The First Goetheanum
by
Rudolf Steiner
Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith
Lesson Thirteen
Dornach, May 17, 1924
My dear Friends,
First of all we shall speak the imperative words from
the spirit of the cosmos which urge us to self-observation
for knowledge of our being:
O man, know thyself!
So sounds the Cosmic-Word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it firm in spirit.
Who speaks with cosmic might?
Who speaks from depth of heart?
Does it work through distant radiant space
Into your senses' sense of being?
Does it ring through weaving 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.
Well, my dear sisters and brothers, in the
previous lesson we tried to find the inner psychic words
which can bring our humanity into contact with what is
revealed by the spiritual hierarchies – with which the
human spirit is closely related. We placed before our
souls how by concentrating on the field of thinking we could
rise up to the region where the beings of the third hierarchy
reside, so to speak: the Angels, Archangels and
Archai.
Not meant is our everyday thinking, but
the thinking which acts behind that everyday thinking, which
we can only achieve from our whole being by meditating deeply
on the words which begin with: “Perceive the field of
thinking.”
And I also pointed out last time how this
thinking can be perceived in the human organism itself
above the region of speech; whereas the field of
memory-thought can be felt under the region of speech.
In respect to the region of speech itself: when we say
something innerly and intensely in a low voice, or even out
loud, we feel the speaking within and we can designate the
place where we feel the speaking within us. Then we have a
starting point, for it is more or less easy to experience
this speech.
And over the speaking, more toward the
rear of the head, we can find the inner thinking through
which we can discover the Angeloi; in the speaking itself the
Archangeloi; and in remembrance, under the speaking, the
Archai can be felt.
And the mantric verse which leads us to
this point was described in the previous class
lesson.
By means of this verse we imagine how at
first cosmic space speaks, the universe itself resounds to
us, so to speak, and therewith the Guardian of the Threshold
tells us to be attentive to what the beings related to us
from the ranks of the third hierarchy, the Angeloi, have to
say.
Then, secondly, how the Guardian of the
Threshold again admonishes us to be attentive to the beings
related to us from the ranks of the Archangeloi.
And thirdly, the Guardian again admonishes
us to listen attentively to the beings related to us from the
ranks of the Archai. So we should imagine this mantric verse
so that we hear the universe from the distant cosmos
resounding to us, and hear the Guardian and the hierarchies
speaking:
Perceive the field of thinking:
The one who wants to show to you
paths from life on earth to life
earth in spirit light does speak.
Behold your senses' shining radiance.
The one who wants to carry you,
Your soul conveyed to souls
regions matter-free, speaks.
Behold the forces working in your thinking.
The one speaks who among spirits
earth-distant fields of creation
Desires to give you the ground of being.
Behold the imagery of remembrance.
So if we can always feel ourselves in this situation
– the cosmic distances speaking to us, the
Guardian of the Threshold speaking to us, the ranks of the
hierarchies speaking to us, if we can vividly imagine it as
though it were around us, then in relation to the schematic
picture I drew on the blackboard the last time, we gradually
come to sense the thinking above the place of speech in the
back of the head, through which we approach the movement and
the life of the third hierarchy.
And so, my dear sisters and brothers, we can say that
by means of this mantric verse we come in contact with the
beings of the third hierarchy.
Likewise do we come into contact with the beings of
the second hierarchy through the second mantric verse, which
was also set forth and which should also be felt and
spiritually perceived. We should ignore the fact that we are
saying it; we should transpose ourselves into the situation I
described.
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
the light of the divine heights
sense of spirit from earthly will.
Feel the earth's mighty resistance.
Thus we come into contact with the Exusiai, Dynamis,
Kyriotetes, An inner connection is created between the
feeling sphere – breathing and blood circulation
– and where the will arises, but which is only
felt as will – and through which a connection is
created between everything in our humanity and the beings of
the second hierarchy.
