The Destiny of Individuals and of Nations
GA 157
28 November 1914, Berlin
3. The Nature of European Folk Souls
Our first thoughts must once again be directed to the guardian spirits who are guiding those who are at the front where the events of our day are taking place. We address ourselves to the spirits protecting those who are with us in this movement but are now out there, and have to stand up with their life and the whole of their physical being in response to what the time is asking of them. And in a wider sense we are also turning towards the spirits who protect all who have to offer life and limb out there in the field, even though they are not part of our community.
Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
And for those who have already gone through the gate of death we say:
Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard in the spheres.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
May the spirit we are seeking in our movement, the spirit we have been seeking in coming together through the years, rule over you and spread his wings over you, so that you shall be able to complete your task according to your karma. Dear friends, I do not know how many of our friends were able to sense that it is much harder than usual to speak in public lecturers in the present day, lecturers like those given yesterday and the day before15Lectures given on 26 November 1914 (‘Die Menschenseele in Leben und Tod’) and 27 November 1914 (‘Die Seelen der Volker’) both in Aus schicksaltragender Zeit (GA 64). The Human Soul in Life and Death (tr. V. Compton-Burnett, C. Davy, D.S. Osmond and K. Wegener) London, Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. 1935 and The Soul of the People (tr. not mentioned) London, Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. 1934.—especially in public lectures of the type given yesterday. The reason is that the things which have to be said may only too easily be subject to misunderstanding. It is particularly when we are within our movement with heart and mind that we need to let a thought I also made reference to the last time I was able to speak to you here, enter more and more profoundly into our souls. It is the thought that, fundamentally speaking, external life—life on the physical plane as man normally encounters it, not in its reality—is Maya, a kind of ghostly dream, and that the truth, the reality, lies only behind this. It must be clear to us that this truth of the Maya cannot be grasped by theories only, nor indeed just with the intellect. It has to be grasped with all the powers of our soul, the whole of our soul-life and, above all, also the impulses of our heart and feelings. Our intellect is focused on things physical and finds it impossible to grasp that this world that surrounds us is not to be regarded as the true, real world. And our feelings, our will impulses, find this truth even more difficult to grasp. Entering into the life of spiritual science we not only have to learn to think differently but also to feel differently and go down to the wellsprings of our will activity in a different way.
It is difficult to find adequate expression for these things, for no words exist for what pertains to the spiritual world. It is therefore only too easy for the things I said yesterday to be taken to show a certain bias, a certain sympathy or antipathy, in the characterization of one folk soul or another in these days when human thoughts and feelings are so strongly tinged with the sympathies and antipathies that arise out of the mood of the time. And yet, when spiritual science is spoken of in the right frame of mind, it will have to be believed that things like the characterization of folk souls in fact cannot be presented in sympathy or antipathy in the usual sense, even if it is necessary to characterize them sharply. If they were presented in sympathy or antipathy they could not be true, they would have to be untrue, a lie. Why is this so?
It is very easy to think that someone developing his soul life in a certain way to attain to perception of the spiritual worlds, to an objective view of these spiritual worlds, might dry up in his inner feelings and will impulses. That definitely is not possible, however. It would be quite impossible for someone to attain to an objective vision of the spiritual world if he first allowed himself to dry up in the sphere of his living will and feelings, dry up in the inner fire of the impulses that are normally arising in the world of human feelings, sentiments and paSsions. On the contrary all the inner feelings there are, all the inner will activity, must be firmly taken hold of, must become as fiery as possible. But they need to be transformed in the soul. They cannot remain the way they are in ordinary life. They need to be transformed to such effect that through this life of feeling and will impulses the person achieves something of a new synthesis in the sphere of his will and feelings. It is exactly in this way that something must evolve which we may call the inner eye, the inner ear. It is impossible to become inwardly dried up when seeking the spiritual world. Yet once that world is perceived, once it has been reached after all the inner struggles, all inner victories, then it does present itself in such a way that, for example, it may still evoke sympathy and antipathy in us, but that any characterization given of it has as little in it of budding sympathy and antipathy as you would find of budding sympathy in a rose you arc looking at. We are able to experience sympathy with it and antipathy, but it is there before our eyes as an objective presence and if we wish to grasp its nature we are merely able to characterize. For a person who is forced, as it were, to characterize the spiritual world, it is in every single case an impossibility to speak in either sympathy or antipathy.
Yesterday the attempt was made to characterize the Italian, the French, the British and the German folk souls. There will, of course, have been some people in the audience who felt that what was presented was not objective characterization but sympathy and antipathy. Yet if sympathy and antipathy were to come to expression the characterization itself would have to be a lying one, it could never be reliable.
You will be able to understand this very well in this individual instance if I tell you the following. You all know that man is not merely the entity that stands before us when we look at him with our everyday eyes. There he is living in his physical body by his very nature, there he looks at us, as it were, through his physical body. Yet he has another reality, one he is not conscious of in ordinary life on earth for reasons you are aware of. This reality essentially lies within his ego and astral body, and he lives and passes through it quite independent of his physical and etheric body between going to sleep and waking up. A spiritual scientist obtains the results of his researches by illuminating for himself what normally remains unconscious between going to sleep and waking up. This gives him inner experiences of things that normally remain hidden behind the outer impressions of the world, the ghostly dreams of the world.
One thing I said in yesterday's lecture was that the folk spirit, the folk soul, lives specifically in the etheric body of man, and we are within this body from the moment we wake until we go to sleep. On waking we become immersed in the folk soul as we enter into the body. When asleep we are not in the folk soul—only between the moments of waking and going to sleep.
The question is: If the spiritual scientist brings inner life and light particularly into the aspects that are not within the physical body, what is the situation with regard to his life in the folk soul when separate from the body? There the folk soul has a divisive effect. The spiritual scientist cannot live within the folk soul when consciously going through the things man goes through in his sleep. The peculiar thing is that at any time, at any particular moment, a certain number of folk souls may be said to be reigning. The way these folk souls behave toward one another actually makes up the whole earth life of mankind, in so far as it is on the physical plane. Entering into the physical body we also enter into our folk soul. Coming out of the physical body, and having conscious experience outside it, we also enter into the folk-soul element—this is one of many experiences one has—but not into our own folk soul. We enter into the other folk souls and never our own, that is the one we live in during the day in our physical bodies. Accept the full weight of these words. On going to sleep we do not enter into one particular folk soul but into the concerted action, the dance as it were, of the other folk souls. The one soul which does not contribute to the dance is the one we enter into on returning to the physical body. In doing his researches, the spiritual scientist actually joins those other folk souls—which are acting in concert and with them lives through the same things we normally experience on the physical plane in relation to our own folk soul, the soul belonging to the nation within which we ordinarily find ourselves.
Let me ask you then: If a spiritual scientist really knows of life not only in his own folk soul but also in those other folk souls, if he has to go through this, would he then have any real reason to describe his own folk soul with a different kind of objectivity than other folk souls? He does not. Here the potential is given to rise above the prejudices of sympathies and antipathies and be objective. Of course it is not only the spiritual scientist who goes through this—and he does it consciously—but all human beings go through it. Between going to sleep and waking up every human soul lives in the sphere where all folk souls act in concert, except for the one his soul lives in when awake in the daytime.
This is something spiritual science offers so that the horizon of our feelings and sentiments can be truly widened. We often say that spiritual science is able to provide for genuine love, with no distinction of race, nation, class and so forth, because of the nature of the insights it makes possible. This statement is so profound that anyone who clearly sees himself as a human being in that part of himself that is of the spirit simply cannot shut himself away in hatred and antipathy from that which is humanity. He will have to say to himself that it is really senseless not to love. Yet in order to be able to say ‘It is really senseless not love’ spiritual science simply must come to us as something we live, not something we merely know. That is also why we pursue spiritual science not merely as knowledge but in such a way that in living together for years in our branches it truly becomes one with us, a spiritual nourishment that we take in and digest.
I have said that between going to sleep and waking man usually lives in the interplay of folk souls other than the one which is his own folk soul at the time. That is the usual way. There is a way, however, of living one-sidedly, as it were, in just one particular folk soul. There is a way in which one is forced, in this state between going to sleep and waking, to live not within the whole interplay of those other folk souls, within their dance as it were. Instead one is more or less under a spell to live together with one or several folk souls that are taken out of the total concord of all folk souls. There is such a way. It consists in our feeling a particular hatred for one or several folk souls or nations. This hatred we produce lends the special power that forces us in our sleep state to live with the folk soul we hate most or even hate altogether. There is no better way of preparing ourselves for entering completely into one particular folk soul when in the unconscious state between going to sleep and waking, and having to live with it the way we live with the folk soul we know when in our physical bodies, than to hate it—but to hate it sincerely, at the level of our feelings, not merely persuading ourselves that we hate it.
When such things are said we become aware how the reality of Maya has to be taken with profound seriousness. It is not only that our intellect, being what it is, does not want to see that things are different in their depths than in the outer ghostly dream they present, but our feelings, our will, also rise in protest against something which holds true for the spiritual world. If we consider such truths as the one of having to live in other folk souls, and particularly in the one we hate, we have to say to ourselves that the vast majority of people reject spiritual truth not only because it is not accessible to the intellect but also because they simply do not want it, because it upsets them also in the sentiments they ordinarily live with on earth. As soon as one enters more deeply and seriously into the realities of the spiritual world, they are not the least bit comfortable; they are not in the least the kind of thing man really likes when he desires to live on the physical plane only. They are uncomfortable. They shake us up and shake us through and the more profound they are the more they demand of us, really at every single moment, that we must be different from the way we usually are on the physical plane. As a living inner entity it demands something different from us than we are on the physical plane, and that is usually one of the reasons why people reject spiritual reality. We cannot do other than see ourselves linked, not with just one part of the world or of mankind but linked with the whole world and the whole of mankind.
Fundamentally speaking, our physical existence is merely the swing of the pendulum to one side. The swing of the pendulum in the other direction is in many respects the opposite, only we do not know of it in our ordinary life. It can be said that things are getting serious as soon as we consider the deeper truths of spiritual life. These deeper truths can become infinitely important in pointing the way for what human evolution, progress for mankind, demands of us at this very time. Let us take a particular example from spiritual science that can be of special importance for the present time.
Things being the way I have just described to you—so that in entering into physical body and ether body we join in experience what is normally called the folk spirit, the folk soul—you will easily understand how sharing in the experience of the fate of the individual folk spirit is one of the things we will gradually shed after death. Many things have been spoken of that man will shed after death; and one of these things is the link with the folk spirit. The folk spirit is active in the progress of earth evolution, it is active in the way mankind develops on earth from generation to generation. After death, between death and rebirth, we have to come free of the folk spirit in the same way we also grow out of other things. This at the same time lends significance to the hero's death, on the field of battle for instance, a significance that is felt. Any who feel it in the right way—and those going through such a death in the right frame of mind surely will feel this—will know that this death is a death of love. It is not suffered for personal reasons, not for the things one can keep with one for. the whole period between death and rebirth—it is suffered for the folk soul, in that this physical and ether body is given up selflessly. It is impossible to think of death in battle without knowing that it is filled through and through with genuine and most heartfelt love, with men being upheld by something that contributes to the future good of mankind. That is what is so great, so utterly tremendous in this death on the field of battle, if it is experienced in the right frame of mind. For it is impossible to conceive of it except in conjunction with love.
