessary that in an Esoteric School a sense
is gradually developed to hear beyond the words. And when this
sense has been developed it will be possible to acquire - in
respect to the esoteric - what has been called in esoteric
streams of all times with an attitude of holiness: silence
- the silence which preserves holiness. And this
holiness-preserving silence is connected with something else,
without which the esoteric can not further humanity. It is
connected with innermost humility. And without this innermost
humility it is not possible to approach the esoteric. Why?
Well, when we are exhorted to hear beyond the words, it is an
appeal to the innermost essence of our souls, not to our
memory. Then our capacity comes into play, to what extent we
are capable of hearing beyond the words. And it is good for our
souls to hear much. But we should not jump to the conclusion
that what dawns in our souls as a result is necessarily valid
and should be relayed to the world. We will need much time,
even when we hear beyond the words, before we come to terms
with ourselves. We should develop the idea that the esoteric
must first live and weave wordlessly in the soul before it can
be considered to be mature enough.
Therefore, in the esoteric we must go back from what words mean
in ordinary life to the deeper understanding in the soul. And
that is what I did in the last lesson, my dear friends, when I
provided mantric verses for you, in which scanning is used. The
first verse had a trochaic rhythm, the second an iambic rhythm
and the third a spondaic rhythm. We should feel as though we
were descending from the mountain into the valley with the
trochaic rhythm, and we should understand how this rhythm,
which pertains to thinking, can by grasped only when we feel
this descent within the soul. That is why this verse is
trochaic, beginning with a stressed syllable and descending to
an unstressed one. It was meant to instill in us a kind of
psychic blood circulation in spiritual space. We don't just
stand still when such mantras penetrate our souls, or voice
certain thoughts, but we move together with the spiritual
movement of the cosmos, in that human thoughts weave into human
souls. So we learned the first verse, which is related to
thinking:
See in
yourself the weaving thoughts:
Cosmic semblances confront you,
Selfhood as such hides from you;
Plunge beneath the semblances:
Etheric essence flows in you;
Selfhood as such should revere
Guiding beings of your spirit.
Yes, the gods have raised us to themselves by giving us
thoughts. And we descend from the peaks upon which the gods
have placed us down into the valleys, where we encompass and
grasp earthly things with these thoughts.
It
is different with feeling. We act correctly if, standing below
in the valley, we wish to ascend with our feelings on a
spiritual ladder to the gods. Feeling puts us in the opposite
wave movement: from below to above. Therefore, the mantric
verse has an iambic rhythm. It begins with an unstressed
syllable and rises to a stressed one. We should feel it:
Do
hear within the flow of feeling:
When semblance and being within you blend,
Your selfhood tends towards the semblance;
So plunge into what's seemingly being:
In you the cosmic-psychic forces live;
Your selfhood then should well consider
Your soul's own vital powers.
And
it's again different when we come to the will. To do so, we
must be aware that our humanity is split within us. Then we
must move close to the gods in feeling and, halfway there,
through feeling's strength give birth to the will-impulse. That
is only possible if we meditate in the spondaic, beginning with
two stressed syllables:
Let
strive in you with thrust of will:
What rises out of semblance-being
With creative self it rises up;
Turn life in full to this
Filled with cosmic-spirit-force;
Your inner self should truly grasp
Creative cosmic power in the spirit-I.
As
I said last time, it is not a question of understanding the
meaning of words, but that we also grasp what lies in the
words' movements and that our souls enter into that movement.
In that way, we no longer depend only on ourselves, but we grow
into the universe.
Words whose meanings alone are grasped leave us unto ourselves.
When the esoteric is concerned, however, it is a matter of
growing together with the world, that we more and more come out
of ourselves. For only so, by coming out of ourselves, are we
able to withstand the separation of thinking, feeling and
willing. Within ourselves, our corporeal “I” holds
thinking, feeling and willing together for everyday
consciousness. Outside, they must be held together by the gods.
