The First Goetheanum
by
Rudolf Steiner
Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith
Lesson Ten
Dornach, April 25, 1924
My dear
friends,
For esoteric
development — the true path to knowledge — the
individual must find the way to understanding what it means to
live in a world in which the senses, the whole physical
organization, in not a facilitator; that is, to live with the
psychic-spiritual, which is man's true identity, in a spiritual
world. In order to do so there are many different more or less
meditative exercises, mental exertions meant to affect the
soul.
And to give
a picture of what a human soul can pass through on the way from
experiencing the physical sensory world to experiencing the
spiritual world is what will be provided in these class lessons
by means of the various considerations and the summarizing of
such considerations in individual verses, which may then be
meditated upon according to each member's possibilities and
needs.
Once a
certain time has passed the communications given in these class
lessons, which, as I have often stressed, are real
communications from the spiritual world, will coalesce in such
a way that those who have participated — it is also karma
for those who could be here — will have a complete
picture of the first stage of esoteric
development.
As a result
of the various indications which are given here we can
gradually rise above our earthly existence to an experience of
the cosmos, we can develop the feelings which carry us out into
those distant reaches of the universe from which the spiritual
comes to meet us. But as long as we confine ourselves to using
our senses and reason only in connection with the
sense-perceptible world which surrounds us, it will be
impossible for us to grasp what the spiritual world reveals as
the truth accessible to man.
You see my
dear friends, as I have often stressed, human common sense can
understand everything offered by anthroposophy, if it exerts
itself sufficiently and is free of prejudice. But it is just in
reference to this common sense where a touchstone exists
concerning whether or not someone is really destined by their
karma nowadays to participate in anthroposophy.
There are
two possibilities. One is that the person hears about
anthroposophical truths, lets them work on him and considers
them to be self-evident. It is obvious that everyone sitting
here today belongs to that group. For if someone who does not
belong to that group wishes to participate in a lesson as a
member, it would not be honest of them. And honesty is the most
important aspect of esoteric life — complete truthfulness
penetrating the human soul and spirit.
There is
another group of people who find what is presented by
anthroposophy to be fantastic, somehow belonging only to
visionaries. These people show by their behavior that they are
not able, according to their karma, to sufficiently separate
common sense from physicality and the senses to be able to
grasp sense-free truth, sense-free knowledge.
It is
therefore the extent to which common sense is bound to
corporeality or not which determines such a great divergence
between people. For if you honestly consider that you possess a
common sense which understands anthroposophy, then at the
moment it grasps anthroposophy honestly, it does so
independently of corporeality. And this healthy common sense
which grasps anthroposophy honestly is the beginning of
esoteric striving. And we should treasure the fact that healthy
common sense which understands anthroposophy is the beginning
of esoteric striving. It should not be overlooked. For when one
starts with this understanding through healthy common sense and
then follows the indications given in the appropriate schools,
one proceeds farther and farther along the esoteric path. You
can use whichever of the verses provided here which you
consider appropriate for you. But you should apply them
together with the indications as to how they relate to the
inner life of man.
Today I
would like to again provide an indication of how you can leave
the body — if only by means of so slight a jolt that you
don't even realize it.
We should
develop the ability to observe and study the minerals and
plants in our environment to the extent that we feel them
within — if only by means of thinking — and become
truly aware of how this earthly environment is related to us,
that due to our wearing a physical body we are directly related
to the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms around us. And
then we ask the question in all honesty: Why? Why did I absorb
the physical substances of the earth just by being born? Why do
I drag myself through life from birth till death in order to
end physical life once my organism is no longer able to process
its physical elements? We must deeply feel our relationship to
our physical environment starting from such a personal enigma.
Then, however, we will also feel more and more what the
starting point for esoteric life can be. Then we feel that in
physical earthly life we are blindly groping in the
dark.