The association with our particular folk spirit has to be cast off between death and rebirth. It has to fall away from us. We have to reach a region where we do not live with the individual folk spirit as such. We shall not, however, be able to enter immediately into other folk spirits. That only happens between going to sleep and waking up. We have to free ourselves altogether of everything that is wholly of the earth, and enter into a life that is separate from anything to do with the evolution of mankind on earth. We must also free ourselves of everything that links us to folk spirits. And this again is something that widens and enlarges the horizons of our feeling life, if we make it something we know, for it lets us look towards the other element, an element we seek that is not around us when we live on the horizon of physical existence.
As you were able to see from the characterization of individual folk spirits given yesterday, it is so that in conscious awareness one of them may be more inclined towards the individual personality of man, to what man is as an individual personality, whilst another is less inclined that way. I have compared it with the way one person looks more into his inner life whilst another lives more in the life of the outer world. One particular folk spirit is more concerned with individual human personalities, another less so. As we belong to one folk spirit or another, this determines the way we relate to what the folk spirit is doing in our ether body, what is in preparation there. As a result there are certain differences in the casting-off process after death, in the gradual emergence out of what the folk spirit has made of us.
Let us take the French folk spirit, for example. It is a folk spirit whose Inspirations are connected with a highly developed culture, a culture that can only be seen as arising because this folk spirit is looking back to ancient Greek civilization. I have discussed this already. This folk spirit now works on the people belonging to that particular nation in such a way—and that is the very nature of the folk spirits that go hand in hand with highly developed civilizations—that deep impressions are made on the human ether body, that the signature of the folk spirit leaves a sharp imprint on the ether body. This has to do with something I pointed out yesterday, that the Frenchman becomes attached to the image he has created of himself. The consequence of the sharp impressions left on the ether body by the folk spirit is that when the soul leaves the body when death occurs, sharply distinct features are left in their ether body and also in the astral body of man. It is particularly if one belongs to a nation such as the French that the soul emerges from physical life with an astral body bearing distinct features. The consequence is that it takes a lot to cast off all that is left of the folk spirit after death.
If we compare the shedding of the essential folk spirit as it occurs in a member of the French nation with the same process for a soul that has been under the influence of the Russian folk soul, for example, we get really the opposite effect in the latter case. The Russian folk soul is young, as it were, and as yet concerns itself less with the individual human beings put in its care. Because of this, individual people passing through the gate of death bear little of the stamp of the Russian folk soul in the ether and astral bodies. Looking at the overall situation in the spiritual world we find, in looking at the souls that have passed through the gate of death, that we encounter sharply defined ether bodies and also sharply defined astral bodies in the souls of the French people whilst Russian souls show little of the imprint of the folk spirit on their ether and astral bodies. Because of this the different souls can be used for different purposes by the guiding spirits that have the task of furthering the evolution of mankind.
We are now in an age that truly cannot progress unless a certain sum of spiritual truth reveals itself to mankind. That has been discussed on many occasions, even to the point that it has been said that by a certain time-span in the present century the revelation of Christ will be made to man in the spiritual world. But we can take it in such a way that we say: A spiritual element has to come into the world. This spiritual element entering into human evolution is first of all the fruit of a struggle won by the spirits in the supersensible sphere. Higher spirits, spirits belonging to higher hierarchies, are fighting in this supersensible sphere to enable the spiritual stream to enter into human evolution. In this struggle they also bring into play forces deriving from human beings who have passed through the gate of death. In the life between death and rebirth man is always participating in the work that brings about what happens in the world. Being individual in his constitution he will also contribute in quite a different way, depending on whether he comes from a French body, for example, or a Russian one. That is why the spirits of the different higher hierarchies are able to use these souls in different ways.
The future development of mankind does, however, depend on a tremendous struggle taking place in the spiritual world at this moment. A struggle in the spiritual world does have a different meaning from one in the physical world. A struggle in the spiritual world means working together to give form and function to something fruitful. It is a struggle necessary for human evolution; in short it is a struggle that gets somewhere. It is being fought by certain spirits belonging to the higher hierarchies. They are fighting it by making use of certain young souls coming from the area of Eastern European civilization and certain souls coming from the Western European civilizations. It is a struggle that will go on for a long time yet, a struggle between Russian souls that have gone through the gate of death and French souls that have gone through death; a war waged by spiritual Russia against spiritual France. It is a terrible war if we use the words belonging to the physical plane. Looking into the spiritual world today one sees this struggle between spiritual Russia and spiritual France, and the spiritual world is full of it. It is a distressing struggle.
And now, in the light of this, let us look at what is happening on on the physical plane. An alliance is made. That is the mirror-image of the struggle in the spiritual world. Now this is the kind of problem one has to cope with in spiritual science. Please do not think that it is possible simply to generalize and say: ‘It is easy to arrive at spiritual truths by always thinking the opposite of what is happening on the physical plane’. If that were made the rule we would get the most silly and erroneous results. For it may hold true in five out of a hundred cases, but not in the other ninety-five. All spiritual truths are individual and have to be considered individually! They cannot be determined by mere dialectics. But the truth I have spoken of is one of those that make a particular impact today, for it can make us aware once again how very different the world looks when we see behind the veil of Maya and how the external doings of man may present the opposite of the true reality, of the spiritual.
If we take this point of view it is inevitable that our feelings must change in the contemplation of external happenings. We come to understand that proper discernment must first be used with regard to external events if the truth is to be seen. A cloud formation may look undefined when seen from a distance and quite different from near by. And that is also true for things that happen on the national scale. And right in the middle, I would say, between the warring parties in East and West, lies the German area in the spirit, and this exists for the purpose of mediating between the two sides, truly to mediate between the two, and also does this. And whilst in the spirit there is mediation between the two sides we see them hitting out from both directions and in both directions in the physical world.
In a sense the events we are now experiencing have to do with the deepest impulse in present-day human evolution. I have often said: Why do we actually pursue anthroposophy? We pursue it because it is a cosmic mission, a work the spiritual world demands of man. A number of Imaginations have to be conveyed to mankind; within the near future men will have to take in a number of spiritual truths. That is part of the plan, I would say, for human evolution. Against it there is the objection, the very real objection, the opposing view, that men have to mature gradually and that this takes a long time. But the Imaginations want to come in now into human evolution. Something has to enter into human evolution that lies a bit above the physical plane, I would say, something higher. Men are still rejecting it today, rejecting it as comprehensively as possible. As a result the counter-image appears. And the counter-image of Imaginations are passions, are emotional outbreaks arising from the depths of human nature, from a point as far below the physical plane as the Imagination are above it. When we see human beings face one another in hatred today, in genuine untruthfulness—what is this hatred, this untruthfulness? They are the mirror-images of the Imaginations that want to burgeon forth and are now emerging in this form because men resist them. An element present at a certain height above the physical plane emerges as a product of transformation, as something that lies at the same distance below the physical plane; it has to work itself out. Again it is possible to find the reason for these disagreeable events in the general karma of mankind.
Why does it have to be now, in our present age, that men receive a certain sum of spiritual truths? The question can be answered as follows.
Two things are possible. One is that a person has a certain feeling for spiritual truths and does not meet them with deaf ears, but rather takes them into his heart and his soul. That he becomes an anthroposophist, as it were, the way it is possible now to become an anthroposophist. Or it may happen that a person rejects spiritual truths, that he will say perhaps that all this is foolish, stupid nonsense; that it all comes out of the heads of a few foolish dreamers who would do better to take up something else.
When a person passes through the gate of death he does of course enter into the spiritual world. If someone were to say: ‘Do we only enter into the spiritual world if we acquire knowledge of that world in the time between birth and death?’ we might perhaps say to him: ‘Of course, a person who knows nothing of the spiritual world will also enter into it.’ But what it the difference between these two types of people? The difference is considerable. I am now always speaking only of our own time, for spiritual truths are individual. And if someone were to say in relation to what I described earlier: 'I assume Imaginations unable to come through will therefore always be transformed into a war of malice, like the one we have now?’ that would be the wrong view. At other times they may behave quite differently. Spiritual truths are always individual and what I am going to say now represents a truth that is individual to our time.
A person going through the gate of death without having made use of the opportunity to take in spiritual elements that exist in our time hands over his soul to the higher worlds on passing through the gate of death in almost the same state he received it when he went through birth to enter into physical existence. The higher worlds receive nothing from him but what they have given him on his incarnation. On the other hand, a person may make his own here on earth what it is possible to obtain from the spiritual world, not by mere faith, but by entering into the spiritual worlds in a living way. On his death he will not hand over his soul to the spiritual worlds the way he received it at birth. He will also hand over to the supersensible beings the concepts, ideas and feelings he has achieved here. These belong not only to him, they belong also to the supersensible beings. Any who do not bring these with them will, of course, also live into the spiritual world but make no contribution to human progress, and if people had always lived like that, or done so from a certain point of time, mankind would have remained as it was. There is progress, further development, and souls will always find something new on entering the earth in a new incarnation because they find opportunity to take in the particular mission of an age. In the final instance, a decision always has to be made as to whether we relate to the spiritual world or not. For instance, someone might say: ‘What do I care about the progress of mankind! What does the evolution of the earth matter to me? Let the earth come to a stop! I shall go on regardless.’ That is how a person may speak who has no real love, no interest in earthly progress. Any, however, who bear within them the love for human progress as their highest responsibility will be unable to choose that road. There is also freedom in this sphere. And souls will come to anthroposophy only through freedom and love for man's true progress and man's true good. So it is not possible either to become an anthroposophist out of mere egotism; in becoming one we contribute something to the progress which one otherwise withdraws from. One is active in love therefore—not merely for oneself but for something else.
This is something I hope will always shine through in all our discussions of the spiritual knowledge we are seeking: that this spiritual science is a living, active force. I am not talking about visions; I am talking of this science. Vision merely yields the results. I am speaking of the results coming alive in man. Spiritual science is something alive, something active, that takes up its abode in our souls, that is working and active in our souls.
I have often used the comparison that merely to speak of love—considering particularly the talking that goes on in the theosophical movement—is like standing in front of a stove and preaching that it shall grow hot, this being its duty as a stove. Even the best of sermons concerning its responsibilities as a stove will not make it grow hot. It will grow hot, however, if we put some wood in it and put a match to it. Basically that is how it is with all preaching of human love, and such preaching will prove hardly more successful when directed at men than a sermon directed at the stove, telling it to grow hot. Such preaching has been done at all times and the results can be seen. But anything that is not mere knowledge of the spiritual world, not mere idea, mere word, but is instead something alive, something active in the word, that is the wood we give to our soul, and it will burn if it is rightly taken in by the soul. This can be learned particularly from conflicts like the present one. There knowledge is set aflame, knowledge becomes love, for man is transformed by the spiritual life he has recognized in his depths, in his foundations. This profound transformation is indeed most uncomfortable for him; he rejects spiritual truth and would rather remain in Maya.
