How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
GA 10
Translated by Steiner Online Library
Life and Death
The Great Guardian of the Threshold
[ 1 ] It has been described how significant the encounter with the so-called lesser guardian of the "Threshold" is for man in that he becomes aware of a supersensible being in it, which he has to a certain extent brought forth himself. The body of this being is composed of the previously invisible consequences of his own actions, feelings and thoughts. But these invisible forces have become the causes of his destiny and his character. It now becomes clear to man how he himself has laid the foundations for his present in the past. His nature is thus to a certain extent revealed to him. For example, there are certain inclinations and habits in him. Now he can realize why he has them. Certain blows of fate have struck him; now he recognizes where they come from. He realizes why he loves one thing and hates another, why this or that makes him happy or unhappy. The visible life becomes understandable to him through the invisible causes. The essential facts of life, illness and health, death and birth, are also veiled before his eyes. He realizes that before his birth he had woven the causes that necessarily had to lead him back into life. He now knows the entity within himself, which is built up in this visible world in an imperfect way and which can also only be brought to perfection in the same visible world. For in no other world is there an opportunity to work on the development of this entity. And furthermore, he realizes that death cannot separate him from this world forever. For he must say to himself: "I once came into this world for the first time because at that time I was such a being which needed life in this world in order to acquire qualities which it could not have acquired in any other world. And I must be connected to this world until I have developed everything in me that can be gained in it. One day I will only become a capable co-worker in another world by acquiring all the abilities to do so in the sensually visible world." - For it is one of the most important experiences of the initiate that he learns to know and appreciate the true value of sensually visible nature better than he could before his spiritual training. This knowledge comes to him precisely through his insight into the supersensible world. He who has not had such an insight and therefore perhaps only indulges in the idea that the supersensible realms are the infinitely more valuable, can underestimate the sensual world. But he who has had this insight knows that without the experiences in the visible reality he would be quite powerless in the invisible. If he is to live in the latter, he must have abilities and tools for this life. But he can only acquire these in the visible. He will have to see spiritually if the invisible world is to become conscious to him. But this power of vision for a "higher" world is gradually developed through experiences in the "lower" world. One cannot be born in a spiritual world with spiritual eyes if one has not formed them in the sensual world, just as the child could not be born with physical eyes if they had not formed in the womb.
[ 2 ] From this point of view, one will also understand why the "threshold" to the supersensible world is guarded by a "guardian". Under no circumstances should a person be allowed real insight into these realms before he has acquired the necessary abilities. Therefore, every time a person enters another world at death, still unable to work in it, a veil is drawn over their experiences. He should only see it when he has fully matured.
[ 3 ] When the secret disciple enters the supersensible world, life takes on a whole new meaning for him; he sees in the sensual world the seedbed for a higher one. And in a certain sense, this "higher" world will appear to him as inadequate without the "lower" one. Two vistas open up to him. One into the past, the other into the future. He looks into a past in which this sensual world has not yet been. For he has long since got over the prejudice that the supersensible world developed out of the sensible. He knows that the supersensible was first and that everything sensual developed from it. He sees that he himself, before he came into this sensual world for the first time, belonged to a supersensible one. But this former supersensible world needed the passage through the sensible. Its further development would not have been possible without this passage. Only when beings with corresponding abilities will have developed within the sensual realm can the supersensible take its course again. And these beings are human beings. They have thus, as they now live, sprung from an imperfect stage of spiritual existence and will themselves be led within it to that perfection through which they will then be suitable for further work on the higher world. -And this is where the outlook into the future comes in. It points to a higher level of the supersensible world. In this will be the fruits that are formed in the sensual world. The latter as such will be overcome, but its results will be incorporated into a higher one.
