The First Goetheanum
by
Rudolf Steiner
Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith
Lesson Twelve
Dornach, May 11, 1924
My dear friends,
First let us recite the verse which reminds us of what comes from the cosmos
itself as an invitation to knowledge:
O man, know thyself!
So resounds the cosmic-word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it vast in spirit.
Who speaks so vastly cosmic?
Who speaks so deeply heartfelt?
Does it work through distant radiant space
Into your senses' sense of being?
Does it ring through waves of time
Into your life's evolving stream?
Is it you yourself who
In feeling space, in experiencing time
Create the Word, feeling foreign
In space's psychic vacancy,
Because you lose the force of thought
In time's destructive flow?
Self-knowledge, my dear sisters and brothers, is what, in a
spiritual sense, can lead to cosmic knowledge. And it has often
been said that understanding must exist for true spiritual
cosmic knowledge to stream out of the spiritual world itself;
that we must understand that the person who is able to transmit
such knowledge from the spiritual world must approach the
threshold; that the Guardian of the Threshold stands at the
threshold, the Guardian who protects the person in normal
consciousness from entering the spiritual world
unprepared.
But it is just when one gets to know this Guardian –
at first by means of healthy human understanding – then
later in its true form, in its real essence, then the Guardian
makes known to us the admonishments if we wish to enter the
spiritual world in the right way, and then to stand within the
experiences of the spiritual world.
It has also often been said that this living in the
spiritual world is mostly mistakenly imagined, because one
wants something different than really standing within the
spiritual world. One wants something which is similar to the
sense perceptible world. It is super-sensible though, and can
therefor not lead to envisioning something similar to what is
seen through the senses. This imaginative-super-sensible
envisioning is only an image. It must lead to a real experience
of the spiritual world. And many of you, my dear sisters and
brothers, have this experience of the spiritual more so than
you think. You are only not aware of it. You do not pay
attention to how the spirit acts and weaves within psychic
experience. It works and weaves. And it is a matter of
mustering the intimate mindfulness necessary for perceiving
this working and weaving.
Therefore more and more real indications should be given to
enable you to feel how the human soul lives in the spiritual
world – for knowledge is meant to flow to you directly
from the spiritual world through these class lessons, my
sisters and brothers. And the following can be such an
indication.
Take any of the mantras or other verses and recite it. It
doesn't matter much which one it is, it can be any mantra you
are familiar with. For your meditation select any mantra and
recite it in the fairest way you can. Do it therefor not
loudly, but in a soft, gentle manner:
O man, know
thyself!
So resounds the cosmic-word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it vast in spirit.
And then, once you have recited such a mantra to yourself,
try to sense how the reciting reacts within you. Try to come to
the point where you can sense the speaking, that you sense the
difference in your bodies between when you are silent and when
you are speaking. Try to sense the speaking in your organism,
how it passes through. You will sense it as all kinds of
pressure and wave currents in the speech
organs.
And when you have sensed this, ask yourselves: When I think
something, due to someone talking to me or some other event
that makes an impression on me relative to the present: Can I
also sense that?
Well, if you have learned to sense speaking, then you will
easily be able to sense the thinking which is directly induced
by the immediate present. It is lighter and more delicate to
sense than speaking, but it can be sensed. And you can learn to
sense, to feel thinking by sensing speech.
Then, just as you can sense speech, you can also sense
thinking. Then you will be able to touch, touch internally that
is, perceive internally, thus: [draws: white outline of a
profile]. When speaking is sensed so that it must be moved here
[red], you will sense thinking here above
[green]. That is, the sense of thinking is moved
somewhat up against the back of the head.
It is good to practice such an exercise, for it acts as a
guide to intimate self-observation.
And now you proceed, my dear sisters and brothers, to make
a thought active, a remembrance-thought, one which you had
days, weeks or months ago and which you can activate just as
well now, and try to sense, to feel such a remembrance-thought.
And you will have the sensation: I feel this under the region
of speech, I feel it here below, under the region of speech
[yellow]. And you will then say to yourselves: When I speak, I
experience it in the region of my speech organs; when I think,
I experience it above in the head, when I remember, I
experience it under the region of speech.