Basically, that is also the next reason for the often-heard statement that spiritual truths should not be offered too freely to the public. After all, these are not truths that act as neutrally as physics or chemistry when they are spoken, but truths towards which the human soul cannot maintain a wholly neutral attitude, having to either reject them or take them in. To take them in, however, the soul has to change in a certain way from what it is in ordinary physical life. So it is true that the world does get somewhat stirred up, excited, when the deeper spiritual truths are presented. Yet our age is ordained not to shrink from such excitement and really to go through this excitement. This will be the only way of preparing the ground for a new spiritual life, a spiritual life we must live towards, for we are now indeed at its starting point. And the signs of the times indicate that it is necessary to understand certain things. We may find many of the things that are happening in the outside world particularly in these days incomprehensible and senseless. Just try and take a number of things together. It is my task here, as it were, to speak to you in more intimate fashion than is possible in a public lecture. I have the task of formulating the things I said in my public lectures that were in the context of current events in such a way that they become effective truth; to formulate them in such a way that the words are the right ones for this our time. If you try and take a number of things together, you will see that one particular aim has been present all the time: to call forth ideas that are a little more the right ones, sentiments and feelings that are more the right ones, with regard also to current events, than those that come so easily and are so widespread.
Try, for instance, to hold on to the fact that in my first public lecture I endeavoured to show how the German people at heart really had a very strong inclination towards peace, towards peaceful progress, and how it really is quite accurate to say: the German people as such did not want the war. Though if we listen to our left and to our right we find they all say, they all stress: ‘We did not want the war!’ The French did not want the war. The English did not want the war. They had to go to war for 'moral reasons'. But those moral reasons were produced in just eighteen hours! They all stress they did not want the war. Let us hold fast to that—there is a lot of truth in it, a great deal of truth—and consider what I did when I said: the German people did not want the war. I did not follow this with the conclusion: this means the other side did want it. Instead, I said quite expressly in that first lecture that at most we could raise a question, the question as to who could have prevented the war. And there I pointed to the Russian East, for they could have prevented the war.
I have drawn special attention to the fact that the right answer depends on the right question being asked. If someone insists he did not want the war this does not necessarily mean the other person did want it. It is possible that both did not want it and yet it came about. Leaving aside the peculiar situation of Russia, we are basically able to say that the war really had not been wanted or intended—what we call ‘intend’ on the physical plane. This war arose with elemental necessity out of opposing forces; quite incomprehensibly out of forces in elemental opposition. Basically, it has never before happened in world history that an event popped up as though out of a box within such a few days. This has shown that whatever takes place in external events arises from spiritual contexts and presents itself as something physical.
From this point of view the events of today may serve as a lesson, to show mankind that we will never get the right answer by asking: ‘Did he do it?’ or ‘Did another do it?’ Instead you have to accept the premise that something else has been involved as well; you will have to make the effort and go somewhat deeper. Only then will we learn to speak of events in the right way.
There is yet another reason why it will be necessary to go to the effort of taking a deeper view of things. We are now experiencing how the world appears divided against itself. People are not yet able to do other than always blame another person. The time will come when the deeper truths relating to karma will have entered into the hearts and minds of men. Then this way of blaming the other for whatever has to be lived through will no longer exist. Then people will know that every nation is, in its karma, living through the things it has to live through for its own sake. A nation will be aware of the necessity to gain strength in battle—not because of another but for its own sake—to progress; the other is in a certain way only the agent. This will focus attention on the karma of folk souls. And seen from a higher point of view, the statement: ‘I am standing here and the other is standing there. It is his fault. He is responsible for my having to go through these events, these struggles. It is his doing’ is like a man of fifty looking at a child. The child is young, he is old; when the child did not yet exist he was not yet old, and as the child grows he is getting old. It is then as though he were to say: ‘It is the child's fault that I am getting old; for if the child were not to grow and get older I also would not get old!’ But the child can merely make him aware of getting old.
This is what we must take note of. Every nation has to experience whatever it does experience out of its karma, even the most serious of events. Do not say that such a truth, when it enters into the hearts and minds of men, will be something comfortless that enters into their hearts and minds. Instead, it will lead to a heroic view of life, a courageous view of life, a view of life that encompasses evolution. Once men are able to hold such a view of life it will appear to them as a waste of energy always to seek the fault in another and always to carry on to the usual conclusion. They will call upon the energies that can help them onward. They will learn to identify with their destiny in every sphere. We have seen, in my public lecture, that this destiny, generally seen as something external, can only be properly grasped when we surrender to this destiny. And it is the same with the karma of a nation. When love comes to earth then this attitude will arise among men.
Again, as on former occasions, I would appeal to you, dear friends, who have dedicated yourselves to a spiritual movement, to consider that in future it will be necessary to fill the mental horizon we live in not merely with the kind of thoughts that existed before, but to fill it with new thoughts. These, however, can only be thoughts arising from the spiritual world. It will not be immaterial whether or not a number of people send up thoughts into the spiritual world like those deriving from such considerations as have been presented today. In deciding to meditate on these truths you will help the events that are to happen in the future to happen in the right way, for the good of man. You are anything but inactive with regard to human progress if you meditate on the thoughts the present time calls for in order that man may truly progress. Let us hope that a good many of us succeed in doing spiritual work side by side with the work that is done with blood and death; spiritual work which consists in filling the World with the right thoughts, with thoughts that relate to the mission of age. We shall then be able to feel that these are the true thoughts of love. Looking for a quotation, many people have been reaching for the popular volume by Buechmann these days to find the right phrase and quoted the words of old Heraclitus, according to which war is the ‘father of all things’.16Heraclitus (c. 540–480 BC), Greek philosopher of Ephesus: Fragment B53 in H. Diels Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Vol. I. Heraclitus was right in saying this and those who quote him are also right. Yet a father on his own cannot produce a child. The child has to have a mother. As war is the father, so anything achieved in peace-filled work is the mother. Unless the father is to remain sterile, there has to be a mother. And she in turn will have to come from the hearts and minds of those who understand the mission of our time in the spirit and know how to come to love out of understanding.
That is what I want to put into your souls in today's gathering, so that in keeping with the demands made in the present day our spiritual science shall not serve merely to satisfy our curiosity or thirst fa: knowledge but give us the right living energies, energies that we develop to make them a true comfort in the sorrows our time is bringing. True comfort does not result in weakness but leads to strength, courage to be active—spiritually active or physically active, but in any case active. Over and over again we have to remember how important it is in our time for a number of people to feel the free impulse to enter more deeply into the spirit. For this in itself means that progress is made not by the individual but by the whole of mankind.
And in this attitude of mind let us in conclusion return once more to the thoughts we are sending forth, in the way I have indicated, to those who are at the front.
Out of courage shown in battle,
Out of the blood shed in war,
Out of the grief of those who are left,
Out of the people's deeds of sacrifice
Spirit fruits will come to grow
If souls with knowledge of the spirit
Turn their mind to spirit realms.
Dritter Vortrag
Unsere ersten Gedanken sollen auch diesmal wieder hin zu den schützenden Geistern gerichtet sein, welche diejenigen bewahren, die draußen auf den Feldern der Ereignisse unserer Tage stehen; an die schützenden Geister derjenigen richten wir uns, die mit uns innerhalb unserer Bewegung stehen, jetzt aber draußen sind und mit ihrem Leben und mit ihrem ganzen physischen Sein einzutreten haben für das, was die Zeit von ihnen fordert. Und im weiteren Sinne wenden wir uns auch an die schützenden Geister aller derjenigen, die, auch ohne daß sie unserer Gemeinschaft angehören, draußen auf diesen Feldern Leben und Leib darzubringen haben:
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
Und mit Bezug auf diejenigen, welche schon durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, sagen wir:
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
Und der Geist, den wir durch unsere Bewegung suchen, den wir durch die Jahre hindurch gesucht haben, so wir hier zusammenkamen, er möge walten über euch, und seine Fittiche über euch ausbreiten, damit ihr entsprechend eurem Karma eure Aufgabe zu Ende führen könnt!
Meine lieben Freunde, ich weiß nicht, wie viele von den Freunden es empfunden haben werden, daß es in unsern gegenwärtigen Tagen in öffentlichen Vorträgen, wie sie gestern und vorgestern gegeben werden mußten — und insbesondere in öffentlichen Vorträgen von der Art, wie gestern einer gegeben werden mußte -, noch schwerer ist als sonst, zu sprechen, weil gar leicht das, was gesprochen werden muß, dem Mißverständnis ausgesetzt sein kann. Gerade wenn wir mit Herz und Sinn innerhalb unserer Bewegung stehen, müssen wir das Wort, von dem ich auch das letztemal, als ich hier sprechen durfte, Andeutungen gemacht habe, wirklich immer mehr zur Vertiefung in unserer Seele bringen, das Wort, das im Grunde genommen das äußere Leben, das Leben des physischen Planes, so wie es dem Menschen gewöhnlich entgegentritt — nicht an sich — Maja ist, eine Art Phantasmagorie ist, und daß die Wahrheit, die Wirklichkeit erst dahinter steht. Wir müssen uns klar sein, daß diese Wahrheit von der Maja nicht nur mit unseren Theorien oder überhaupt nur mit unserm Verstande erfaßt werden kann, sondern daß sie erfaßt werden muß mit allen unsern Seelenkräften, mit unserm ganzen Seelenleben, vor allen Dingen auch mit unseren Gefühls- und Empfindungsimpulsen. Denn ebenso wie unser Verstand, der sich auf das Sinnliche richtet, es unbegreiflich findet, daß diese uns umgebende Welt nicht die wahre, wirkliche sein soll, so finden mehr noch unsere Gefühle, unsere Willensimpulse diese Wahrheit unbegreiflich. Man muß nicht nur durch das Sicheinleben in die Geisteswissenschaft anders denken lernen, man muß auch anders fühlen lernen und anders zu den Quellen seines Wollens herabsteigen lernen.
Wie leicht könnte so etwas, wie es gestern vorgebracht worden ist, weil es ja schwierig ist, diese Dinge, da für die Verhältnisse der geistigen Welt eine Sprache nicht geprägt ist, ganz adäquat zum Ausdruck zu bringen, wie leicht könnte das zum Beispiel gestern Gesprochene so aufgefaßt werden, daß diese Charakteristik auf diese oder jene Volksseele mehr oder weniger sympathisch oder antipathisch ansprechend gefällt ist, in unserer Zeit, wo so viel von Sympathien und Antipathien, selbstverständlich von der Zeit herausgefordert, im menschlichen Denken und Fühlen mitspricht. Und dennoch, wenn Geisteswissenschaft aus rechter Gesinnung heraus spricht, dann muß schon einmal geglaubt werden, daß diese Dinge, wenn sie auch scharf charakterisiert werden müssen, wie zum Beispiel die Charaktere der Volksseelen, nicht mit Sympathie und Antipathie im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes gesprochen werden dürfen. Wenn sie mit Sympathie und Antipathie gesprochen werden, dann könnten sie nämlich nicht wahr sein, dann müßten sie unwahr, müßten verlogen sein. Warum dieses?