[ 4 ] This gives us an understanding of illness and death in the sensual world. For death is nothing other than the expression of the fact that the former supersensible world had reached a point from which it could not go on by itself. A general death would have been necessary for it if it had not received a new lease of life. And so this new life has become a struggle against general death. From the remnants of a dying world, frozen in itself, the seeds of a new one blossomed. That is why we have death and life in the world. And things are slowly merging. The dying parts of the old world still cling to the new sprouts of life that have emerged from them. This finds its clearest expression in man. He carries as his shell what has been preserved from that old world; and within this shell the germ of that being is formed which will live in the future. He is thus a double being, a mortal and an immortal. The mortal is in its final state, the immortal in its initial state. But it is only within this double world, which finds its expression in the sensual-physical, that he acquires the abilities to lead the world to immortality. Indeed, his task is to extract the fruits of the immortal from the mortal itself. So when he looks at his being as he himself has built it up in the past, he must say to himself: I have within me the elements of a dying world. They work in me, and only gradually can I break their power through the newly resurrected immortal ones. This is man's path from death to life. If he could speak to himself with full consciousness in the hour of death, he would have to say to himself: "The dying was my teacher. The fact that I am dying is an effect of the whole past with which I am interwoven. But the field of the mortal has ripened the seeds of the immortal for me. I carry these with me into another world. If it were only the past that mattered, then I could never have been born at all. The life of the past is completed with birth. Life in the sensual is wrested from general death by the new germ of life. The time between birth and death is only the expression of how much the new life was able to wrest from the dying past. And the illness is nothing but the continuing effect of the dying parts of this past."
[ 5 ] From all this, the question finds its answer as to why man only gradually works his way out of aberration and imperfection to the truth and the good. His actions, feelings and thoughts are initially under the dominion of the perishing and dying. His sensual-physical organs are formed from this. Therefore, these organs and everything that initially drives them are themselves doomed to decay. It is not the instincts, drives, passions and so on and the organs belonging to them that represent the imperishable, but only that which appears to be the work of these organs will be imperishable. Only when man has worked out of the perishable everything that needs to be worked out will he be able to strip away the foundation from which he has grown and which finds its expression in the physical-sensual world.
[ 6 ] Thus the first "Guardian of the Threshold" represents the image of man in his dual nature, a mixture of the perishable and the imperishable. And it clearly shows what is still lacking until the achievement of the noble figure of light, which can once again inhabit the pure spiritual world.
[ 7 ] The degree of entanglement with the physical-sensual nature becomes clear to man through the "Guardian of the Threshold". This entanglement is first expressed in the presence of instincts, drives, desires, egoistic wishes, in all forms of self-interest and so on. It is then expressed in belonging to a race, a people and so on. For peoples and races are only the various stages of development towards pure humanity. The more perfectly its members express the pure, ideal type of humanity, the more they have worked their way from the physically perishable to the supersensibly imperishable, the higher is a race, a people. The development of the human being through the evolution of ever higher ethnic and racial forms is therefore a process of liberation. In the end, man must appear in his harmonious perfection. - In a similar way, the passage through ever purer moral and religious forms of outlook is a process of perfection. For every moral stage still contains an addiction to the transient alongside the idealistic germs of the future.
[ 8 ] Now only the result of the time that has passed appears in the "Guardian of the Threshold" described above. And of the future germs there is only that which has been woven into this past time. But man must bring into the future supersensible world all that he can extract from the sense world. If he wanted to bring only what is woven into his counter-image from the past, he would have only partially fulfilled his earthly task. Therefore, after a while, the "lesser guardian of the threshold" is joined by the greater one. Once again, we will describe in narrative form what happens when we encounter this second "Guardian of the Threshold".
