The First Goetheanum
by
Rudolf Steiner
Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith
Lesson Eleven
Dornach, May 2, 1924
My dear friends,
You have all probably been deeply affected this morning by the
news that Miss Maryon* has departed from the physical plane
— although it is something long expected and which
follows difficult suffering which lasted more than a
year.
Tomorrow when the members of the Anthroposophical Society
are all gathered here, I will say what I have to say about
Miss Maryon's departure from the physical plane. For now it
is sufficient to say that the First Class has lost a truly
dedicated student, for among those who have devoted
themselves to the School with great diligence, Miss Maryon
was the best. Despite the serious illness which afflicted her
she not only participated in what is being esoterically
developed here, but she also let the exercises given here
work on her and lived with them in an extraordinarily
intimate way.
This was the result of her having been familiar with
esotericism before coming to us. She belonged to an esoteric
school of a completely different nature before she discovered
the Anthroposophical Society and through this esoteric school
made the complete transition to anthroposophy quickly. The
esoteric was essential to her and she experienced it
intensely during the years with us on the physical plane. She
has departed from the physical plane but certainly not from
anthroposophy.
It would be unseemly to say more now as she has just left
the physical plane. Tomorrow, though, when the members, the
friends are here, it will be my task to say what is to be
said.
My dear friends, in esoteric striving it is necessary to
at least envision, to the extent possible, the path upon
which real knowledge of spiritual things can be realized. Of
course how far one or the other comes along this path depends
on his karma, on what conditions he brings along from
previous earth lives.
But not only that, it also depends on which physical and
environmental conditions the person's destiny places him.
Much old karmic residue may exist to be worked out which
hinders achieving everything which is otherwise within one's
capabilities. Thus much which perhaps could be quickly
achieved without these karmic residues takes
longer.
My dear sisters and brothers, we should never give up
hope, never lose patience or energy, but continue on our way.
When the right time has come, we will surely find what has
been predestined. For certain lines of every human being's
life path are uniquely predestined despite or perhaps because
of freedom. Every individual is called to his life's task and
can accomplish it with sufficient good
will.
Here in this Free School for Spiritual Science everything
that existed in the Mysteries in the past when they
especially flowered is to be reenacted in the correct form
according to our time and to the future. The flowering time
of the Mysteries had already passed when the greatest Mystery
of all, the one most hidden to world history, took place: the
Mystery of Golgotha. After their flowering time, the
Mysteries declined, a process in which, just because the
Mysteries had declined, humanity could be taken into the
stream of world evolution where freedom is
possible.
Nevertheless, the time has now come when the Mysteries
are to be renewed, in the fullest sense of the word and in
the appropriate form. And once these things have been thought
about correctly in the future the Goetheanum's work will be
appreciated in the world, because the task of this Goetheanum
is to renew the Mysteries. And only, my dear sisters and
brothers, if we are permeated with the will to understand
this School as representing, through us, a renewal of the
Mysteries, can we participate in the Mysteries and in the
School in the right way.
If you will remember what was presented here in the last
Lesson, then what I have just said can live in your hearts.
For the transition is made for meditation to really enter
directly into the individual's experience so that he frees
himself from the narrow limits of his
personality.
In the triple-versed structure of the last meditation we
saw how we place ourselves in the world process and how in
the meditation we confront not only what resounds from our
soul but also what resounds to our soul, which in a
certain way incorporates itself into a general universal
language, a general universal Word. But only when the
individual gradually frees himself from the limits of his
personality, when he finds himself meditating in an ever more
objective way, then will he be able to follow that intimate,
subtle path, which is the true path to human knowledge. But
for this to happen the objective truths which apply to
humanity must become objectively present in him in the most
varied ways.
You all know, my dear sisters and brothers, what has
often been described as the threefold human nature: the
nerve-sensory man, mostly represented by the human head; the
rhythmic man, mostly represented by the breast, in which the
respiratory and circulatory organs are concentrated. All
these organs are everywhere in the organism, are located in
other parts of the body as well, but more in certain areas
than in others. Then we have the
limbs-metabolism-organization, localized downward and
outward.