Man glaubt so leicht, daß der, welcher durch entsprechende Entwickelung seiner Seele zu der Anschauung der geistigen Welten aufzusteigen versucht, zu der objektiven Anschauung dieser geistigen Welten, ein innerlich gefühls- oder willenstrockener Mensch werden könnte. Das kann er wahrhaftig nicht werden. Der Mensch, der sich erst ausdörren würde in bezug auf sein Gefühls- und Willensleben, in bezug auf diejenigen Impulse, die sonst in der menschlichen Gefühls-, Empfindungs- und Leidenschaftswelt zum Vorschein kommen, der Mensch, der sich erst ausdörren würde von diesem inneren Feuer, würde ganz gewiß nicht zu einer objektiven Anschauung der geistigen Welt aufsteigen können. Im Gegenteil: alles an innerem Gefühlsleben, alles an innerem Willensleben muß zusammengenommen werden, muß gerade so feurig als möglich werden. Aber es muß umgewandelt werden in der Seele; es kann nicht so bleiben, wie es im gewöhnlichen Leben ist. Es muß erst so umgewandelt werden, daß der Mensch durch dieses Gefühls- und Willensimpulsleben etwas bekommt wie einen Neuaufbau seiner Gefühls- und Willenswelt. Gerade dadurch muß sich das entwickeln, was inneres Auge, inneres Ohr genannt werden kann. Ein innerlich ausgedörrter Mensch kann man nicht werden, wenn man die geistige Welt sucht. Aber dann, wenn sie angeschaut wird, wenn man durch alle inneren Kämpfe, durch alle inneren Überwindungen zu dieser geistigen Welt hingekommen ist, dann allerdings bietet sie sich als geistige Welt so dar, daß sie zum Beispiel in uns zwar noch Sympathie und Antipathie hervorrufen kann, daß aber in der Charakteristik, die von ihr gegeben wird, so wenig lebt aus eben entstehender Sympathie und Antipathie, als in der Rose lebt von eben entstehender Sympathie, wenn wir sie anschauen. Wir können mit ihr Sympathie und Antipathie empfinden, aber sie selbst steht in ihrer Objektivität da, und wir können sie, wenn wir sie in ihrer Wesenheit erfassen wollen, nur charakterisieren. Bei demjenigen, der gewissermaßen dazu gezwungen ist, die geistige Welt zu charakterisieren, bei ihm ist in jedem einzelnen Falle im Grunde genommen die Unmöglichkeit gegeben, aus Sympathie und Antipathie heraus zu sprechen.
Gestern wurde versucht, die italienische, die französische, die britische, die deutsche Volksseele zu charakterisieren. Gewiß wird es unter den Zuhörern solche gegeben haben, die geglaubt haben, daß da nicht objektive Charakteristik, sondern Sympathien und Antipathien sprechen. Wenn aber Sympathie und Antipathie sprechen würden, so müßte die Charakteristik selber verlogen sein, so würde sie niemals verläßlich sein können. Das können Sie aus diesem einzelnen Falle wohl begreifen, wenn ich das Folgende sage. Sie wissen alle, daß der Mensch nicht nur dieses Wesen ist, als welches er vor uns steht, wenn wir ihn mit Tagesaugen betrachten. Da lebt er seiner eigentlichen Wesenheit nach in seinem physischen Leibe, da blickt er uns gleichsam durch seinen physischen Leib an. Diejenige Wesenheit aber, derer er sich aus bestimmten Gründen — die Sie kennen - im gewöhnlichen Erdenleben nicht bewußt ist, diese Wesenheit, die eigentlich innerhalb des Ich und des astralischen Leibes lebt, lebt er ganz abgesondert vom physischen Leib und Ätherleib vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen durch. Beim Geistesforscher ist es ja so, daß er dadurch zu den Ergebnissen seiner Forschung kommt, daß er sich dasjenige durchleuchtet, was sonst zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen unbewußt bleibt. Er erlebt dadurch - durch innere Erlebnisse — dasjenige, was sonst hinter den äußeren Eindrücken der Welt, hinter der Phantasmagorie der Welt verborgen bleibt.
Nun ist gestern im öffentlichen Vortrage gesagt worden, daß der Volksgeist, die Volksseele, im Leibe des Menschen lebt. Heute kann ich sagen: Insbesondere lebt die Volksseele im Ätherleibe des Menschen, in dem wir sind in der Zeit vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen. Beim Aufwachen tauchen wir mit unserem Untertauchen in den Leib zugleich in die Volksseele ein. Schlafend sind wir nicht in der Volksseele, sondern nur vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen.
Nun entsteht die Frage: Wenn nun der Geistesforscher dasjenige gerade innerlich belebt und durchleuchtet, was nicht im physischen Leibe lebt, wie ist es dann mit seinem vom Leibe abgesonderten Leben in der Volksseele? Da wirkt die Volksseele trennend, wenn wir in den Leib untertauchen. Da kann der Geistesforscher ja nicht in der Volksseele leben, wenn er das bewußt durchlebt, was der Mensch im Schlafe durchlebt. Das Eigentümliche ist, daß es zu jeder Zeit, in jeder Gegenwart eine gewisse, man möchte sagen, regierende Anzahl von Volksseelen gibt, und die Art, wie sich diese Volksseelen zueinander verhalten, macht überhaupt das gesamte Erdenleben der Menschheit aus, insofern es physisch verläuft. Wenn man in den physischen Leib untertaucht, taucht man damit in die Volksseele unter. Kommt man aus seinem physischen Leib heraus und erlebt bewußt außerhalb desselben, dann taucht man ebenso — unter all den anderen Erlebnissen, die man durchmacht — jetzt nicht in die eigene, sondern in die anderen Volksseelen unter, mit Ausnahme der eigenen, in der man während des Tageslebens im physischen Leibe lebt. Nehmen Sie im vollen Gewicht, was ich eben gesagt habe. Daß wir mit dem Einschlafen also nicht in eine einzelne Volksseele untertauchen, sondern daß wir untertauchen in das Zusammenwirken, gleichsam in den Reigen der anderen Volksseelen, nur daß in dieses Reigenspiel nicht diejenige Volksseele hineinspielt, in die wir untertauchen, wenn wir in den physischen Leib kommen. Der Geistesforscher durchlebt tatsächlich innerhalb seiner Forschung mit den anderen Volksseelen — nur in ihrem Zusammenklang — dasselbe, was man sonst auf dem physischen Plane gegenüber der einzelnen Volksseele erlebt, die dem Volke angehört, in welchem man sonst darinnensteht.
Nun frage ich Sie: Wenn nun der Geistesforscher tatsächlich das kennt, wie man nicht nur in der eigenen Volksseele lebt, sondern wie man in den anderen Volksseelen lebt, wenn er das durchzumachen hat, hat er dann einen besonderen Grund, mit anderer Objektivität die eigene Volksseele zu schildern als andere Volksseelen? Das hat er nicht. Und hier liegt die Möglichkeit, über die Vorurteile der Sympathien und Antipathien hinüberzukommen und objektiv zu schildern. Es ist selbstverständlich, daß nicht nur der Geistesforscher, der das einfach bewußt durchmacht, was alle Menschen durchmachen, sondern daß jede Menschenseele vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen in allen Volksseelen in ihrem Zusammenspiel lebt, mit Ausnahme derjenigen, in welcher die Seele lebt während des Tagwachens. Das ist das, was uns die Geisteswissenschaft gibt, damit der Horizont unseres Fühlens und Empfindens wirklich erweitert wird. Oftmals sprechen wir ja davon, daß die Geisteswissenschaft geeignet ist, eben durch die Art von Erkenntnis, die sie gibt, die Liebe ohne Unterschied von Volk, Rasse, Stand und so weiter wirklich zu geben. Dieser Satz ist so tief begründet, daß der, welcher einsieht, daß er, wenn er sich in dem Teile als Mensch nimmt, der geistig in ihm ist, sich ja gar nicht ausschließen kann in Haß und Antipathie von dem, was Menschtum ist —, daß er sich sagen muß: Es ist eigentlich ein Unsinn, nicht zu lieben! Um aber zu sagen: es ist eigentlich ein Unsinn, nicht zu lieben, muß uns eben die Geisteswissenschaft ergreifen wie ein Leben, nicht bloß wie ein Wissen. Deshalb treiben wir diese Geisteswissenschaft auch nicht wie ein bloßes Wissen, sondern so treiben wir sie, daß sie in jahrelangem Zusammenleben in unseren Zweigen wie eine geistige Nahrung, die wir aufnehmen und in uns verarbeiten, wirklich mit uns eins wird.
Ich sagte: Das Gewöhnliche ist das, daß der Mensch vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen in dem Zusammenspiel der Volksseelen lebt, der anderen als derjenigen, die seine Volksseele gerade ist. Das ist das Gewöhnliche. Aber es gibt auch ein Mittel, um gewissermaßen in Einseitigkeit in der einen oder in der anderen Volksseele zu leben. Es gibt ein Mittel, daß man gezwungen wird, in dem Zustande zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen nicht mit dem ganzen Zusammenspiel, nicht mit dem ganzen Reigentanz gleichsam der anderen Volksseelen zu leben, sondern mehr oder weniger gebannt zu sein, mit einer oder mit mehreren anderen Volksseelen zusammenzuleben, die herausgehoben werden aus dem ganzen Zusammensein aller Volksseelen. Ein solches Mittel gibt es, und es besteht darin, daß wir eine oder mehrere Volksseelen - Völker — besonders hassen. Dieser Haß nämlich, den wir aufbringen, gibt die besondere Kraft, in unserem Schlafzustande mit denjenigen Volksseelen leben zu müssen, die wir am meisten hassen oder die wir überhaupt hassen. Man kann sich also nicht besser dazu vorbereiten, in dem unbewußten Zustande zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen völlig in eine Volksseele aufzugehen und mit ihr so leben zu müssen wie mit der, mit welcher man im physischen Leibe lebt, als dadurch, daß man sie haßt, aber ehrlich haßt, mit dem Gefühl haßt, und sich nicht bloß einredet, sie zu hassen.