And finally,
my dear sisters and brothers, consider the people of today who
have been placed in earthly life after birth and educated
according to the usual methods and called to this or that work
due to purely external circumstances. They do not understand
the relationship of this work to the totality of human
existence. Perhaps they do not know much more than that they
work in order to eat. They do not realize that in the plants
they eat cosmic forces from the distant boundaries of the
universe are present which pass through the human organism and
therefore in a certain sense undergo a cosmic evolution. Many
people today cannot even begin to glimpse this process due to
the materialism of the times. But to admit that by the mere
consideration of earthly relationships one stands spiritually
blind in life and lives in the dark — that is the
starting point for true esoteric development.
And then
change the direction of your gaze from what surrounds you on
the earth to the star-studded heaven — either in thought,
or if you really want to be affected by it, in reality. Behold
the planets, behold the stars, fill yourselves with the
infinite transcendence of what shines back to you from the
universe, and say to yourself: as human beings we are related
just as much to what radiates down from the universe as we are
to what surrounds us in the physical environment.
Then by
gazing up to the star-studded heaven, we really have the
feeling that we do not live in darkness, but that we are freed
from life in the darkness by rising with our soul-spiritual
being to the stars, rise to what the stars represent as
pictures in their constellations. And, you see, if we can
really enter meditating into this vision of the star-filled sky
it becomes a plenitude of imaginations. You know the old
pictures in which not only the constellations have been
painted, but in which they have been recapitulated symbolically
as animals. Not only the star group that is in Aries, or in
Taurus has been represented, but also the symbolic images of
the ram and the bull are included.
Today people
think: Well, it was arbitrary on the part of those ancient
inhabitants of the earth that just because the constellations
were so named that the corresponding pictures were added. But
that was not the case at all. In reality in ancient times the
shepherds in the fields did not merely gaze up at the
star-studded sky with physical eyes, but also in
dream-consciousness or sleep-consciousness out there with their
flocks they turned their souls with closed eyes towards outer
space. They did not see the constellations which physical eyes
see. But they actually perceived those pictures, those
imaginations which fill universal space — albeit somewhat
differently from what was later painted.
We can no
longer go back to what the simple shepherds experienced by
instinctive clairvoyance. But we can do something else. With
far greater thoughtfulness we can imagine ourselves into the
star-filled sky. We can feel the depth and at the same time the
awesome majesty of what radiates back to us. And gradually we
can come to a sense of veneration for what is expanding out
there in cosmic space. And the more ardent the veneration is
the more clearly can the experience be that the outer
sense-images of the stars disappear and the star-filled sky
becomes an Imagination for us. But only then, when the
star-filled sky becomes an Imagination for us, do we feel
ourselves carried away by our soul's vision.
You see,
still in Plato's time one felt something special about the
physical eye when it is observing. Plato himself described
seeing as follows: When I look at a person something leaves my
eye and encompasses him. People in ancient times sensed that
something streams out of the eye and encompasses the object.
The etheric streams out. Just as when I stretch out my hand and
grasp something I know that I am connected to my hand until
reaching the grasped object, so in the times of instinctive
clairvoyance people knew that something etheric goes out from
the eye and encompasses the thing looked at. Today people
think, well,the eye is here, the object seen is there. So the
object sends out ether-waves which drum against the eye and the
drumming is perceived by some kind of soul — about which
even the materialist talks about here, but without having any
idea of what it is. But that is not true. It is not a mere
impact on the person emanating from the object, but really also
an emanation of the person's inner etheric
substance.
And we
perceive our ether body as belonging to the universe when the
star-filled sky becomes for us the grand open page of the
universe on which the imaginative secrets of cosmic being are
written — if we are able to read it.
And then the
feeling comes to us: When you are here on earth you are in the
robust sense-perceptible reality. But you are blind, you live
in darkness. When you rise up with your sensibility then you
live in what otherwise only shines down to you from the distant
universe, and you live in the illusion of the distant universe.
But at the same time you take your own etheric being out into
the distant flooding stream of this illusionary
world.
And the
illusion ceases to be illusion. It cannot be a nothing if we
immerse ourselves in it. When we have this feeling — I
will draw it —.