That which can be known theoretically can also be
meditatively objective. And when it is meditatively objective
it becomes esoteric. Therefore in meditation we must
intensively and intimately keep this threefold man in
view.
So we have the head-organization, a real replica of the
entire cosmos. We have the breast or rhythmic organization,
which does not directly show in its form the cosmic image.
And least of all does the limbs-metabolism-organization show
the image of the cosmos. But man must be intimately conscious
of how he places himself in the cosmos through each of these
organizations. He must be clear about what takes place in his
head. We can feel this directly: when we think, our head is
active. We notice that when the head is ailing, thinking is
impaired. We sense the head's association to this clearest
human earthly activity in both normal and abnormal
circumstances. This doesn't mean that the head is really the
bearer of the clearest human earthly activity, but it seems
so to us.
What is actually going on? When do we see ourselves
— in our heads — in the right way? Only, my dear
sisters and brothers, when we are aware that this human head
would not exist if the star-filled sky did not arch above us.
For the moment we will not dispute what the astronomers say
about this; we are only taking into account what is visible
to the eyes: the sublime starry heavens.
In the previous lesson much was said about this. The
stars are there above; their rays of light approach us when
we look up at them. But they don't only approach us, we also
receive them. And what we receive of the rays of light we
enclose in our heads. And out of it sprouts our human
activity on earth: our thinking. And so we must imagine:
Outside are the stars; our heads receive the effects of the
stars' rays. From without it looks as though the stars were
sending their rays down to us. Our heads receive these rays;
so what has been received is within our heads. From here is
looks quite different than from without, but it is the same,
the whole starry sky rolled together, so to speak, within our
heads.
But only the starry sky? No, not only the starry sky. For
— what are the stars? What is in the individual stars
which rays toward us? It is the domicile of the gods. They
are the places where the gods reside. It is where the gods
were sought in the times when instinctive clairvoyance knew
where the gods reside, which are the places worthy of the
gods.
During the times when such clairvoyance existed, people
did not look up at burning points in the cosmos, but at the
dwelling places of the gods. And in doing so had a truer idea
of what exists in the far reaches of space than do the
astronomers of today who observe the points of light and
calculate their positions and angles to each
other.
But in that man is a threefold being, he speaks and acts
through what holds him together: his I — through all
three elements of his being, through the
nerve-sensory-system, the head; through the rhythmic system,
the breast; and through the metabolic-limbs-system. It is
held together only because the physical body is a unity. But
man always sends his I into the three individual elements and
we will learn today the different ways he sends this I into
the individual elements.
At first man speaks the I through his thoughts into his
head from his innermost being. Truly, it is thus: [draws on
the blackboard]: What unfolds without as the shining element
of the stars [blue arc, yellow stars], acts in the human head
[yellow arc and rays from the stars]. It is also here within
[red dots]. Man speaks his I from out of his center of his
being into this rolled together cosmic space which is the
interior of his head [arrow with the word “Ich”,
yellow]. And he should become aware that when he speaks his I
into the part of his humanity which is an image of the
dwellings of the gods, then the gods themselves who live in
these dwellings will act in him. We meditate correctly when
we are aware that when we say “I” through the
force of our heads, the gods of cosmic space and cosmic time
speak in us.
And this is not a teaching given to us on the earth; it
is a teaching, my dear sisters and brothers, given to us by
the beings of the higher hierarchies themselves, at first
from those beings who are with us humans: the angeloi, and in
the background the directing archangeloi. This element of
human nature — this I — has a relation to the
dwelling places of the gods in the radiant stars, from out of
which the godly beings themselves speak, and should let
itself be taught by the beings we have always referred to as
angeloi in our descriptions of the
hierarchies.
We correctly accomplish a meditation thus: We look up,
allowing ourselves to be impressed by the radiance of the
stars, sense that cosmic space itself is sending us words.
And these words should be:
Starry-cosmic-spaces,
Dwellings-of-the-gods!