Wenn solche Dinge ausgesprochen werden, dann merkt man, wie tief und ernst die Wahrheit von der Maja genommen werden muß. Denn nicht nur, daß unser Verstand, so wie er einmal konstruiert ist, nicht einsehen will, daß die Dinge in ihren Tiefen anders sind als in ihrer äußeren Phantasmagorie, sondern es bäumt sich unser Fühlen, unser Wollen auf gegen das, was wahr ist für die geistige Welt. Wenn man solche Wahrheiten nimmt, wie die von dem Leben in den andern Volksseelen und besonders in der, welche man haßt, dann wird man sich sagen müssen, daß die größte Anzahl der Menschen die geistige Wahrheit nicht nur aus dem Grunde von sich weist, weil sie der Verstand nicht einsehen kann, sondern deshalb, weil sie sie gar nicht haben wollen, weil sie sie stört auch in dem Empfinden, dem sich der gewöhnliche Erdenmensch hingibt. Sobald man tiefer und ernsthafter auf die Wahrheiten der geistigen Welt eingeht, dann sind sie gar nicht bequem, dann sind sie gar nicht das, was der Mensch, wenn er auf dem physischen Plan allein leben will, eigentlich liebt. Sie sind unbequem. Sie durchrütteln und durchschütteln uns und fordern, je tiefer sie sind, eigentlich in jedem Augenblicke von uns, daß wir anders sein sollen, als wir gewohnt sind auf dem physischen Plan zu sein. Und dies, daß sie als ein lebendiges Inneres etwas anderes von uns fordert, als wir auf dem physischen Plane sind, das ist zumeist einer der Gründe, warum die Menschen die geistige Wahrheit zurückweisen. Wir können gar nicht anders, als nicht bloß mit einem Teile der Welt oder der Menschheit verbunden zu sein, sondern wir müssen verbunden sein mit der ganzen Welt und mit der ganzen Menschheit. Unser physisches Sein bedeutet im Grunde genommen nur den einen Pendelausschlag, der andere Pendelausschlag ist das Entgegengesetzte in vieler Beziehung; man kennt ihn nur nicht im gewöhnlichen Leben. Man kann sagen, es wird ernst, sobald man nur auf die tieferen Wahrheiten vom geistigen Leben eingeht. Und unendlich richtunggebend können diese tieferen Wahrheiten vom geistigen Leben für dasjenige werden, was Menschheitsentwickelung, was Menschheitsfortschritt gerade in unserer Zeit von uns fordert. Lassen Sie uns aus der geistigen Forschung ein Beispiel herausheben, das insbesondere für die Gegenwart wichtig sein kann.
Sie sehen leicht ein, wenn die Dinge so stehen, wie ich jetzt eben von ihnen gesprochen habe, wenn wir also beim Untertauchen in den physischen Leib und Ätherleib das Miterleben mit dem haben, was man im gewöhnlichen Sinne den Volksgeist, die Volksseele nennt, so gehört dieses Miterleben der Schicksale des einzelnen Volksgeistes zu den Erlebnissen nach dem Tode, die wir nach und nach abstreifen. Oft wurde in bezug auf viele Dinge gesprochen, die der Mensch nach dem Tode abstreift; aber zu diesen Dingen gehört auch das Verbundensein mit dem Volksgeist. Der Volksgeist wirkt im Fortschritt der Erdenentwickelung, er wirkt in dem, wie sich von Generation zu Generation die Menschheit auf der Erde fortentwickelt. Nach dem Tode, zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, müssen wir uns, wie wir aus anderem uns herausentwickeln, so auch aus dem Volksgeist herauslösen. Das begründet zugleich das Bedeutsame des Heldentodes, des Todes auf dem Schlachtfelde zum Beispiel, das empfunden wird. Wer ihn richtig fühlt - und es fühlen ihn sicher richtig die, welche mit der richtigen Gesinnung durch diesen Tod gehen -, der weiß, daß dieser Tod ein Tod der Liebe ist, daß er erlitten wird nicht für das Persönliche, nicht für das, was man mitbehalten kann in der ganzen Zeit zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt für sich; sondern daß er erlitten wird für die Volksseele, indem selbstlos hingegeben wird dieser physische Leib und Ätherleib. Man kann sich den Tod auf dem Schlachtfelde nicht denken, ohne ihn durchdrungen zu wissen von wirklicher innigster Liebe, vom Getragenwerden der Menschen von dem, was zum Heile der Menschheit in der Zukunft beiträgt. Das ist das Große, das Bedeutsame, das Ungeheure gerade dieses Todes auf dem Schlachtfelde, wenn er in richtiger Gesinnung erlebt wird. Denn er ist undenkbar, ohne verbunden zu sein mit der Liebe.
Aber das Zusammensein mit dem einzelnen Volksgeist müssen wir zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt abstreifen. Es muß von uns abfallen. Wir müssen in eine Region hineinkommen, wo wir nicht mit dem einzelnen Volksgeiste als solchem leben. Allerdings ist es dann nicht so, daß wir unmittelbar in andere Volksgeister übergehen können. Das ist zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen der Fall. Wir müssen überhaupt frei werden von dem, was bloß irdisch ist, und müssen eingehen in das Leben, das sich loslöst von dem, was die Entwickelung der Menschheit auf der Erde ausmacht. Also loslösen müssen wir uns auch von alledem, was uns mit den Volksgeistern verbindet. Und das ist wieder das, was, wenn wir es uns als Erkenntnis aneignen, unseren Empfindungshorizont erweitert, vergrößert, indem es uns hinblicken läßt auf das andere, das wir suchen, und das nicht um uns herum ist, wenn wir auf dem Horizont des physischen Daseins leben.
Nun ist es — das können Sie schon aus der gestrigen Charakteristik der einzelnen Volksgeister entnehmen — im Bewußtsein dieser Volksgeister gelegen, daß der eine mehr hinneigt zu der Individualität des Menschen, zu dem, was der Mensch als Individualität ist, der andere neigt weniger dazu hin. Ich habe es damit verglichen, daß der eine Mensch mehr in sein Inneres hineinschaut, der andere mehr mit der Außenwelt lebt. Bei den Volksgeistern ist es so, daß der eine sich mehr, der andere sich weniger mit den einzelnen Menschenindividuen beschäftigt. Das bedingt wieder, indem wir dem einen oder dem andern Volksgeist angehören, wie wir mit dem zusammenhängen, was der Volksgeist besonders in unserem Ätherleibe stiftet, was er dort zubereitet. Daher gibt es gewisse Unterschiede in dem Abstreifen, in dem nach und nach sich Herausstreifen aus dem, was der Volksgeist mit uns macht, nach dem Tode.
Da haben wir zum Beispiel den französischen Volksgeist. Es ist ein Volksgeist, dessen Inspirationen mit einer hochentwickelten Kultur zusammenhängen, mit einer Kultur, die nur dadurch denkbar ist, daß dieser Volksgeist zurücksieht auf das alte Griechentum, wie ich es auch schon auseinandergesetzt habe. Dieser Volksgeist arbeitet nun so an den Menschen, die dem betreffenden Volke angehören — das ist gerade die Natur derjenigen Volksgeister, die hochentwickelten Kulturen entsprechen -, daß tiefe Eindrücke im menschlichen Ätherleib entstehen, daß sich die Signatur des Volksgeistes scharf einprägt in den Ätherleib. Das hängt mit dem zusammen, worauf ich gestern aufmerksam gemacht habe, daß der Franzose an dem Bilde hängt, das er sich von sich selber macht. Denn daß solche von den Einwirkungen des Volksgeistes in den Ätherleib herrührende Eindrücke geschehen, das hat wieder zur Folge, daß, wenn die Seele den Leib im Tode verläßt, scharfe Ausprägungen im Ätherleibe und auch noch im astralischen Leibe des Menschen vorhanden sind. Gerade wenn man einem solchen Volke angehört wie dem französischen, kommt die Seele mit scharf ausgeprägtem astralischem Leib aus dem physischen Dasein heraus. Die Folge davon ist, daß? man viel zu tun hat im Abstreifen desjenigen, was vom Volksgeiste nach dem Tode bleibt.
Vergleichen wir nun ein solches Abstreifen der Natur des Volksgeistes, wie es durch das französische Volk bedingt wird, mit dem, was zum Beispiel durch die russische Volksseele bedingt wird, so haben wir bei der letzteren eigentlich das Entgegengesetzte. Die russische Volksseele ist gleichsam jung, und sie beschäftigt sich noch weniger mit den Menschenindividuen, die ihr anvertraut sind. Daher sind die Menschenindividuen, wenn sie durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, in bezug auf den ätherischen und astralischen Leib durch die russische Volksseele wenig geprägt. Wenn wir nun die ganze Situation ansehen in der geistigen Welt, so finden wir, wenn wir auf die Seelen hinblicken, die durch die Todespforte gegangen sind, daß wir die Seelen des französischen Volkes mit scharf ausgeprägten Ätherleibern wie auch mit scharf ausgeprägten astralischen Leibern antreffen, daß wir dagegen die russischen Seelen mit durch den Volksgeist wenig ausgeprägten Äther- und astralischen Leibern wiederfinden. Die Folge davon ist, daß diese verschiedenen Seelen von den leitenden Geistern, welche die Menschheitsevolution vorwärtsbringen müssen, zu Verschiedenem gebraucht werden können.
Nun stehen wir in einer Zeit, die wirklich nicht vorwärtskommen kann, wenn sich nicht für die Menschheit eine gewisse Summe von spirituellen Wahrheiten offenbart. Das ist ja oftmals auseinandergesetzt worden, ist bis zu dem Grade auseinandergesetzt worden, daß gesagt worden ist, daß bis zu einem gewissen Zeitraume unseres Jahrhunderts die Offenbarung des Christus sich in der geistigen Welt dem Menschen eröffnen wird. Aber wir können es so nehmen, daß wir sagen: Es muß Spirituelles hereinkommen in die Welt. Dieses Spirituelle, das in die Menschheitsentwickelung hereinkommt, erkämpfen zuerst die Geister in der übersinnlichen Sphäre; und in dieser übersinnlichen Sphäre kämpfen für das Hereindringen der spirituellen Strömung in die Menschheitsentwickelung höhere Geister, Geister höherer Hierarchien. Aber sie bedienen sich bei ihrem Kampfe als mitspielender Kräfte derjenigen, welche von den Menschen kommen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind. Der Mensch im Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt arbeitet und wirkt ja immer mit an dem, was in der Welt geschieht. Und da er in verschiedener Weise gestaltet ist, so wirkt er ganz verschieden mit, je nachdem er zum Beispiel aus einem französischen oder aus einem russischen Leibe kommt. Daher können sich die Geister der verschiedenen höheren Hierarchien dieser Seelen in verschiedener Weise bedienen.
Was in der Menschheitsentwickelung bevorsteht, das hängt allerdings damit zusammen, daß gegenwärtig in der geistigen Welt ein mächtiger Kampf stattfindet. Nur bedeutet Kampf in der geistigen Welt etwas anderes als Kampf in der physischen Welt. Ein Kampf in der geistigen Welt bedeutet ein Zusammenwirken zur Ausgestaltung eines Fruchtbaren. Es ist dieser Kampf etwas, was für die Menschheitsentwickelung notwendig ist; kurz, es ist ein Kampf, der zu etwas führt. Ihn kämpfen gewisse Geister der höheren Hierarchien aus. Und sie kämpfen ihn so aus, daß sie sich gewisser junger, aus dem östlichen Kulturgebiete kommender Seelen und gewisser aus den westlichen Kulturen herauskommender Seelen bedienen. Es ist ein Kampf, der noch lange dauern wird, ein Kampf der russischen Seelen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, und der französischen Seelen, die durch den Tod gegangen sind; ein Krieg des geistigen Rußland gegen das geistige Frankreich. Es ist ein furchtbarer Krieg, wenn wir die Worte des physischen Planes gebrauchen. Wer heute den Blick in die geistige Welt richtet, der erblickt diesen Kampf des geistigen Rußland gegen das geistige Frankreich, und voll ist die geistige Welt davon. Es ist ein erschütternder Kampf!