When this becomes an intimate experience for you, when you
really feel it, then you have grasped something spiritual,
which can be the beginning of a progressively increasing
spiritual understanding. But a substantial seclusion from the
outer events of the day is necessary in order to sense this. It
is not good to say: Yes, but in order to achieve such seclusion
I'll have to take a few weeks off and go to where there are no
people, where nothing can bother me, where I will have absolute
peace and quiet, for example in a hut on Mont Blanc. It is not
good to think like that, because you will never progress that
way. It is better to stand within the tumult of life, exposed
to what life brings from morning to night and nevertheless
dedicate by strength of soul a period of time, be it ever so
short, when you are completely outside of the world's tumult,
but at the same time within it, purely by means of your inner
force. That is best. To withdraw in solitude in order to have
peace is not what works best, but rather to create solitude
through one's own forces. That is what definitely and securely
can lead to the goal. This is a good foundation for meditating
in the right way.
You have learned mantras, my dear sisters and brothers,
which are spoken quietly from the soul. The first mantras in
these lessons were like that. We have however advanced to
mantras which partly ring out to us from the soul and also
partly must be imagined as resounding to us from out of the
distant universe; where we therefor do not inwardly meditate
speaking, but where we inwardly meditate hearing. We imagine
ourselves as being transferred to where we hear what is being
spoken to us whether it is by the cosmos or by the
spirit-beings. And it is just this transferring to a condition
in which other beings speak to us that creates the condition
which is conducive to feeling that we are in the spiritual
world.
Today's mantras will be given with this objective. The
mind, the soul should imagine itself as being perfectly silent.
But the soul should also imagine itself to already be on the
other side of the threshold standing before the Guardian in the
spiritual world. And, although being perfectly silent itself,
it hears three sounds. The first sound comes from the distant
universe; the second from the Guardian. And the third comes
from the beings who will be identified later in the mantra.
That is how the mantra which is presented to your souls today
is to be understood.
Thus, coming from all sides of the distant universe:
Listen to the field of thinking.
It's a question of becoming enlightened concerning the true nature
of thinking through a spiritually cosmic experience.
Then the Guardian speaks. After the resounding to us from the
distant universe – we must experience this situation
spiritually – the Guardian speaks the next three
lines:
The one who wants to shows to you
The paths from life on earth to life
On earth in spirit light does speak.
That is the Guardian speaking.
Then the angel who shows
us the path from earthly life to earthly life
speaks:
Behold your senses' shining radiance.
This is the being who as
an angel-being, as angelos, guides us from incarnation to
incarnation. It speaks of these goals. We hear them in inner
contemplation.
Again the Guardian speaks:
The one who wants to carry you,
Your soul conveyed to souls
in regions matter-free, speaks.
And the next lines are
spoken by the being who watches over us from the hierarchy of
Archangels:
Behold the forces working in your thinking.
That goes above, to where the Archangels are.
First we had “Behold your senses' shining radiance.” This
means that for the senses the sun shines and the senses do not;
in reality, though, our senses also shine, except that while
our senses are shining we are not aware of it. So the being who
belongs to us from the ranks of angels admonishes us:
“Behold your senses' shining
radiance.”
In general we think in normal consciousness; but we do not
apprehend thinking; we do not sense it, we do not feel it. The
being who belongs to us from the ranks of the archangels
admonishes us: “Behold the forces working in your
thinking.”
Now we ascend to where the Archai are. The Guardian advises us
that we should listen to the admonishment of the being from the
ranks of the Archai. The next three lines are those of the
Guardian:
The one speaks who among spirits
in earth-distant fields of creation
Desires to give you the ground of being.
I could also say the “throne of being”, but
“ground of being” is better, for it is what is to
be given to you by the one who wants a spiritual ground in the
spiritual field for you, just as here in the sensory field you
are standing on physical ground.
After the Guardian of the Threshold has thus spoken, the being from
the ranks of the Archai speaks:
Behold the imagery of remembrance.
That is third. First we should see the radiance of the senses, then
the forces of thinking working in us, then what lies deep down,
below speech, in the memory images: “Behold” the
imagery of remembrance.