What remains for us to consider today, my dear
sisters and brothers, is the field of volition, of will. The
field of the will is the one which most dominates the human
being, which acts most strongly in him, but is also the one
which is least experienced with real attention. For man
usually knows little of how the will acts.
Let us take first where the will is most evident in
the human organism, that is, when the human organism is set
in motion.
You must, my dear sisters and brothers, adopt these
intimate concepts if you want to penetrate into what the
spirit which speaks through this esoteric school wishes to
indicate as the path.
Imagine yourself walking, and perhaps moving your
arms. Normally we think that we move our legs and the legs
carry us forward. This is the most convenient idea one can
have. We think that an unknown force – it is of course
an unknown force, for nobody with normal consciousness can
know anything about this force – streams into the legs.
Each leg is placed before the other. Thus we carry ourselves
through the world.
But such is not the case. In no way do the legs have
the primary task of carrying us through the world. It is
simply not true. Here we come to a subject where normal
consciousness immediately shows its maya; for it is maya when
we believe that we walk with the legs, with the physical
legs, that the physical legs exist for walking.
Of course this does not mean, my dear sisters and
brothers, that you should go out into the world of triviality
and cry out-loud: “It is not true that man has his legs
in order to walk.” For that would of course not be
understood at first. Because the profound sense in which it
is true is unknown – that almost everything normal
consciousness offers us at first is maya, the great illusion.
The great illusion does not only include what we observe
around us, but also how we experience ourselves in the
world.
Imagine the following [drawing]: these are human legs
– where each one strides before the other [white legs].
But within these physical human legs is the human etheric
body [red] — the part of the human etheric body that
corresponds to the legs; here is the astral body [yellow] —
the part which corresponds to the legs, and then the
I-organization [violet]. We don't walk with the physical
legs, we don't walk with the etheric legs, not even with the
astral legs, but we walk with the forces that correspond to
the I-organization. We live with these forces, which
correspond to the I-organization, in the gravitational forces
of the earth, which are of course invisible. [drawing: arc
with arrows]. These gravitational forces of the earth we
experience with our I-organization forces [short strokes on
the arrows] – and the will which governs movement
– which acts between the invisible I-organization and
the invisible gravitational forces of the earth.
Now the I-organization is so constituted that it
needs to feel something like resistance when it comes into
contact with the earth's gravitational forces. The legs'
astral body serves this purpose, also the etheric body and,
especially, the physical body, in order that the
I-organization can feel itself, can perceive itself. And
without this perception it could not have a connection with
the earth-organization – because it must be conscious
of this connection. In order that in walking the
I-organization may be conscious of itself and come into
contact with the earth-organization, the physical and the
other organizations are present.
Therefore, walking is a super-sensible process. The
sensible organization is only present in order that the
walking be perceived, because it can be accomplished only
when it is perceived. You no more walk with your legs, my
dear sisters and brothers, than you do with your stockings.
You walk with what corresponds to your I-organization in your
legs. And just as you have stockings to provide warmth, so do
you have physical legs in order to provide consciousness for
walking.
What I have just said must be felt. We must learn to
feel when walking that walking is a super-sensible process,
and that the sensible is only there in order to provide
consciousness of the process. During waking earth-life
this consciousness is created in a less than perfect
way, because our legs are also heavy, so we not only come
into contact with the gravitational pull of the earth, but
also with the gravitational force that acts in our legs.
Therefore, when we are not using our physical legs, as in
sleep, we speed around the universe in the I and astral body
in a much more agile way than when we move about in physical
life. We do move about during sleep, only we have no
consciousness of doing so, because the physical legs provide
that consciousness.