For this, however, we must enter the divine being. And we must
grow together with the world. We must learn to develop a sense
through which we can say to ourselves in all honesty and
earnestness: Here I have my hand; I contemplate it. Over there
stands a tree; I contemplate it. I contemplate my hand: it is
I. I contemplate the tree: it is I. I contemplate the cloud: it
is I. I contemplate the rainbow: it is I. I contemplate the
thunder: it is I. I contemplate the lightning: it is I. I feel
myself one with the world.
Abstractly, meaning dishonestly, this is easy to achieve.
Concretely, meaning honestly, one must overcome many inner
aspects. If, however, one does not shy away from overcoming
these things, the desired goal will be achieved. For the
question the esotericist must ask himself is: I contemplate my
hand; it belongs to me. What would my life - which began a few
decades ago - have become if I didn't have the hand? It is
necessary for all I have become. But the tree: it is as it
stands before us today - its conception originally from the
Ancient Moon - grown out of the whole earth organism. What was
present in the Ancient Moon organism could not have existed had
the conception of the tree not been developed. But at that time
the conception of my thinking also arose. If the tree didn't
exist, I would not be thinking today. My hand is only necessary
for my present earthly existence. The tree is necessary in
order that I can be a thinking being. Why should the hand be
worth more to me than the tree? Why should I reckon the hand
more to my physicality than the tree? Little by little I am
able to realize that what I call the outer world is much more
my inner world than what I considered to be the interior of my
physicality in this incarnation. To feel this deeply and
sincerely must be learned.
So
today we will consider three verses, mantric verses, through
which this feeling-one with the whole so-called
“outer being” can gradually penetrate deeply into
the soul.
What is our attitude initially towards outer being? We look
down at the earth. We feel dependent on this earth; it gives us
what we need to live. We look into space. The sun rises in the
morning; it goes down in the evening; its light streams across
the earth; it comes from afar, it goes afar. We look up at
night: the heavenly sky speaks mysteriously to us. In this
threefold gaze our relationship to the world is determined. I
look downward, I look out afar, I look upward. But let us do
this with intensive consciousness, let us do it as indicated in
the following mantric verses:
Feel
how the earth's depths
Press its forces in your being,
In the members of your body.
You lose yourself in them,
If you entrust powerless
Your will to their striving.
Darkly eclipsed will be your I.
[These lines are written on the blackboard.]
Feel how the earth's depths
Press its forces in your being,
In the members of your body.
You lose yourself in them,
- in
the forces -
If
you entrust powerless
Your will to their striving.
Darkly eclipsed will be your I.
You
see, my dear friends, we do not consciously relate what binds
us to the earth with our own humanity. We look down at the
earth, knowing that crystals are formed in it, knowing that it
moves through space, that it exerts a force of gravity, that it
attracts the stone that falls to earth, knowing that it
attracts even us. We think about all this. What we don't think
about are the urges, instincts, cravings and passions that live
in us, what we ascribe to lower human nature, and which also
belong to the earth. When we look down and ask what the earth
causes in us, we should remember: something exists in us,
created by the earth, which would drag us down below the human
level, which would darken our I, which would push us into the
subhuman region. We must be aware that we are so bound to the
earth that, despite all its beauty and majesty that spreads
over its surface, for us humans the downward force is at the
same time a sub-humanizing force. By honestly recognizing this
we develop into true human beings.
Then we will be able to not only look downward in our
development, but also to look afar in the distance at our own
height and to see what surrounds the earth on all sides and
describes our humanity within a circle. Thus, something begins
physically, which to a certain extent lifts us above the
downward pulling earthly forces. Through the downward pulling
earthly forces man can become evil; but not so easily through
the breath, which also belongs to what encircles the earth. And
even less through the light which the sun lets encircle the
earth. We consider breath and light as things that have no
spiritual importance. But gods live in breath and light. And we
must be aware that godly forces are especially active in light
and, because they pass through us humans, act differently than
the deep earthly forces.
This brings the second mantric verse to our consciousness:
Feel how from cosmic distance
Godly forces let their spirit-light
Shine into your psychic being.
Find yourself in them loving,
And they creating, wisdom weaving
You as self in their circles
Strong for spiritual works of good.