Thus have we listened with quiet souls to the threefold
voice speaking to us: speaking from the cosmos in the very
first lines: “Listen to the field of thinking”.
Then to the intervening three lines by the Guardian of the
Threshold, and then to the beings who belong to us from the
ranks of the hierarchies, always using paradigmatic lines which
are meant to speak to the deepest levels of our being. Together
it is like this:
Listen to the field of thinking:
The one who wants to shows to you
The paths from life on earth to life
On earth in spirit light does speak.
Behold your senses' shining radiance.
The one who wants to carry you,
Your soul conveyed to souls
in regions matter-free, speaks.
Behold the forces working in your thinking.
The one speaks who among spirits
in earth-distant fields of creation
Desires to give you the ground of being.
Behold the imagery of remembrance.
[The first mantra is written on the blackboard.
The word “thinking” in the first line is underlined
as well as the last lines of 1,2,3.]
I. Listen to the field of thinking:
1.) The one who wants to show to you
The paths from life on earth to life
On earth in spirit light does speak.
Behold your senses' shining radiance.
2.) The one who wants to carry you,
Your soul conveyed to souls
in regions matter-free, speaks.
Behold the forces working in your
thinking.
3.) The one speaks who among spirits
in earth-distant fields of creation
Desires to give you the ground of being.
Behold the imagery of remembrance.
Therewith we have inwardly
experienced the admonishments resounding from the three lower
hierarchies for our self-knowledge:
the first from the hierarchy of the
Angeloi
the second from the hierarchy of the
Archangeloi
the third from the hierarchy of the
Archai.
[“Angeloi” is written beside
part 1, “Archangeloi” beside part 2,
“Archai” beside part 3.]
Before the exercise begins, concentration in the soul
[mind] can be achieved by imagining a definite image, this
image [drawing begins on the image above]: an eye looking
upward [eye] and perceiving the higher hierarchies
[arc], from which the cosmic forces stream into the eye
[upper rays], which
then perceives the circle of the lower hierarchies [wavy line],
which reach up to the higher hierarchies and send the rays on
the human beings [lower rays].
We call this image to mind and hold it there: the eye
looking upward, the two lines – the circular one, the
wavy one – the descending rays. And while doing the
exercise, without thinking about it, the image remains before
our soul: the image of the upward looking
eye.
Then we hear again, resounding from all sides of the
cosmos:
Perceive the field of feeling.
The Guardian then speaks the next three lines:
The one who speaks as thought
From the sun-rays of the spirit
Recalls you to cosmic existence.
It is now a higher language, the language that resounds
from higher hierarchies. Whereas there [indicates the first
mantra] we are made more attentive to what is already within
us, in this mantra we are spoken to by the Guardian in a manner
which does not only call us to observe our senses, our thinking
and our memories, but we are now meant to hear how we are being
called into cosmic being itself. This resounds from the
hierarchy of the Exusiai.
Then the one who belongs to us from the hierarchy of the
Exusiai speaks:
Feel in your breath life awakening.
Again the Guardian speaks the next three lines:
The one speaks who gives to you
From the stars' living forces
Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms.
Then the being from the hierarchy of the Dynamis
speaks:
Feel in your blood's weaving waves.
We must feel the world's weaving movement continued in the
weaving waves of our blood.
And the Guardian speaks once more, now advising us that we
should listen to what the being from the rank of Kyriotetes
says:
The one speaks who wants to create
In the light of the divine heights
The sense of spirit from earthly will.
Then this being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes
speaks:
Feel the earth's mighty
resistance.
For only if we feel this mighty resistance of the earth's
forces can we enter correctly into the world of pure
spirit.
Therefore the experience of this mantra must be
felt:
Perceive the field of feeling:
The one who speaks as thought
from the sun-rays of the spirit
calls you to cosmic existence:
Feel in your breath life awakening.
The one speaks who gives to you
From the stars' living forces
Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms:
Feel in your blood's weaving waves.
The one speaks who wants to create
In the light of the divine heights
The sense of spirit from earthly will.
Feel the earth's mighty resistance.