Und nun erblicken wir, wenn wir dieses voraussetzen, das, was auf dem physischen Plan vor sieht geht: da wird ein Bündnis geschlossen. Das ist das Spiegelbild des Kampfes in der geistigen Welt. Diese Dinge gehören zu den Schwierigkeiten, welche die Geistesforschung durchzumachen hat. Glauben Sie nur nicht, daß man nun etwa generalisieren könne, indem man einfach sagt: Man kann leicht die geistigen Wahrheiten ableiten, wenn man immer das Entgegengesetzte von den Dingen denkt, die auf dem physischen Plane vor sich gehen. Man würde zu dem Falschesten und Törichtesten kommen, wenn man dies als Regel anwenden wollte. Denn es ist dies vielleicht unter hundert Fällen fünfmal der Fall, in fünfundneunzig Fällen aber nicht. Alle geistigen Wahrheiten sind individuell und müssen immer individuell angeschaut werden; sie können nicht durch bloße Dialektik gefunden werden. Aber die Wahrheit, die ich ausgesprochen habe, gehört zu denjenigen, die heute ganz besonders erschütternd sind, denn sie kann uns wieder einmal darauf aufmerksam machen, wie anders die Welt gestaltet ist, wenn wir hinter den Schleier der Maja sehen, und wie in dem, was äußere Menschentaten sind, das Entgegengesetzte von dem gegeben sein kann, was eigentlich die Realität, das Geistige ist.
Wenn wir die Dinge so betrachten, dann ist es ja ganz unmöglich, daß sich nicht auch unsere Gefühle in der Betrachtung desjenigen, was äußerlich vor sich geht, umändern. Denn wir kommen zu dem Begriff, daß in den äußerlichen Vorgängen eigentlich erst unterschieden werden muß, um das Wahre zu schauen. So wie irgendein Wolkengebilde, wenn wir es in der Ferne sehen, undeutlich ausschaut, in der Nähe aber ganz anders ist, so nehmen sich auch die Dinge im Völkergeschehen in Wahrheit aus. Und mitten darinnen, ich möchte sagen, zwischen den kampfenden Parteien im Osten und Westen, liegt nun geistig das deutsche Gebiet, das dazu da ist, nach beiden Seiten hin zu vermitteln, wirklich nach beiden Seiten hin zu vermitteln — was es auch tut. Und während nach beiden Seiten hin die Vermittlung im Geiste geschieht, sehen wir in der physischen Welt das Losschlagen von beiden Seiten und nach beiden Seiten.
In einem gewissen Sinne hängt das, was wir jetzt erleben, zusammen mit dem tiefsten Impulse der Menschheitsentwickelung in unserer Zeit. Ich habe ja oftmals gesagt: Warum treiben wir eigentlich Anthroposophie? Wir treiben sie, weil sie eine Weltaufgabe ist, eine Forderung, die von der geistigen Welt aus an die Menschheit gestellt wird. Es muß eine Anzahl von Imaginationen sich der Menschheit mitteilen; die Menschen müssen im Laufe der nächsten Zeit eine Anzahl von geistigen Wahrheiten aufnehmen. $o ist es, möchte ich sagen, vorgezeichnet im Gange der Menschheitsentwickelung. Es besteht demgegenüber natürlich der Widerspruch, der wirkliche Widerspruch, der Widerstreit, daß die Menschen erst nach und nach reif werden müssen, und daß dies langsam geht. Aber die Imaginationen wollen herein in die Menschheitsentwickelung. Es will etwas herein in die Menschheitsentwickelung, was, ich möchte sagen, ein Stück über dem physischen Plan darüber, was höher liegt. Die Menschen weisen das heute noch zurück, weisen es im umfänglichsten Sinne zurück. Daher erscheint das Gegenbild. Und das Gegenbild der Imaginationen sind Leidenschaften, sind Gefühlsausbrüche, die aus der Tiefe der Menschennatur herauskommen, die ebenso tief unter dem physischen Plan liegen wie die Imaginationen über demselben. Wenn wir heute die Menschen mit Haß, mit wirklicher Unwahrheit sich begegnen sehen — was sind dann dieser Haß und diese Unwahrheit? Es sind die Spiegelbilder der herausquellenwollenden Imaginationen, die nun in solcher Form herauskommen, weil sich die Menschen gegen sie sträuben. Was eine gewisse Strecke über dem physischen Plane liegt, das kommt als sein Verwandlungsprodukt heraus, als das, was ebenso weit unter dem physischen Plane liegt; das muß sich herausarbeiten. Auch das können wir aus dem allgemeinen Menschenkarma begründet finden, was auf diese Weise auf so unerfreuliche Art geschieht.
Warum muß es denn geschehen, daß die Menschen gerade jetzt, in unserem Zeitalter, eine gewisse Summe von spirituellen Wahrheiten empfangen? Darüber können wir uns in folgender Weise Antwort geben.
Es sind zwei Fälle möglich. Der eine ist der, daß der Mensch einen gewissen Sinn hat für spirituelle Wahrheiten, daß er ihnen nicht ein taubes Ohr entgegenbringt, sondern sie aufnimmt in seine Seele und in sein Herz, daß er gewissermaßen Anthroposoph wird, wie man in unserer Zeit Anthroposoph werden kann. Oder es ist der andere Fall möglich, daß der Mensch die spirituellen Wahrheiten abweist, dafß er etwa sagt, das ist alles törichtes, dummes Zeug; das alles entspringt aus den Köpfen von ein paar törichten Phantasten, die gescheiter täten, wenn sie etwas anderes vornehmen würden.
Nun, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht, so tritt er damit selbstverständlich in die geistige Welt ein. Und wenn etwa jemand sagen würde: Tritt man denn nur dadurch in die geistige Welt ein, daß man sich zwischen Geburt und Tod ein Wissen erwirbt von dieser geistigen Welt? — so könnte man ihm in gewissem Sinne sagen: Selbstverständlich kommt in die geistige Welt auch der, welcher nichts von ihr weiß; ganz selbstverständlich tritt auch der in die geistige Welt ein. — Aber was ist für ein Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden Menschentypen? Der Unterschied ist beträchtlich. Ich rede jetzt immer nur von unserer Zeit, denn die geistigen Wahrheiten sind individuell. Und wenn etwa jemand gegenüber dem ersten, was ich angeführt habe, sagen würde: Also verwandeln sich Imaginationen, die nicht herauskommen können, immer in einen Lästerkrieg, wie er jetzt herrscht? — so wäre das eine falsche Ansicht; denn zu andern Zeiten können sie sich ganz anders verhalten. Die geistigen Wahrheiten sind immer individuell, und das, was ich jetzt sagen will, bildet eben nur eine individuelle Wahrheit für unsere Zeit.
Der Mensch, der durch die Pforte des Todes geht, ohne sich um die Möglichkeit, Spirituelles in unserer Zeit aufzunehmen, gekümmert zu haben, übergibt seine Seele den höheren Welten, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet, fast so, wie er sie empfangen hat, als er durch die Geburt in das physische Dasein hereingegangen ist, und die höheren Welten haben nichts von ihm, als was sie ihm bei seiner Einkörperung übergeben haben. Wer sich aber, nicht bloß durch Glauben, sondern durch das Einleben in die geistigen Welten hier aneignet, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus zu bekommen möglich ist, der übergibt seine Seele bei seinem Tode den geistigen Welten nicht so, wie er sie bei der Geburt empfangen hat, sondern er übergibt den übersinnlichen Wesenheiten auch das, was er sich hier erarbeitet hat an Begriffen, Vorstellungen und Empfindungen, und das gehört nicht bloß ihm an, sondern das gehört den übersinnlichen Wesenheiten. Wer das nicht mitbringt, lebt selbstverständlich auch in die geistige Welt hinein, aber er trägt nichts bei zum Menschheitsfortschritt. Würde man also immer so gelebt haben oder würde man von einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt an so leben, so würde kein Fortschritt zustande gekommen sein, oder von einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt an würde die Menschheit immer so geblieben sein, wie sie war. Daß Fortschritt, daß Weiterentwickelung geschieht, daß die Seelen immer etwas Neues finden können, wenn sie in neuen Inkarnationen die Erde betreten, hängt davon ab, daß sie Gelegenheit finden, das, was die besondere Mission der Zeit ist, in sich aufnehmen zu können. Es ist also letzten Endes eine Art Entschluß, ob man sich zur geistigen Welt in ein Verhältnis bringt oder nicht. Es könnte ja zum Beispiel jemand sagen: Was liegt mir am ganzen Menschheitsfortschritt? Was liegt mir an der Erdenentwickelung? Mag die Erde stillestehen! Ich lebe darüber hinweg. — Wer keine rechte Liebe, kein Interesse zum Erdenfortschritt hat, der kann ja so reden. Wer aber Liebe zum Menschheitsfortschritt als höchste Pflicht in sich trägt, der kann diesen Weg nicht wählen. Freiheit liegt auch auf diesem Gebiete. Daher werden selbstverständlich nur durch Freiheit und Liebe zum wahren Menschenfortschritt und Menschenheil die Seelen zur Anthroposophie kommen. Man kann also auch nicht einmal aus bloßem Egoismus Anthroposoph werden; denn wird man es, so trägt man etwas zum Fortschritt bei, dem man sich sonst entzieht. Man wirkt also in Liebe, nicht bloß für sich, sondern für etwas anderes.
Das ist das, was ich immer durchleuchten lassen möchte durch alle Auseinandersetzungen derjenigen Geisteswissenschaft, die wir suchen: daß diese Wissenschaft eine lebendige, eine tätige Kraft ist. Ich rede nicht vom Schauen, ich rede von dieser Wissenschaft; das Schauen bringt nur die Resultate hervor. Ich rede von dem Einleben der Resultate im Menschen. Geisteswissenschaft ist ein Lebendiges, ein Tätiges, etwas, was sich einlebt in die Seelen, was wirkt und schafft an unseren Seelen. Deshalb habe ich oft den Vergleich gebraucht: Von der Liebe bloß zu reden - und das Reden nun besonders in der theosophischen Bewegung betrachtet - ist so, als wenn man sich vor einen Ofen hinstellen und predigen würde, er solle warm werden, denn das wäre seine Pflicht als Ofen. Er wird durch die schönste Predigt über seine Ofenaufgabe nicht warm werden. Aber er wird warm werden, wenn man Holz in ihn hineinlegt und es anzündet. So ist es im Grunde genommen mit allem Predigen von der Menschenliebe, und dieses Predigen hat auch gegenüber den Menschen kaum mehr Erfolg als das Predigen gegenüber dem Ofen, daß er warm werden soll. Schließlich ist dieses Predigen zu allen Zeiten gemacht worden und der Erfolg, er kann ja beobachtet werden. Aber das, was nicht bloß Wissen ist von der geistigen Welt, was nicht bloß Vorstellung, Wort ist, sondern was im Worte ein Lebendiges, ein Wirkendes ist, das ist das Holz, das wir unserer Seele geben, und das brennt, wenn es richtig von unserer Seele aufgenommen wird. Gerade aus solchen Auseinandersetzungen, wie die heutige ist, kann man das entnehmen; da brennt Erkenntnis auf, da wird Erkenntnis Liebe, denn der Mensch wird umgewandelt durch das in seinen Tiefen, in seinen Fundamenten erkannte Geistesleben. Es ist ihm sogar diese tiefe Umwandlung recht unbequem; er weist die spirituelle Wahrheit von sich und möchte lieber bei der Maja stehenbleiben.