It resounds in the
periphery. Thus we imagine that we hear it from cosmic
space.
Starry-cosmic-spaces,
Dwellings-of-the-gods!
It becomes an echo in
us. We treat it as a call, but a call that excites us,
because all heaven resounds in this call. This is how we
meditate. And then we will be conscious of what we have to
say from the depths of our souls, from whence in the
stillness we answer the cosmic
trumpet-call:
When human-spirit-radiance
Speaks with head-held-high
The
"I am" :
That is what we say.
Then the angel who belongs to us answers in our
meditation:
Thus you
live
— the gods —
in the earth-body
as man's true being.
That is the sense of
this meditation. We hear it as a world-spanning trumpet call
from all sides:
Starry-cosmic-spaces,
Dwellings-of-the-gods!
We
answer in stillness intimately praying:
When human-spirit-radiance
Speaks with head-held-high
The
"I am" :
The angel answers, looking upward to the source of the trumpet
call:
Thus you live in the earth-body
as man's true being.
And we accept these last two lines which the angel speaks in our
meditation as teaching.
[The first verse is written on the blackboard.]
Starry-cosmic-spaces,
Dwellings-of-the-gods!
When human-spirit-radiance
Speaks with head-held-high
— the
scrolled together starry radiance, the human radiance
—
The "I am" :
The spiritual teacher Angelos:
Thus you live in the earth-body
as mam's true being.
—
Starry-cosmic-spaces, Dwellings-of-the-gods!
—
That is the first dialog with the cosmos and with the
third hierarchy. Seen this way it is a deeply penetrating
meditation on the human spirit, human soul and human
body.
Now we go further to the rhythmic organization of man. We
think of the lungs and the heart, the wonderful pulsation,
the rhythm of breathing which by its very nature reveals that
it is the expression of the deepest cosmic laws, the movement
of which we sense in us. When we concentrate in meditation on
our head, we sense rest. When we meditate on our breast, we
feel movement. And this movement is an image of the movement
of the planets, of the moon, the sun, of Mars, Mercury,
Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. But a representative of this movement
is the sun. It is closest to us. Every day it circles around
our earth — in appearance. It can therefore stand as
representative. But just as we carry within us the
starry-cosmic-spaces, dwellings-of-the-gods, rolled together,
so also the movements of the whole planetary system —
represented by the sun — in our breathing, in our blood
circulation, in everything which is movement in our
organism.
Therefore we must imagine that just as the sublimity of
the dwellings-of-the-gods was announced by the trumpet calls
from all sides of the cosmos, also what the movements of the
planets, represented by the sun, have to say through
melodious sound courses through our bodies:
Cosmic sun circling
Paths of spirits acting!
That is the second thing: stillness in comparison to the loud
trumpet-call of the cosmic surroundings.
Starry-cosmic- spaces,
Dwellings-of-the-gods!
It resounds majestically from all sides. That is what we must
meditate on. But following on the path of the sun and the
other planets in our breathing and in our blood circulation
it resounds joyfully within us:
Cosmic sun circling
Paths of spirits acting!
Now we say intimately
from within us, if we take as inducement what resounds
melodiously from the star-circles into our own
bodies:
Resound in heart's center
Human-soul-weaving
The “I
live” :
The Angelos replies, speaking to the gods in the circling
planets:
So you stride in earth's course
As humanity's creative force.
Just as the human being lives on the earth by means of
what radiates into him from the dwellings of the gods, so
does the human creative evolutionary force live by means of
the activity of the gods in the planets' movements, which is
also received into man's rhythmic system. Thus we have again
the threefold verse: objective murmur through our body in the
sense of the planets' course; our own intimate speech; the
Angelos' reply:
Cosmic sun circling
Paths of spirits acting!
Resound in heart's center
Human-soul-weaving
The “I
live”:
Thus you stride in earth's course
As humanity's creative force.
[These lines are now written on the blackboard.]
Cosmic sun circling,
Paths of spirits acting!
Resound in heart's center.