Who is it then who provides us with the capacity for
movement during sleep – and then also during
clairvoyance? We are able to move, I said, in physical life
because the movement becomes conscious through the physical
legs. Who, my dear friends, does that instead when we are
sleeping? Those beings who connect with us for the purpose of
movement when we are sleeping. They are the Thrones, beings
of the First Hierarchy. However, with normal consciousness,
with normal sleeping consciousness, man cannot perceive the
Thrones; therefore, it doesn't help. But when through intuition
he is capable of perceiving what happens during sleep, he
becomes aware that during sleep he is in contact with a
higher world through the Thrones, just as in physical life he
is in contact with normal earth life through his physical
legs.
All this we must translate into feeling. We must
learn to sense it. And then we will sense the interweaving,
undulating spiritual world in which we always are.
And we can again rise to such an inner feeling and
experience if we let it work upon us in this situation as we
did in respect to the other mantras which I described for the
field of thinking and the field of feeling: from out of the
cosmos comes an urgent voice like thunder, then the Guardian
of the Threshold tells us to listen to the Thrones speaking
to us. The Thrones speak to us about the drives – as
they are called – the instinctual drives which are
transfered to our volition when we carry out an act of
will.
Therefore, we will let the third part of this mantra
work on us, as it resounds again from the cosmos:
Perceive the field of will
Then Guardian of the threshold:
The one who guides the cosmic forces
from the dull dark earth-foundations
into your limbs' movements, speaks:
Behold your fiery instinctual drives.
That is the first. The second leads us more into the
soul [psychological] aspect. If we continue to investigate
the human will's actions in this deep meditative practice we
make a great discovery. And at some point humanity must make
this discovery if it wishes to advance in the field of
evolution.
Now I must indicate something to you, my dear sisters
and brothers, something you all know, for normal
consciousness is already aware of it. It is what we call the
voice of conscience in us. The voice of conscience! But the
voice of conscience calls out in an indeterminate way to
human consciousness. Usually we do not rightly know what it
is – in respect to our moral-psychological comportment
– that comes from the mysterious depths of our souls
and which we call the voice of conscience. With normal
consciousness one does not penetrate so deeply into one's own
being as to reach the voice of conscience. It ascends, but
man does not reach it, so he does not look at it face to
face.
And when man penetrates meditatively to the distant
world of the Cherubim, the wisdom filled beings who live and
act throughout the universe, he makes the great discovery
that from the world of the cherubim an impulse enters into
him within which the voice of conscience lives. Oh, the voice
of conscience is of high origin, high being. It actually
lives in the world of the Cherubim. From that world of the
Cherubim it weaves itself into humanity and at first resounds
from the depths of this humanity in an indeterminate way. But
it is a great, mighty encounter when man, through intuition,
can come into contact with the field of the Cherubim and
encounter the world where his conscience lives and works. It
is the greatest personal discovery anyone can make.
Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us
with the following words:
The one speaks who with grace
lets the clear spirit-rays from God's
fields of action, circulate in your blood:
Behold the soul-guide of your conscience.
In truth it is the spirit from the field of the
Cherubim that circulates in the blood that constitutes the
voice of conscience. The blood is physical in all the parts
of our bodies; but in that it is physical in all the parts of
our bodies, it carries the voice of conscience, along with
other things. And the waves of Cherubim life interweave in
our blood.
We will gain an important place for this meditation
if we imagine the situation thus:
First speaks what originates in the universal distance:
Behold the field of will.
Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:
The one who guides the cosmic forces
from the dull, dark earth-foundations
into your limbs' movements, speaks:
Then we imagine [drawing] interweaving clouds
[blue]
symbolizing the Thrones. And in that we imagine these
interweaving clouds, we hear the Thrones, the voices from the
first hierarchy:
Behold your fiery instinctual drives.
Then the Guardian of the Threshold continues:
The one speaks who with grace
lets the clear spirit-rays from God's
fields of action, circulate in your blood.
Now we imagine lightning [red] flashing through the
clouds, for lightning is the tool of the Cherubim, the fiery
swords of the Cherubim. As the lightning flashes through the
clouds, we feel these flashes in the words:
Behold conscience's soul-guidance.