We live as
blind people in the darkness of earthly existence, [white arc];
then we journey out into the distant universe [yellow rays], at
the end of which we can feel the cosmic Imaginations by means
of reverence for the brilliance of the stars [red
waves].
So now that
we have journeyed out we are together with our etheric being
within the imaginative cosmic web. If we can accomplish this,
then we are no longer in the physical body. We have traveled
through the etheric emptiness to experiencing the cosmic
Imaginations.
You see,
it's like when in the physical world someone writes something
down and, because we have learned to read, we read it. By being
out in the cosmos — the gods have written the cosmic
imaginations for us in the cosmos — when we arrive we see
the imaginations from the other side [arrows]. At first we live
here on the earth [inner circle]. Then we draw ourselves up to
the cosmic imaginations [outer wave-circle].
Yes, my dear
friends, my sisters and brothers, the zodiac speaks a
meaningful language when we do not observe it from the earth
— Arias, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo — but rather
when we encircle it from without. And it is a task of our
consciousness to encircle it from without. Then we begin to
read the cosmic secrets, which are the deeds of the spiritual
beings. In a novel we read of the deeds of men. When we look at
the zodiac from the other side and read what from the earth we
see virtually from behind, as Moses was told that he always had
to look at God from behind, that is, from the earth. Initiation
consists of seeing from the other side — not a matter of
gawking, but of reading. And what we read are the spiritual
deeds of the spiritual beings who brought it all
about.
And when we
have silently read long enough, when our souls have
concentrated deeply on this reading, then we begin to hear in a
spiritual way. Then the gods speak with us. When the gods speak
with us we are within the spiritual world.
Now you see,
my dear sisters and brothers, the initiate can tell you: the
soul can rise up to the cosmic heights, receive the cosmic
imaginations, read them from the other side, the spiritual
deeds, become capable of hearing in a spiritual way the
language of the gods.
But if you
really immerse yourself in what the initiate relates with your
whole heart, your whole feeling, if you don't just listen to it
greedily and say: Well, if I also could do that I'd like it, it
would be interesting — but I'm not going to bother. But
you receive it as something which you can revere, which you can
love, which you can repeatedly meditate on, then it is the path
to enter esoteric life yourself.
And you will
find this path by meditating profoundly on the
words:
[The first
part of the verse is written on the blackboard.]
1. I
live in the dark domain of the earth,
2. I
wander in the brilliance of the stars,
3. I
read in the deeds of the spirits.
4. I
hear in the speech of the gods.
When
experienced with the necessary deeply meditative feeling this
works wonders in the human soul, transforms the human soul. It
must rhythmically flow through the soul again and again, for it
leads the human being through his own interior cosmic
being.
But it is
necessary that such a thing be deeply interiorized. And even
though it still speaks more to the head, the heart should also
participate in the whole process of going out into the etheric
universe, then into the spiritual universe, that is, on the
other side of the universe. It is necessary in such a process
that we take our hearts with us in the experience and that it
stimulate in you the feelings which can come quite naturally by
this excursion into the outer universe. But these feelings must
be really stimulated. It is therefore good the look deeply into
what the words say:
I live
in the dark domain of the earth,
I wander
in the brilliance of the stars,
I read
in the deeds of the spirits.
I hear
in the speech of the gods.
Then you try
to imagine that someone is speaking to you from a spiritual
depth, as though you were not thinking it, but as though you
were hearing it, as if another being were speaking. You really
imagine that another being is speaking to you from an unknown
depth. Then you try to develop the right feelings for what you
have heard.
These
feelings live in the second part of the verse:
[The second
part is written on the blackboard.]
5 The
darkness of the earth creates longing in
me,
6 The
brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.
When I am
aware that I live blindly in the darkness of the earth, I long to
get out. Then the brilliance of the stars becomes the comforter
which expands my being:
The
brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.
Now from the
other side:
7 The
deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,
— when I read them —
8 The
speech of the gods is creating to me.