—
above “speaks”, here “resounds”;
above “head-held-high”; here “heart's
center” —
Human-soul-weaving
The “I live”:
—
above “I am”; here “I live”
—
Thus you stride in earth's course
As humanity's creative force.
Each of these verses must be felt as being threefold in
their coming into being: The objective resounding; our own
intimate speech as the echo within us; the speech of the
Angelos. Then it works correctly in us.
However, when we come to the third element of man —
what lives in the arms and legs and continues inward in
metabolism — then we do not hear the trumpet calls from
the cosmos, then we do not hear the melodiousness of the
planets, then we hear the dull rumbling of the
world-foundation itself. It is what makes us earth-people.
The limbs do not participate in our spiritual being. They are
completely shaped according to the earthly forces: the arms
and hands are only partly shaped by the air forces, but
otherwise all is shaped by the forces that arise from out of
the cosmic foundations and flow up through human beings. We
must be conscious of this. Just as we hear in the first verse
the language of the cosmos itself in the majestic tones
coming from the cosmic periphery, as we hear the speech of
the periphery in the second verse, we hear the rumbling
speech of cosmic foundation from the depths of the earth in
the third verse:
Cosmic-foundation-powers,
Creator's luster of love!
It is not a luster of light, it is a luster of love. For
in those places where otherwise what is in the periphery is
gathered in the center is where the source of the love-forces
also lie. Therefore we cannot answer in echo
“speaks” and also not “resounds”,
here we must answer with the deed, with what flows from the
will. We must not “speak”, not
“resound”, here we must “create”.
Therefore we answer from within pouring will into our
words:
Create in the body's limbs
Human-action-streams
The “I
will”:
Then the angel answers in that he lowers his eyes to what
is rumbling from the cosmic-foundations —
“rumbling” not in an antipathetic sense, but only
in the dullness of the tone — the active forces answer
which resound in the cosmic-foundation's
depths:
Thus do you strive in earthly works
as human sensory deeds.
Again the threefold verse:
Cosmic-foundation-powers,
Creator's luster of love!
Create in the body's limbs
Human-action-streams
The “I
will”:
Thus do you strive in earthly works
as human sensory deeds.
[This third verse is written on the blackboard.]
Cosmic-foundation-powers,
Creator's luster of love!
Creates in the body's limbs
“speaks”,
“resounds”, “creates” —
[creates is underlined.]
— “height”, “center”,
“limbs”, what strives from the center
outwards — [“limbs” is
underlined.]
Human-action-streams
The “I
will”:
— “I am”,
“live”, “
will” —
[“will” is underlined.]
Thus do you strive in earthly works
— “earthly-body”, Earthly-path,
earthly-works”
[the three words are underlined.]
as human sensory deeds.
— “being”, “creative force”,
“sensory deeds”, which means: deeds
visible to the senses —
[the three words in quotation marks are underlined.]
True meditation, true exercise of the soul is not found
in the theoretical, intellectual content of a meditation
verse, but in its mantric character. The mantric character is
present when the meaning dissolves into situation and
happening and when we free ourselves from the theoretical,
from the intellectual content, go out from ourselves, so that
we do not merely have something vague in our thoughts, but
have the idea that the sky, that the periphery, that the
earthly depths resound; that we reply to these sounds from
our own intimate inner self; that the angel interprets and
teaches.
We should try to attain such an ideal setting, that is,
to make meditation something in which we don't merely think,
feel or will, but which also streams and weaves and radiates
around us, and from all this something steps back into the
life of the heart and in the heart it is streaming, weaving,
striving and vibrantly radiating so that we feel ourselves
integrated in the life of the world, of the cosmos, so that
our meditation is not something that only lives in us, in our
feeling, but which lives in us and the world; it extinguishes
the world, extinguishes us, and in extinguishing unites us
and the world, so that we can just as easily say: “The
world is speaking” as we can say “We are
speaking”. This gradually enhances the character of the
meditation.
If the meditation is practiced in this way, — by
extinguishing what has always seemed to be one's ordinary
self — it is possible to perceive oneself as
spirit.