Then the Guardian of the Threshold speaks:
The one speaks who brings the accomplished in man
That is, the previous earth lives
Sensibly through death and birth,
breathe again in contemporary times.
Now we imagine the entire sky above the lightning
with interweaving warmth [drawing: yellow], sending the
lightning down with heat. And in this interweaving heat from
the cosmos we sense the Seraphim's speech:
Behold your destiny's spiritual trial
how destiny extends from earth-life to earth-life to
the present earth-life.
This mantra is especially effective when it is felt
combined in this way with the image. And we can prepare
ourselves for this mantra by using the good German word
“Sitze” – after denuding it of all
triviality – instead of Thrones say “Sitze”
(seats).
So imagine, my dear sisters and brothers, that you
feel the word “Sitze”,
[it is written on the blackboard:]
Sitze (seats)
Flashes in the clouds; form the idea of clouds in
your minds – the word “Blitze”
(lightning bolts)
[“Blitze” is
written over “Sitze”]
Blitze
(lightning bolts)
again with the idea of “flashing
through”: the lightning flashing in the clouds. You
form the word “Hitze”.
[“Hitze” is
written over “Blitze”]
Hitze
(heat)
Universal heat; and feel in this threefold
“i” [pronounced “ee”] the ascending
from the cloud flashes to the lightning bolts and to the
universal heat, from which the lightning bolts derive. You
feel prepared for the mantra:
Sitze, Blitze, Hitze.
And then, after this scene is before you, feel with
the image the force of the mantra:
[Mantra III is written on the blackboard. The word
“will” and the last lines of all three parts are
underlined.]
III. Behold the field of will.
1.) The one who guides the cosmic forces
from the dull dark earth-foundations
into your limbs' movements, speaks:
Behold your fiery instinctual drives.
2.) The one speaks who with grace
lets the clear spirit-rays from God's
fields of action, circulate in your blood.
Behold conscience's soul-guidance.
3.) The one speaks who brings the accomplished in man
sensibly through death and birth,
to breathe again in contemporary times.
Behold your destiny's spiritual trial.
Nothing in such verses is mere empty phrase: rather
is it about the limbs' active movement. I described it as a
working together of the I-organization with the forces of the
earth – a super-sensible process. We must be aware of
that in the first part of the mantra.
In the second part of the mantra we must be aware of
the blood circulating throughout the whole organism,
containing everything pertaining to the conscience. However,
our destiny basically lives in our breathing – the
uppermost part of our rhythmic system – insofar as it
is streamed through not only with what today enlivens us in
breathing, but because breathing has been formed by earlier
stages of earthly existence.
Here [in part 1] the Guardian of the
Threshold refers us
to the
Thrones
here [in part 2] to
the
Cherubim
here [in part 3] to
the
Seraphim
[“Thrones” is written beside part 1,
“Cherubim” beside part 2, “Seraphim”
beside part 3.]
The symbol we choose to give the mantra
the necessary strength and spiritual consolidation and which
expresses the first Hierarchy's revelation in a beautiful
way: clouds , but at the same time what the Thrones derive
their substance from – when we observe the spiritual in
the clouds: their own being or essence.
[The following is written, with
“being” underlined.]
clouds – Thrones – being
We look up to the lightning bolts. Oh, the
Cherubim are already more hidden. We can sense how the
Thrones are acting and moving in the clouds. The looming
clouds provide the Thrones with substance. The Cherubim do
not make it easy for us to see them. They are more hidden
than the Thrones. They do not show themselves in the
formations. They show us their tools in the lightning bolts.
They do not show us their being in the lightning bolts, only
their tools.
[The following is written on the
blackboard, with “tools” underlined.]
Lightning bolts – Cherubim – tools
And if we ascend to the cosmic heat, the
Seraphim are hidden deeply therein, much deeper than the
Cherubim are hidden behind their tools, the lightning bolts.