Only you must
use it correctly. Imagine yourself vividly in this meditating
which you are doing. As though someone were speaking to you from
spiritual depths is how you hear the lines of the first verse.
You bring the corresponding feeling to each verse, so that you
experience in the meditation: first listen, then bring feeling;
listen, then bring feeling; and so on.
[An arc is
drawn connecting lines 1 and 5; another connecting 2 and 6,
another connecting 3 and 7, and another connecting lines 4 and
8:]
[1] I
live in the dark domain of the earth,
( The earth's darkness
extinguishes me.
[5] The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,
[2] I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
( The brilliance of the
stars awakens me.
[6] The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.
[3] I read in the deeds of the spirits,
( The deeds of the spirits
call to me.
[7] The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me.
[4] I hear in the speech of the gods,
( The speech of the gods
engenders me.
[8] The speech of the gods is creating for
me.
It is a
meditation in dialog in which you always objectify the first
line, but the second you feel as though streaming out of your
heart. Now you try again to visualize how one acts and weaves
into the other, and then try to feel with your will what you
can experience through the dialog.
[The third
part of the verse is arranged in connection with the first
and the second parts while lines 9, 10, 11 and 12 are written
on the blackboard.]
From depth
of spirit resounds:
I live in
the dark domain of the earth,
The heart
replies:
The
darkness of the earth creates longing in me.
The will
senses the impulse in the dialog between lines 1 and
5:
9 The
earth's darkness extinguishes me.
After this
dialog has taken place we recall the connection of lines 2
and 6:
I wander
in the brilliance of the stars,
The
brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.
10 The
brilliance of the stars awakens me.
Afterward
we recall what resounds from spiritual depths and the heart's
reply:
I read in
the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds
of the spirits are teaching to me.
The will
now senses:
11 The
deeds of the spirits call to me.
into the
spiritual world.
And now the
most sublime, where we feel ourselves in dialog with the gods
themselves, where the gods not only let us read, but
speak:
I hear in
the speech of the gods,
The speech
of the gods is creating for me.
12 The
speech of the gods engenders me.
brings me
forth, engenders me.
Now imagine
the whole meditation. It runs as follows: dialog — line
for line with a spiritual being present in the dim spiritual
depths that always speaks the top line of the verse. And the
heart always replies:
I live
in the dark domain of the earth,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in
me,
I wander
in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me,
I read
in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,
I hear
in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me,
Now I
recall each one and add the outpouring of will as a
remembrance of what had just gone before:
I live
in the dark domain of the earth,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,
The earth's darkness extinguishes me.
I wander
in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me,
The brilliance of the stars awakens me.
I read
in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,
The deeds of the spirits call to me.
I hear
in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me,
The speech of the gods engenders me.
Conviction
results from the dialog in meditation, from recalling the
dialog and in strengthening the recollection by means of the
will.
If, firstly,
with inner devotional feeling, secondly with complete soul and
interest we have done what I have just described, if we do it
not as mechanical meditating but as a true experience of the
soul, then this means of creating a relation to the spiritual
world really does have an awakening effect on the
soul.
Also in the
case of the last verse, which in the way I have described
should really be experienced as remembrance of speech and
answering speech — speech of the spirit and answering
speech of the heart, we must correctly feel how, firstly,
consciousness, which we wish to achieve, is extinguished by the
earth's darkness. We must sense how a moment of extinguishing
sleep overcomes consciousness, and how upon awakening, at the
second line, we hear the spirits calling us to them, how
afterward we feel: the spirits have called us so that they can
bring us forth, engender us in the spiritual world by their own
cosmic word.
If these
nuances of inner experience flow through the soul — and
the representations of the spiritual being who speaks to us are
included — and the heart reciprocates with its dedication
to the spiritual being, then yes, then the stimulation exists
in the soul which will gradually lead this soul onto the
esoteric path. And we must be clear that as we experience these
three verses in our souls in the way in which I have described
as best we can, something powerful takes place in the
subconscious mind. If we sincerely live in these three verses
as I have described, then when the first line resounds, our
soul unconsciously passes through the starting-point of earthly
life when the etheric body was first formed.