It is the ascent to the rank of the second hierarchy where
self-knowledge asserts itself in us, where the Guardian advises
us that a being from the ranks of the Exusiai will speak to
us.
Well, my dear sisters and brothers, we think in earthly
life; our thoughts are almost nullities. But when a being from
the ranks of the Exusiai thinks, he is thinking us. Our I is
being thought. And it, our I, exists as a thought by a being
from the ranks of the Exusiai. When on earth we speak
“I” to ourselves, where are we looking? Yes, this
I: when we say “I” [drawing: circle with the word
“Ich”, yellow], we are looking back at this
Ich [red arrows], and say the word “I”
[Ich]. But for a being from the ranks of the Exusiai
[green
line] this I-thought is a real thought. We exist in that we are
thought by beings from the ranks of the Exusiai. And when we
say “I” to ourselves we are confirming that we are
being thought by divine beings. And it is in this being
thought by divine beings that our higher being
consists.
Then: A being from the ranks of the Dynamis reminds us that
the spiritual existence we receive from him as a gift comes
from the life-forces taken from the stars.
And a being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes reminds us
that what exists in us on earth as will is taken out to the
heavenly heights and after the transformation which it
undergoes there it is returned to us so that we can then also
use it as spirit-will. Earthly will is only a transformation of
spirit-will. Earthly will is constantly being taken up and
brought down again. Above it is heavenly will; below it is
earthly will. Finally the Guardian reminds us that a being from
the ranks of the Kyriotetes is saying: “Feel the earth's
mighty resistance.” When we feel the earth's resistance,
we feel the benefit, the grace inherent in the bestowing of
forces from the heavenly heights.
[Mantra II is written on the blackboard. In the first line
“feeling” is underlined, and the last lines of
Parts 1,2 and 3 are also underlined.]
II.) Perceive the field of
feeling:
1.) The one who speaks as thought
from the sun-rays of the spirit
calls you to cosmic existence:
Feel in your breath life awakening.
2.) The one speaks who gives to you
From the stars' living forces
Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms:
Feel in your blood's weaving waves.
3.) The one speaks who wants to create
In the light of the divine heights
The sense of spirit from earthly will.
Feel the earth's mighty resistance.
This, then, is the second mantra (recites it):
Perceive the field of feeling:
The one who speaks as thought
from the sun-rays of the spirit
calls you to cosmic existence:
Feel in your breath life awakening.
The one speaks who gives to you
From the stars' living forces
Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms:
Feel in your blood's weaving waves.
The one speaks who wants to create
In the light of the divine heights
The sense of spirit from earthly will.
Feel the earth's mighty resistance.
The first resounds from the ranks of the
Exusiai
The second from the ranks of
the
Dynamis
The third from the ranks of the
Kyriotetes
[Exusiai is written alongside part1; Dynamis alongside part
2, Kyriotetes alongside part 3.]
And finally, in order to remember the image we have placed
before us after all this has taken place within us, and in
order to have a clear experience of it, we recall the image
– although we realize that it has been before us during
the whole exercise – but we want to place it once more
before our souls.
In the image already drawn on the
blackboard, the eye, arc, upper rays, wavy lines, lower rays
are drawn again.]
The ascent to the ranks of the Seraphim, Cherubim and
Thrones will be added to these in the next class lesson. But
now it is appropriate to clarify the meaning of the
whole.
My dear sisters and brothers, at the beginning of today's
lesson the words from cosmic-being instructed us to practice
self-knowledge. Self-knowledge, it was said, leads to
world-knowledge; but only if the Self can be in connection with
the world.
But the Self does not exist in relation to an external
natural entity or process, but alone in relation to the
spiritual world. That is where the beings of the hierarchies
are. So if we really wish to penetrate into our Self, into our
I, then we must experience it together with the beings from the
hierarchies and not with external nature. For what we can call
our I in external nature is only the distant echo of the I. The
true I exists in the same realms as these beings of the higher
hierarchies. Therefore in entering the realm of self-knowledge
we must also enter the realm of the higher hierarchies. Then we
must hear the speech of the higher
hierarchies.