When, however, we start along this path of knowledge,
when we honestly approach such paths of knowledge, we learn
that we are not alone in the world, that we are in a dialog
with the spiritual world, and through this we approach closer
and closer to a renewal of the Mysteries. Of course physical,
outer temples stood in places on the earth which today are
considered to be uncivilized. Outer temples stood there, and
early peoples needed outer temples. But these temples were
not the only ones, not even the most important ones. For the
most important temples have no place, have no time. One comes
to them if one exercises the soul in the way that has been
indicated here and in the Mysteries of all
times.
In order to be clear, my dear sisters and brothers, if we
live in such a mantric formula, it is thus:
Here I stand — each of us says rightly — and
all around me is the everyday world. Bourgeois walls and
chairs are around me, or perhaps a natural forest, visible
trees, or houses. It is all there. I am fully aware that this
is my environment; it is there and I see and touch it. But
the meditation arises in my soul while I am in the external,
sensory world. The meditation arises in me:
Starry-cosmic-spaces,
Dwellings-of-the-gods!
When human-spirit-radiance
Speaks with head-held-high
The "I am" :
Thus you live in an earthly body
Now as a human being.
Welten-Sternen-Stätten,
Götter-Heimat-Orte!
Spricht in Haupteshöhe
Menschen-Geistes-Strahlung
Das “Ich
bin”:
So lebt Ihr im Erdenleibe
Als Menschen-Wesenheit.
What do I sense moving?
What do I sense arching over me? It is something; it is
nothing. I sense walls, I don't see them.
The meditation continues:
Cosmic sun circles
Paths of spirits acting!
Resound in heart's center
Human-soul-weaving
The “I
live”:
Thus you stride in earth's course
As humanity's creative force.
Welten-Sonnen-Kreise,
Geister-Wirkens-Wege!
Tönt in Herzensmitte
Menschen-Seelen-Weben
Das “Ich
lebe”:
So schreitet Ihr im Erdewandel
Als Menschen-Schöpferkraft.
What I sensed —
the moving, the temple dome which arches above, the temple
walls. It is all becoming clear for the soul's senses, making
the normal world invisible, the world of visible trees,
clouds, everything which before was visible. A new visibility
appears. The temple, which I only sensed at first, becomes
real in the second verse.
And I hear the murmuring, the hissing and rumbling from
below:
Cosmic-foundation-powers,
Creator's luster of love!
Create in the body's limbs
Human-action-streams
The “I
will”:
Thus do you strive in earthly works
as human sensory deeds.
Welten-Grundes-Mächte,
Schöpfer-Liebes-Glänzen!
Schafft in Leibesgliedern
Menschen-Wirkens-Strömung
Das “Ich
will”:
So strebt Ihr im Erdenwerke
Als Menschen-Sinnes-Taten.
The temple is complete.
It has acquired its foundation. And in it are those spiritual
beings with whom we wish to be in communion. The temple is
there, visible to the soul's senses. It has been
found.
Our meditation does not
contain visions. It leads us into the spiritual world. The
spiritual world exists. I am describing, my dear sisters and
brothers, how the meditation can proceed: the moving temple
dome is sensed after the first verse; see the temple around
us with the soul's senses. The temple is complete, and the
beings with whom we wish to be in communion as humanity's
teachers — the godly teachers — are there. We are
within the temple, accomplished by the first, second and
third verses of a true mantric meditation.
When we become aware that we are finding the temple, then we correctly
understand what the content of this esoteric school is meant to be.
* Miss Maryon: Edith Louisa Maryon
(London, 9 February 1872 – 2 May 1924 in Dornach, Switzerland)
was an English sculptor. She belonged to the innermost circle of founders of
anthroposophy and those around Rudolf Steiner. Maryon met Rudolf Steiner in
1912/13 and after the summer of 1914 she moved to Dornach. She worked with
Steiner on the construction of the first Goetheanum, where she along with
Steiner worked on the sculpture, The Representative of Humanity.
She served as the head of the Section of Fine Arts at the Goetheanum. She died
of tuberculosis.
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