We
are not always aware that we can love what flows over our earth
as light, be it sunlight or starlight. But we are aware that we
can love the sunlight, love it as warmly as a friend, then we
also learn how gods in garments of light circle round the
earth. Then the opinion that sunlight is merely what
illuminates the earth changes for good; sunlight becomes the
garment of the gods. And the gods wander over the earth in
shining garments. And what we experience from the light becomes
wisdom. The gods bring their wisdom to our hearts, into our
souls. And now, because of this differentiation in feelings, we
have ascended higher.
First, we developed the appropriate feelings in respect to the
deep earthly forces. We sensed correctly the part of our
humanity that belongs to the deep earthly forces. Then we
raised ourselves to that higher part of our humanity which
belongs to the godly beings in shining garments moving over the
earth, who do not wish to leave man in the earthly sphere but,
even while he is walks on the earth, raise him to their
spheres, so that when he passes through the gates of death, he
can continue to walk in them. For the gods do not want to leave
us alone on earth, but want to bring us into their spheres.
They want to make us into beings who live among them. The deep
earth forces want to separate us from the godly forces.
Therefore, a previous mantra communicated to you:
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.
We
must, however, also feel this when we are in the world and feel
ourselves to be one with the world.
But
we have not yet reached our full humanity in consciousness if
we cannot look upward. We must gaze into the depths, we must
gaze into the distance, we must gaze into the heights. From
everyday consciousness which mixes the depth, the distant and
the height, we must differentiate depth-consciousness,
distant-consciousness, height-consciousness.
[The third verse is written on the blackboard.]
Feel how in heaven's heights
Selfhood can selflessly exist
We
can feel that we are gazing up into the heights with full
consciousness. Think, my dear friends, about standing outside
in a field looking up at a star-bedecked sky. It becomes
clearer when we have the opportunity to choose; it can also
happen in daylight, but it is clearer at night. We feel at one
with the world; we feel: that is you. But the point on earth we
stand on, which we consider to be so important that it only
encompasses our individual self, dissolves when we gaze up into
space. It expands to the hemisphere. If we do this in the right
way, then narrow selfhood ends and becomes selfless, for it is
infinitely expanded in the heights of space:
Feel
how in heaven's heights
Selfhood can selflessly exist,
[writing continues.]
If
spirit-filled force of thought
Follows striving in the heights
Who
really feels how the gods in shining garments move around the
earth with the steaming sunlight and with every breath breathes
in and breathes out of the human soul, and who gazes skywards
feeling selfless in his selfhood, is soon able to also develop
the distance of space within. The following lines are
pertinent:
Feel
how in heaven's heights
Selfhood can selflessly exist,
If spirit-filled force of thought
Follows striving in the heights
[writing continues.]
And
with courage hears the words
Gracefully intoning from above
Into man's genuine being.
The
heights are speaking. And just as we can grow in love together
with the gods who move around the earth in shining garments, we
can also grow together with the words resounding from the
heights, if we develop the capacity to strive together with the
forces of thinking in the heavenly heights.
But, my dear friends, you will only be able to correctly
achieve these inner feelings, which convert your consciousness
to a depth, spatial and heights-consciousness, if you make the
corresponding verses [about the third, second and first beasts]
so deep and visible for your souls as contrasted with these
verses [the three verses on the blackboard].
You
come before the Guardian of the Threshold. Living
thought-images about it should be active in your minds. The
Guardian of the Threshold shows you the third beast of which we
spoke in the previous lesson. What this beast characterizes
resounds within you:
The
third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counterpart
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived its life in fields of spirit.
It
is what draws us downward. We escape from it by saying with
inner courage:
Feel
how the earth's depths
Press its forces in your being,
In the members of your body.
You lose yourself in them,
If you entrust powerless
Your will to their striving.
Darkly eclipsed will be your I.
At
first glance there seems to be little difference between
looking at the beast and what liberates you from it. Both
mantras sound similar in that they both characterize the
drawing under, except that one specifically describes the
beast, while the other indicates watchfulness.