If we can
vividly imagine what from the spirit resounds:
I live in
the dark domain of the earth,
then we
approach — in the unconscious — with this hearing
in spirit, the moment in which our etheric body was formed; and
from pre-earthly existence, from life between death and a new
birth, acts the force with which we sincerely reply from the
heart:
The
darkness of the earth creates longing in me;
because we
have the longing for the spiritual as a heritage from
pre-earthly existence.
And again we
are transported to the beginning of earthly existence. And what
acts from our hearts is inspired by the previous earthly
existence.
I wander
in the brilliance of the stars:
transported to the beginning of our earthly
life.
The real
comfort the brilliance of the stars can give when we are
transported back is in our heart's reply:
The
brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.
I read in
the deeds of the spirits:
transported back to the earth's beginning.
Remember
how we are taught by spiritual beings in pre-earthly
existence.
The deeds
of the spirits are teaching to me,
among whom
I lived and wandered before I descended to the
earth.
I hear in
the speech of the gods:
We heard
them during the period between death and a new birth. We sense
that what the gods say is not mere information as is what men
say; we realize that the speech of the Gods is
creative:
The speech
of the gods is creating for me.
But then,
if we can see it so, lines 9, 10, 11, 12 also acquire the
correct meaning:
I live
in the dark domain of the earth,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in
me,
[Line 9 is
written again, this time on the arc connecting lines 1 and
5.]
The
earth's darkness extinguishes me,
deletes me
from my present earth life for I am led back, through the
region between death and a new birth, to my earlier
incarnation. I divine this; therefor my consciousness is
extinguished, for my consciousness was, until now, that of my
current incarnation. In this moment of sleep I am transported
back so I can divine: I am wandering in my previous
incarnation.
I wander
in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me,
[Line 10
is written again, this time at the arc connecting lines 2 and
6.]
The
brilliance of the stars awakens me.
I am brought
back to what I was in the previous incarnation as though
awakened in it. My karma arises before me, the connection of
destiny arises before me, it arises before me from the other
side.
I read in
the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,
[Line 11
is written again, at the arc connecting lines 3 and
7.]
The
deeds of the spirits call to me
to fulfill
my karma with the forces which derive from my previous
earth-life.
I hear in
the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me,
[Line 12
is written again, at the arc connecting lines 4 and
8.]
The
speech of the gods engenders me.
Everything I
am becomes clear to me when my earlier earthly existence
penetrates the present one and shines through it and wanders
through it and pulses through it. For here I am. My present I
is in a process, it is a seed which will have meaning once I
have passed through the gates of death. What shines and works
in me from the previous earthly existence into the present one
makes me into a human being, engenders me as an existing human
being.
If we have
the conviction that it is so, that — although we believe
only to be in the ordinary world of physical existence —
our soul really makes the journey back to the previous
earth-life, then we will be aware of the gravity of what we are
experiencing. And through this awareness a warmer, luminous
current streams through our thinking, feeling and willing. And
with that inner magical feeling, which is necessary for the
meditation to work in the right way, our meditation will
prevail. We may call it a magical feeling for it cannot be
compared with any feeling we have on earth, because it is
completely independent of all corporeality. If we cannot yet
leave the physical body behind with our thinking, this magical
thinking which we experience through the gravity of our soul's
activity is present in the purely spiritual world.
According to
the way we experience these things, our esoteric striving is
fulfilled. And that is what I was obliged to lay before your
souls today, my dear sisters and brothers.
In
conclusion I would like to say one more thing. It should not
happen that someone passes on the verses and the information
given here without first asking permission. Only with
permission may these things be passed on from one to another or
to a group. It is especially frowned upon, my dear friends,
that these verses or their interpretation be sent by post. They
may not be sent by post, and I ask that this be strictly
observed.
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