The heat is only the shining of the Seraphim. The Thrones
reveal themselves by their being; the Cherubim reveal
themselves by their tools; the Seraphim reveal themselves by
their shining.
[The following is written on the
blackboard, with “shining”
underlined.]
Cosmic heat – Seraphim – shining
Thus we establish the connection between
man and the first Hierarchy in the field of will:
Perceive the field of will:
The one who guides the cosmic forces
from the dull dark earth-foundations
into your limbs' movements, speaks:
Behold your fiery instinctual drives.
The one speaks who with grace
lets the clear spirit-rays from God's
fields of action, circulate in your blood.
Behold conscience's soul-guidance.
The one speaks who brings the accomplished in man
sensibly through death and birth,
breathe again in contemporary times.
Behold your destiny's spiritual trial.
In this situation, it is necessary that we feel as
though we are not ourselves speaking, thinking, feeling and
willing; rather that we completely forget ourselves and feel
spoken to in a resounding threefold way.
Yes, my dear sisters and brothers, it is certainly
necessary that such mantric procedures be taken most
seriously. Then they are effective, as they are meant to be.
Then they bring us forward, forward on the threefold fields
of the spiritual worlds, on the fields of thinking, feeling
and willing. And it is always necessary that we be able to
undertake them earnestly.
Something else is necessary which must be taken into
account. The meditator will often fall back into the humdrum
routine of everyday life. He must do so because between birth
and death he is an earthly being. He must always return to
his normal consciousness. For example when we have some kind
of ache which becomes chronic, we will always feel it. We can
sometimes overlook it, but we feel that it is there. We can
feel something similar when we have been embraced by the
power of meditation. We should always be able to say to
ourselves: this normal consciousness has meditated. It has
been embraced by the prevailing power of meditation. We
should feel that the meditation is present, that we were once
in it. By feeling that meditation makes us into something
different, we should have become a different person. Having
once begun, we can never in life forget, not even for a
moment, my dear sisters and brothers, that we are meditants.
That is the right attitude.
We should live into meditative life in such a way
– naturally for short enough intervals that it does not
disturb our normal lives – that we always feel
ourselves to be meditants, and when there are moments when we
forget that we are meditants, then we should feel as ashamed
as if we were walking completely naked along a street crowded
with people. We should experience the transition from
non-meditant to meditant in such a way that if we forget that
we are meditants and then realize that we have forgotten, we
are ashamed.
And then we will really advance in what is said to us
by the cosmic words with which we began:
O man, know thyself!
So sounds the Cosmic-Word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it vast in spirit.
Who speaks with cosmic might?
Who speaks in depth of heart?
Does it work through distant radiant space
Into your senses' sense of being?
Does it ring through weaving waves of time
Into your life's evolving stream?
Is it you yourself who,
In feeling space, in experiencing time
Creates the Word, feeling foreign
In space's psychic vacancy,
Because you lose the force of thought
In time's destructive flow.
But we must always remember that knowledge
is a serious thing, and that the world of great illusions,
the world of maya, will not deliver it to us, that we must
first arrive at the threshold where the Guardian stands, and
that on the threshold all the deceptive forms with which
normal sense-perception and normal consciousness is full will
disappear.
Then we can perceive additional words from
the same cosmic depths from which the words just spoken to us
came:
Know first the earnest Guardian,
Who stands before spirit-land's gates,
Denying entry to your sensible forces
And to your understanding's power,
For in your senses' interweaving
And in your thoughts' forming
From space's lack of being,
From time's power of deception
you must first forcefully conquer
Your own being's truth.
When we have heard such words, the
answering words can reverently issue from the depths of our
souls:
I entered this world of sense-perception,
Taking with me thinking's heritage,
A god's strength had led me here.
Death stands at the long path's end.
I want to feel the being of Christ
Who wakens in death-of-matter spirit-birth.
Thus I find the world in spirit
And know myself in world's becoming.
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