[ 9 ] After man has recognized what he must free himself from, a sublime figure of light steps into his path. Its beauty is difficult to describe in the words of our language. - This encounter takes place when the organs of thinking, feeling and volition have also become so far detached from each other for the physical body that the regulation of their mutual relationships no longer takes place through them, but through the higher consciousness, which has now completely separated itself from the physical conditions. The organs of thought, feeling and volition have then become the instruments in the power of the human soul, which exercises its dominion over them from supersensible regions. - This soul, thus liberated from all sensual bonds, is now confronted by the second "Guardian of the Threshold" and says something like the following:
[ 10 ] "You have detached yourself from the world of the senses. Your birthright in the supersensible world has been acquired. From here you can now work. For your own sake, you no longer need your physical body in its present form. If only you wanted to acquire the ability to dwell in this supersensible world, you would no longer need to return to the sensual world. But now look at me. See how immeasurably superior I am to all that you have already made of yourself today. You have come to the present stage of your perfection through the abilities which you were able to develop in the world of the senses as long as you were still dependent on it. Now, however, a time must begin for you in which your liberated powers continue to work on this world of the senses. Up to now you have only liberated yourself, now as a liberated person you can liberate all your comrades in the world of senses. As an individual you have striven until today; now integrate yourself into the whole, so that you not only bring yourself into the supersensible world, but also everything else that is present in the sensible world. One day you will be able to unite with my form, but I cannot be a blessed one as long as there are still unblessed ones! As a single liberated person, you would like to enter the realm of the supernatural today. But then you would have to look down on the still unredeemed beings of the sensual world. And you would have separated your fate from theirs. But you are all connected with each other. You all had to descend into the world of the senses in order to bring up from it the forces for a higher one. If you were to separate yourself from them, you would be misusing the powers that you could only have developed in communion with them. If they had not descended, you would not have been able to either; without them you would have lacked the powers for your supersensible existence. You must also share these powers that you have gained with them. I therefore refuse you entry into the highest realms of the supersensible world as long as you have not used all your acquired powers to redeem your fellow world. You may stay in the lower regions of the supersensible world with what you have already acquired; but I stand before the gate to the higher ones
[ 11 ] Thus the "great guardian" of the threshold announces himself soon after the encounter with the first guardian has taken place. However, the initiate knows exactly what awaits him if he follows the lure of a premature stay in the supernatural world. An indescribable radiance emanates from the second guardian of the threshold; union with him stands before the beholding soul as a distant goal. But there is also the certainty that this union will only be possible when the initiate has expended all the powers that have flowed to him from this world in the service of the liberation and redemption of this world. If he decides to follow the demands of the higher figure of light, then he will be able to contribute to the liberation of the human race. He offers his gifts on the sacrificial altar of humanity. If he prefers his own premature elevation into the supersensible world, then the current of humanity will pass him by. After his liberation from the world of the senses, he can no longer gain new powers for himself. If he does make his work available to it, he does so with the renunciation of gaining something for himself from the place of his more distant activity. It cannot be said, however, that it is self-evident that man will choose the white path when he is thus confronted with the decision. This depends entirely on whether he is already so purified at the time of this decision that no selfishness makes the temptations of bliss appear desirable to him. For these temptations are the greatest imaginable. And on the other hand, there are actually no special temptations at all. There is nothing here that speaks to egoism. What man will receive in the higher regions of the supersensible is not something that comes to him, but merely something that emanates from him: love for his fellow-world. Everything that egoism demands is by no means lacking on the black path. On the contrary: the fruits of this path are precisely the most complete satisfaction of egoism. And if someone only wants bliss for himself, he will certainly walk this black path, for it is the appropriate one for him. - No one should therefore expect the occultists of the white path to give him instructions for the development of his own egoistic self. They have not the slightest interest in the bliss of the individual. Everyone may achieve it for himself. It is not the task of the white occultists to accelerate it. They are only interested in the development and liberation of all beings who are human beings and comrades of man. Therefore, they only give instructions on how to train one's powers to cooperate in this work. They therefore place selfless devotion and willingness to make sacrifices above all other abilities. They do not reject anyone outright, because even the most selfish person can purify himself. But those who seek something only for themselves will find nothing with occultists as long as they do so. Even if they do not withdraw their help from him, he, the seeker, withdraws himself from the fruits of their help. Therefore, he who really follows the instructions of the good secret teachers will understand the demands of the great guardian after crossing the threshold; but he who does not follow these instructions must not hope that he will ever reach the threshold through them. Their instructions lead to good or to nothing at all. For guidance to egoistic bliss and to mere life in the supersensible world lies outside the limits of their task. It is designed from the outset to keep the pupil away from the supernatural world until he enters it with the will to devote himself to it.