The admonishments of the Guardian of the threshold always
intervene in order that we do this with all our strength, that
we do not make it into a mere bloodless theory. In order that
the whole content in the meditation appear before us in all its
majesty, we hear the two – and as we will soon hear,
three – forceful admonishments from the cosmos:
“Behold the field of thinking”, “Behold the
field of feeling”.
Only if we feel the language in such a living, threefold
way, and if we experience ourselves within the spiritual world
as described in the mantras, then these things will be able to
help us advance. For only then will we feel them with the right
attitude. We must seek this mental attitude above all. For
inner consecration must be there if the meditation is to
contribute to initiation. And this inner consecration comes
only from the attitude through which we are displaced from the
outer world for a while and live exclusively within the content
and elements of the meditation. If we can do this so that
self-knowledge is not merely an inner brooding, but is an
explicit conversation with the universe, the Guardian and the
Hierarchies, then we will find ourselves in possession of true
self-knowledge.
Basically, we should even avoid thinking about such things
if we cannot simultaneously evoke the appropriate mental
attitude. We should only think about what has been presented
today if we can really evoke this inner attitude in the soul,
which consists in simply feeling that the sublime majesty from
the universe, from the cosmic distances, comes to us like
cosmic thunder; that a softly admonishing voice intervenes
which comes from the Guardian of the Threshold; and that then
one of the beings of the Hierarchies urgently
speaks.
Only when we remember this and when we evoke the feeling
related to this remembering, should we even think of these
mantras or create an inner connection with them, so that we do
not desecrate them inwardly, desecrate their force – that
we do not think of them with the usual, dry, common way of
thinking, which we would think if we did not first evoke the
appropriate attitude, the inner mood.
And we therefore should achieve the inner mental attitude
to feel that human self-knowledge is something solemn, earnest
and holy and that these things should only be spoken internally
by the soul – let alone externally – when they are
felt to be earnest, solemn, consecrated.
It is a great hindrance to progress on the esoteric path
that so much is spoken about these things in a cliquish manner,
even with a whiff of vanity and gossip, when this earnest,
solemn attitude of consecration has not been developed. We
don't realize then that in esoteric life everything depends on
the pure, absolute truth prevailing. Whoever does not recognize
this – that in esoteric life truth, absolute truth must
prevail – can do nothing in esoteric life; that one
cannot merely speak of the truth and then regard things as one
does as usual in profane life. That happens when we make these
things the object of idle gossip.
And this idle gossip which is so much practiced is what
throws so many hindrances and obstructions on the esoteric
path. And we must necessarily bring together everything related
to self-knowledge with an earnest, solemn consecrated attitude.
Then we will have allowed the words to correctly work on our
souls which were spoken at the beginning of the Class lesson
and will be repeated now at the end:
O man, know thyself!
Yes, that is a guide to self-knowledge:
O man, know thyself!
So resounds the cosmic-word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it vast in spirit.
Who speaks so vastly cosmic?
Who speaks so deeply heartfelt?
Does it work through distant radiant space
Into your senses' sense of being?
Does it ring through waves of time
Into your life's evolving stream?
Is it you yourself who
In feeling space, in experiencing time
Create the Word, feeling foreign
In space's psychic vacancy,
Because you lose the force of thought
In time's destructive flow?
Essentially it is a question. The answer is found in the
mantras given today.
Translators' note:
Indeed it is a question. However, all the
German originals (see below) here and in future lessons end
the last line with a period instead of a question mark. Why,
I don't know. Nevertheless, I am using a question mark in
English, which seems the correct thing to do.
O Mensch, erkenne dich selbst!
So tönt das Weltenwort.
Du hörst es seelenkräftig,
Du fühlst es geistgewaltig.
Wer spricht so weltenmächtig?
Wer spricht so herzinniglich?
Wirkt es durch des Raumes Weitensgtrahlung
In deines Sinnes Seinserleben?
Tönt es durch der Zeiten Wellenweben?
In deines Lebens Werdestrom?
Bist du es selbst, der sich
Im Raumesfühlen, im Zeiterleben
Das Wort erschafft, dich fremd
Erfühlend in Raumes Seelenleere,
Weil du des Denkens Kraft
Verlierst im Zeitvernichtunsstrom.
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