Das ist aber auch im Grunde genommen der nächste Grund dafür, weshalb so oft gesagt wird, man solle die geistigen Wahrheiten nicht allzuviel der Öffentlichkeit übergeben. Es sind ja schließlich nicht Wahrheiten, die, wenn sie ausgesprochen werden, so neutral wirken wie Physik oder Chemie, sondern es sind Wahrheiten, denen gegenüber die Menschenseele nicht ganz neutral bleiben kann, die sie entweder ablehnen muß oder aufnehmen wird. Aber zum Aufnehmen muß sie sich in einer gewissen Weise aus demjenigen umändern, was sie im gewöhnlichen physischen Leben ist. Daher wird die Welt schon etwas erregt, aufgeregt durch die Mitteilung der tieferen geistigen Wahrheiten. Aber unsere Zeit ist dazu berufen, diese Aufregung nicht zu scheuen, diese Aufregung wirklich durchzumachen. Denn nur dadurch kann das Feld bereitet werden für ein neues Geistesleben, dem wir entgegenleben müssen und an dessen Ausgangspunkt wir doch stehen. Und die Zeichen der Zeit weisen uns darauf hin, wie notwendig es ist, gewisse Dinge zu verstehen. Denn man kann gegenüber vielem, was gerade heute in der äußeren Welt geschieht, unverständlich und unverständig stehen. Versuchen Sie einmal, Verschiedenes zusammenzufassen. Ich habe ja hier gleichsam die Aufgabe, zu Ihnen intimer zu sprechen, als es im öffentlichen Vortrage geschehen kann. Ich habe die Aufgabe, _ das, was ich in den öffentlichen Vorträgen, die mit den Zeitereignissen zusammengehangen haben, sagte, so zu formulieren, daß es wirksame Wahrheit werden könnte; so zu prägen, daß es jetzt in unserer Zeit richtig geredet ist. Versuchen Sie, da manches zusammenzunehmen, so werden Sie sehen, daß eine Bemühung durch alles hindurchgegangen ist: ein wenig richtigere Begriffe, richtigere Empfindungen und Gefühle über den Zusammenhang auch der unmittelbaren Zeitereignisse hervorzurufen, als sie sonst so leicht verbreitet sind.
Versuchen Sie zum Beispiel das festzuhalten, daß ich mich in dem ersten öffentlichen Vortrage bemüht habe nachzuweisen, wie wirklich dieses deutsche Volk im Grunde genommen ganz erfüllt war von der Tendenz nach Frieden, nach friedlicher Entwickelung, und wie wirklich das vorliegt, daß man sagen kann: das deutsche Volk hat als solches den Krieg nicht gewollt. Aber wenn wir links und rechts hinhören, das sagen sie alle, das betonen sie alle: sie haben den Krieg nicht gewollt! Die Franzosen haben den Krieg nicht gewollt, die Engländer haben den Krieg nicht gewollt, sie mußten ihn aus «moralischen Gründen» unternehmen. Aber die moralischen Gründe sind nur in achtzehn Stunden entstanden! Alle betonen: sie haben den Krieg nicht gewollt. Halten wir uns an das — es ist nämlich in diesem sehr, sehr viel Wahrheit darin - und verfolgen Sie einmal, wie ich vorgegangen bin, indem ich darauf hingewiesen habe: das deutsche Volk hat den Krieg nicht gewollt. Aber daraus habe ich nicht folgen lassen: also hat ihn der andere gewollt. Sondern ich habe im ersten öffentlichen Vortrage ausdrücklich gesagt: höchstens könnte man eine Frage aufwerfen, nämlich die Frage: Wer hätte den Krieg verhindern können? — und habe damit auf den russischen Osten gedeutet; denn der hätte den Krieg verhindern können.
Aber das ist es, worauf ich besonders aufmerksam machte, daß die richtige Antwort von der richtigen Fragestellung abhängt. Wenn irgend jemand betont, er habe den Krieg nicht gewollt, so folgt daraus nicht: also habe ihn der andere gewollt. Beide können ihn nicht gewollt haben, und doch ist er entstanden. Wenn man von den eigentümlichen Verhältnissen Rußlands absieht, so kann man im Grunde genommen sagen: Es ist wirklich der Krieg nicht gewollt worden, was man «wollen» nennt auf dem physischen Plan. Sondern dieser Krieg ist mit einer elementaren Notwendigkeit durch einander entgegengesetzte Kräfte, durch elementar einander widerstrebende Kräfte auf unbegreifliche Weise entstanden. Denn noch nie war im Grunde genommen ein solches welthistorisches Ereignis in so wenigen Tagen wie aus einer Kiste heraus entsprungen und hat gezeigt, daß das, was in den äußeren Ereignissen sich abspielt, etwas ist, was aus den geistigen Verhältnissen heraustritt und sich physisch kundgibt.
So betrachtet, sind die heutigen Ereignisse etwas, was wie ein Exempel dasteht, um dem Menschen den Gedanken zu Gemüte zu führen: Wenn die Frage aufgeworfen wird, hat es der gemacht, hat es jener gemacht? — so wirst du nie das Richtige zur Antwort bekommen. Sondern du mußt einmal voraussetzen, daß da noch etwas anderes mitgewirkt hat, du mußt dich einmal bequemen, etwas tiefer zu gehen. Erst dann wird man lernen, richtig über die Ereignisse zu sprechen.
Noch aus einem anderen Grunde wird man sich zu einer tieferen Ansicht über die Dinge aufraffen müssen. Wir erleben es, wie im Widerspruche mit sich die heutige Welt sich zeigt. Die Menschen können noch nicht anders, als die Dinge so aufzufassen, daß sie durchaus dem anderen die Schuld geben. Wird einmal eine Zeit kommen, in welcher die tieferen Wahrheiten über das Karma in die Menschengemüter übergegangen sein werden, dann wird diese Art, dem anderen die Schuld zu geben in bezug auf das, was zu durchleben ist, nicht mehr stattfinden. Denn dann wird man wissen, daß jedes Volk dasjenige in seinem Karma durchlebt, was es um seinetwillen zu durchleben hat. Das Volk erlebt die Notwendigkeit, die Kräfte im Kampfe zu stärken, nicht wegen des anderen, sondern um seinetwillen, um vorwärtszukommen; der andere ist in gewisser Beziehung nur der Vollstrecker. Dadurch wird die Betrachtung abgelenkt auf das Volksseelenkarma. Und die Aussage: Hier stehe ich und dort steht der andere, der hat die Schuld, der macht es, daß ich durch diese Ereignisse, durch diese Kämpfe hindurch muß, der hat sie angezettelt, das erscheint gegenüber einer höheren Betrachtung so, wie wenn ein fünfzigjähriger Mann ein Kind ansieht — das Kind ist jung, und er ist alt; als das Kind noch nicht da war, war er noch nicht alt, und indem das Kind heranwächst, wird er alt- und wenn er nun sagen wollte: Das Kind, das hat die Schuld, daß ich alt werde; denn würde das Kind nicht heranwachsen und älter werden, so würde ich nicht alt werden! Aber das Kind kann ihn nur aufmerksam machen auf das Altwerden.
Das ist zu beachten, daß jedes Volk dasjenige, was es erlebt, und wenn es die schwersten Ereignisse sind, aus seinem Karma heraus erleben muß. Sagen Sie nicht, wenn eine solche Wahrheit in die Menschengemüter übergehe, wird es etwas Untröstliches sein, was so in die Gemüter übergeht; sondern das wird gerade zu einer heroischen Lebensauffassung, zu einer tapferen Lebensauffassung führen, zu einer Lebensauffassung, welche die Evolution in sich schließt. Man wird, wenn eine solche Lebensauffassung die Menschen ergreift, es als verschwendete Kräfte ansehen, die Schuld immer im anderen zu sehen und immer nach dem gewöhnlichen Schluß zu verfahren. Man wird an die Kräfte appellieren, die einen selber vorwärtsbringen können. Man wird lernen, sich auf jedem Gebiete mit seinem Schicksal zu identifizieren. Wir haben ja im öffentlichen Vortrage gesehen, daß dieses Schicksal, das man so gern als etwas Äußeres ansieht, erst dann richtig begriffen wird, wenn wir in dieses Schicksal ausfließen. So ist es auch mit dem Volkskarma. Wenn die Liebe auf die Erde kommt, dann wird diese Gesinnung unter die Menschen kommen.
An Sie aber, meine lieben Freunde, die Sie sich einer geistigen Bewegung gewidmet haben, möchte ich auch heute wieder appellieren — wie es auch früher geschehen ist —, zu bedenken, daß es in der Zukunft notwendig ist, daß der geistige Horizont, in dem wir leben, nicht bloß mit solchen Gedanken angefüllt werde, die früher auch schon da waren, sondern daß er angefüllt werde mit neuen Gedanken. Das können aber nur diejenigen sein, welche aus der spirituellen Welt entspringen. Es wird nicht gleichgültig sein, ob in der nächsten Zeit eine Anzahl von Menschen da sind oder nicht, welche Gedanken in die geistige Welt hinaufsenden, wie diejenigen sind, die aus einer solchen Betrachtung stammen, wie sie heute angestellt worden ist. Wenn Sie sich entschliefen, zu meditieren über diese Wahrheiten, dann tragen Sie dazu bei, daß das, was sich in der Zukunft ergeben soll, sich in richtiger Weise und zum Menschenheil ergibt. Nicht untätig sind Sie für den Fortschritt der Menschheit, wenn Sie diejenigen Gedanken meditieren, welche die gegenwärtige Zeit fordert, damit die Menschheit wirklich vorwärtsschreite. Möge es recht vielen unter uns gelingen, neben die Arbeit, die mit Blut und Tod getan wird, auch die geistige Arbeit hinzustellen, welche darin besteht, daß wir die Welt mit richtigen Gedanken erfüllen, mit solchen Gedanken, die im Sinne der Mission unserer Zeit liegen. Und dann werden wir fühlen, daß dies die wahren Gedanken der Liebe sind. Oh, gar mancher, der heute nach Zitaten sucht und dabei nach dem so viel beliebten Büchmann greift, um etwas Rechtes zu sagen, hat in diesen Tagen das Wort des alten Heraklit angeführt, welches den Krieg den «Vater aller Dinge» sein läßt. Heraklit hat es berechtigt gesagt, und die es nachsagen, sagen es auch berechtigt. Aber aus dem Vater allein entsteht kein Kind. Zu dem Kind gehört die Mutter. Wie der Krieg der Vater ist, so ist das, was in friedenvoller Arbeit geschieht, die Mutter. Damit der Vater nicht steril bleibe, wird die Mutter da sein müssen. Und sie wird hervorgehen müssen aus den Gemütern derer, die in geistiger Weise die Aufgaben unserer Zeit begreifen und welche aus der Erkenntnis sich die Liebe zu erringen wissen.