But
let us go on to the second beast and take what rescues us from
it; place both mantric verses alongside each other: the mood is
completely different. In one the gruesome description of the
second beast, in the other an appeal to the gods who approach
us in shining garments. And we hear these two mantric verses
alongside each other, how different their styles are:
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 your earthly existence.
Feel how from cosmic distance
Godly forces let their spirit-light
Shine into your psychic being.
Find yourself in them loving,
And they creating, wisdom weaving
You as self within their circles
Strong for spiritual works of good.
Because we begin by describing the third beast, we must place
ourselves, as in this mantric verse [Feel how the earth's
depths ...], next to the third beast. At first we can not free
ourselves, we are only prompted to be aware of where the beast
wants to lead us. When we turn to the second beast, and the
helping mantric verse [Feel how from cosmic distance ...], the
verse is already able to lead us far away from the beast whose
ghastliness is characterized by its mocking face.
And
when we approach the first beast, which wants to hinder us from
hallowing our humanity by gazing up to the heavenly heights,
and how we can escape in our innermost being from this beast,
if we turn to the mantric verse which leads us upwards to the
heavenly heights:
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.
And
yet: As though we wished to burn up all that this verse says
and lift ourselves up in flame, the other verse exists -
comforter and grace-giving as opposed to what the first beast
is, by means of our own courageous soul-force:
Feel
how in heaven's heights
Selfhood can selflessly exist,
If spirit-filled force of thought
Follows striving in the heights
And with courage hears the words
Gracefully intoning from above
Into man's genuine being.
You
see, the last time we saw that we practice an inner rhythm when
we integrate our own being into the shining light-being of the
world, so today we must recognize how the esoteric things which
we are learning have an inner connection, so that we must
always go back to the previous elements - not only in respect
to the meaning of the words, which remain earthly, but to the
inner disposition. And this disposition, this mood, comes both
from the whole and from the details.
Take for example the first verse: “Feel how the earth's
depths”. Here we are directed to the earth's depths. And
the other verse directs us to “ The third beast's glassy
eye”. They belong together.
In
the second verse “Feel how from cosmic distance”:
We feel how the gods approach in shining garments. Here we are
raised up - if we can really feel it - and away from what mocks
the divine in the world. “The second beast's mocking
countenance” is truly wiped away by radiant sunshine, if
we wish to grasp “radiant sunshine”
spiritually.
And
the third verse, which begins: “The first beast's bony
spirit” ossifies us. We become warm if we are freed from
the ossification by gazing at the heavenly heights. So we can
also say:
When you see the third beast's glassy eye, stand firm and feel
what the earth's depths want from you.
When you see the second beast's mocking face, lovingly receive
the sunlight.
When you feel ossified by the first beast's bony spirit, warm
yourself as a human being by raising your heart warmly to
heaven's heights.
Thus we shall gradually feel our way into spiritual life, and
this spiritual life will grow ever more closely related to our
soul.
*
My
dear friends, it is necessary to add something, because the
School must be taken seriously, and what I said that Wednesday
about its conditions must be taken seriously. So I have been
obliged to withdraw the membership card from a person who, by
neglecting to do what is necessary on duty here, could have
caused a great misfortune. I mention this here because I wish
to show that the intentions indicated during the Christmas
Meeting must be taken seriously. And I request that in the
future this should not be understood as a mere manner of
speaking, if the fact that this Esoteric School is desired in
all earnestness by the spiritual world is deemed valid, and in
the moment when someone does not want to be a representative of
the anthroposophical movement in the right way, the School must
reserve the right to withdraw his membership card. I wish to
indicate in all earnestness that the membership card had to be
withdrawn from a person - at least for a period of time, until
that person shows by his attitude that the opposite is the
case. We will grow into the School in the right way if we
reject all the flippant views about the anthroposophical
movement which have brought so much mischief into the movement.
We must grow into the esoteric in full earnestness. And I must
say here again that what was meant in the Christmas Meeting has
not been understood by everyone. But the School's leadership
will be alert and will take the School seriously. Let us bear
this in mind as part of today's lesson.
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