Das ist das, was ich in diesem gegenwärtigen Zusammensein in Ihre Seelen legen möchte, damit gemäß den Forderungen unserer Gegenwart unsere Geisteswissenschaft nicht eine Befriedigung unserer Neugier oder unseres Wissensdurstes bleibe, sondern damit sie die rechten lebendigen Kräfte gebe, die, indem wir sie ausbilden, der wahre Trost werden für das Leid, das unsere Zeit mit sich bringt. Denn der wahre Trost ist der, der nicht Schwäche nach sich zieht, sondern der Stärke in seinem Gefolge hat, der sich aufrafft - ob zum geistigen oder leiblichen — jedenfalls aber zum Tun. Immer wieder und wieder muf man schon daran denken, wie es in unserer Zeit notwendig ist, daß eine Anzahl von Menschen einen freien Drang nach spiritueller Vertiefung haben. Denn der bedeutet schon, daß nicht der einzelne Mensch, sondern daß die ganze Menschheit vorwärtsschreitet. Und indem wir diese Gesinnung haben, erinnern wir uns am Schlusse noch einmal der Gedanken, die wir hinaussenden in dem angedeuteten Sinne zu denjenigen, die draußen stehen:
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
Und mit Hinsicht auf die, welche schon durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind:
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
Third Lecture
Once again, our first thoughts must go to the protective spirits who watch over those who stand out there in the fields of our daily lives; we turn to the protective spirits of those who stand with us within our movement, but who are now outside and must give their lives and their entire physical being for what the times demand of them. And in a broader sense, we also turn to the protective spirits of all those who, even though they do not belong to our community, have to give their lives and bodies out there on these fields:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the earthlings entrusted to your care,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine forth
To the souls that seek it lovingly.
And with reference to those who have already passed through the gates of death, we say:
Spirits of your souls, working guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the people of the spheres whom you protect,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
Upon the souls who seek it lovingly.
And the spirit we seek through our movement, which we have sought throughout the years since we came together here, may it rule over you and spread its wings over you, so that you may complete your task in accordance with your karma!
My dear friends, I do not know how many of you have felt that in our present times, in public lectures such as those that had to be given yesterday and the day before yesterday—and especially in public lectures of the kind that had to be given yesterday—it is even more difficult than usual to speak, because what needs to be said is so easily open to misunderstanding. Precisely when we stand with our hearts and minds within our movement, we must truly bring the word, which I also hinted at last time when I was allowed to speak here, ever more deeply into our souls, the word which, in essence, is that the outer life, the life of the physical plane, as it usually appears to human beings — not in itself — is Maya, a kind of phantasmagoria, and that the truth, the reality, lies behind it. We must be clear that this truth cannot be grasped by Maya with our theories or even with our intellect alone, but that it must be grasped with all our soul forces, with our whole soul life, and above all with our impulses of feeling and sensation. For just as our intellect, which is directed toward the senses, finds it incomprehensible that the world surrounding us should not be the true, real world, so our feelings and impulses of the will find this truth even more incomprehensible. One must not only learn to think differently by living into spiritual science, one must also learn to feel differently and learn to descend differently to the sources of one's will.
How easily could something like what was put forward yesterday, because it is difficult to express these things adequately, since no language has been developed for the conditions of the spiritual world, how easily could what was said yesterday, for example, be interpreted in such a way that this characteristic appeals more or less sympathetically or antipathetically to this or that national soul, in our time when so much of human thinking and feeling is influenced by sympathies and antipathies, which are of course brought about by the times. And yet, when spiritual science speaks from the right attitude, it must be believed that these things, even if they must be sharply characterized, such as the characters of national souls, cannot be spoken of with sympathy or antipathy in the ordinary sense of the word. If they are spoken of with sympathy and antipathy, then they cannot be true; they would have to be untrue, they would have to be false. Why is this so?
It is so easy to believe that someone who, through the appropriate development of their soul, attempts to ascend to the perception of the spiritual worlds, to the objective perception of these spiritual worlds, could become a person who is emotionally or volitionally dry. They truly cannot become that. The person who would first dry up in terms of his emotional and volitional life, in terms of those impulses that otherwise appear in the human world of feelings, sensations, and passions, the person who would first dry up of this inner fire, would certainly not be able to ascend to an objective perception of the spiritual world. On the contrary, everything in the inner life of feeling, everything in the inner life of the will must be brought together and become as fiery as possible. But it must be transformed in the soul; it cannot remain as it is in ordinary life. It must first be transformed in such a way that through this life of feeling and will impulses, the human being gains something like a new structure for his world of feeling and will. It is precisely through this that what can be called the inner eye and inner ear must develop. One cannot become an inwardly dried-up human being if one seeks the spiritual world. But then, when it is looked at, when one has arrived at this spiritual world through all inner struggles all inner struggles, to this spiritual world, then it presents itself as a spiritual world in such a way that it can still evoke sympathy and antipathy in us, but that in its characteristics, there is as little life from the sympathy and antipathy that arises as there is life in a rose from the sympathy that arises when we look at it. We can feel sympathy and antipathy toward it, but it stands there in its objectivity, and if we want to grasp its essence, we can only characterize it. For someone who is, so to speak, compelled to characterize the spiritual world, it is basically impossible in every single case to speak out of sympathy or antipathy.
Yesterday, an attempt was made to characterize the Italian, French, British, and German national character. Certainly there will have been some in the audience who believed that what was expressed there was not objective characterization, but rather sympathy and antipathy. But if sympathy and antipathy were speaking, then the characterization itself would be false and could never be reliable. You can understand this from this single case when I say the following. You all know that human beings are not only the beings that stand before us when we look at them with our physical eyes. According to their true nature, they live in their physical bodies, and they look at us, as it were, through their physical bodies. But that essence of which he is not conscious in ordinary earthly life for certain reasons — which you know — that essence, which actually lives within the I and the astral body, he lives through completely separate from the physical body and etheric body from the moment he falls asleep until he wakes up. The spiritual researcher arrives at the results of his research by examining what otherwise remains unconscious between falling asleep and waking up. Through inner experiences, he experiences what otherwise remains hidden behind the external impressions of the world, behind the phantasmagoria of the world.
Now, yesterday in a public lecture it was said that the folk spirit, the folk soul, lives in the human body. Today I can say: the folk soul lives in particular in the etheric body of the human being, in which we are in the period between waking and falling asleep. When we wake up, we immerse ourselves in the folk soul at the same time as we immerse ourselves in the body. When we are asleep, we are not in the national soul, but only from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep.
Now the question arises: If the spiritual researcher is now inwardly enlivening and illuminating that which does not live in the physical body, what about its life in the national soul, which is separated from the body? The folk soul has a separating effect when we immerse ourselves in the body. The spiritual researcher cannot live in the folk soul if he consciously experiences what the human being experiences in sleep. The peculiar thing is that at every moment, in every present, there is a certain, one might say, ruling number of folk souls, and the way these folk souls relate to each other constitutes the entire earthly life of humanity, insofar as it proceeds physically. When you immerse yourself in the physical body, you immerse yourself in the folk soul. When you come out of your physical body and consciously experience outside of it, you immerse yourself—among all the other experiences you go through—not in your own soul, but in the other folk souls, with the exception of your own, in which you live during your daytime life in the physical body. Take what I have just said in its full weight. That when we fall asleep, we do not immerse ourselves in a single folk soul, but that we immerse ourselves in the interaction, as it were, in the dance of the other folk souls, only that the folk soul into which we immerse ourselves when we enter the physical body does not play a part in this dance. During their research, spiritual researchers actually experience with the other folk souls — only in their harmony — the same thing that one otherwise experiences on the physical plane in relation to the individual folk soul that belongs to the people in which one otherwise stands.
Now I ask you: if the spiritual researcher actually knows how one lives not only in one's own folk soul, but also in other folk souls, if he has to go through this, does he then have a special reason to describe his own folk soul with a different objectivity than other folk souls? He does not. And here lies the possibility of overcoming the prejudices of sympathies and antipathies and describing things objectively. It goes without saying that not only the spiritual researcher who consciously goes through what all human beings go through, but every human soul, from the moment it falls asleep to the moment it wakes up, lives in all the souls of the people in their interaction, with the exception of the soul in which the soul lives during waking hours. This is what spiritual science gives us so that the horizon of our feelings and sensations is truly broadened. We often say that spiritual science is suited to imparting love without distinction of people, race, class, and so on, precisely because of the kind of knowledge it gives. This statement is so deeply grounded that anyone who realizes that, when they take themselves as the part of themselves that is spiritual, they cannot exclude themselves in hatred and antipathy from what humanity is, must say to themselves: It is actually nonsense not to love! But in order to say that it is actually nonsense not to love, spiritual science must grasp us as a life, not merely as knowledge. That is why we do not pursue this spiritual science as mere knowledge, but we pursue it in such a way that, through years of living together in our branches, it becomes spiritual nourishment that we take in and process within ourselves, truly becoming one with us.
I said: It is normal for human beings to live from the moment they fall asleep until they wake up in the interplay of the souls of the people, other than their own soul. That is normal. But there is also a means of living, as it were, one-sidedly in one or the other soul of the people. There is a means by which one is forced, in the state between falling asleep and waking up, not to live with the whole interplay, not with the whole round dance, as it were, of the other folk souls, but to be more or less spellbound, to live together with one or more other folk souls that are lifted out of the whole togetherness of all folk souls. Such a means exists, and it consists in our particularly hating one or more folk souls — peoples. For it is this hatred that gives us the special power to live in our sleep with those folk souls whom we hate most or whom we hate at all. There is no better way to prepare oneself to be completely absorbed in a folk soul in the unconscious state between falling asleep and waking up, and to have to live with it as one lives with the one with whom one lives in the physical body, than by hating it, but hating it honestly, with feeling, and not just convincing oneself that one hates it.
When such things are said, one realizes how deeply and seriously the truth must be taken from Maya. For not only does our intellect, as it is constructed, refuse to accept that things are different in their depths than in their outer phantasmagoria, but our feelings and our will also rebel against what is true for the spiritual world. If one accepts such truths as those concerning life in other national souls, and especially in those one hates, then one must conclude that the greatest number of people reject spiritual truth not only because the intellect cannot comprehend it, but because they do not want it at all, because it disturbs the feelings to which the ordinary earthly human being is devoted. As soon as one delves deeper and more seriously into the truths of the spiritual world, they are not at all comfortable; they are not at all what human beings actually love if they want to live solely on the physical plane. They are uncomfortable. They shake us up and demand, the deeper they are, that we should be different from what we are used to being on the physical plane. And this, that as a living inner being, it demands something different from us than what we are on the physical plane, is usually one of the reasons why people reject spiritual truth. We cannot help but be connected not only to a part of the world or humanity, but we must be connected to the whole world and to the whole of humanity. Our physical existence basically means only one swing of the pendulum; the other swing is the opposite in many respects; we just do not know it in ordinary life. One might say that things become serious as soon as one enters into the deeper truths of spiritual life. And these deeper truths of spiritual life can become infinitely guiding for what human development, what human progress demands of us, especially in our time. Let us take an example from spiritual research that may be particularly important for the present.
You can easily see that if things are as I have just described, if, when we immerse ourselves in the physical body and etheric body, we experience what is commonly called the spirit of the people, the soul of the people, then this experience of the destinies of the individual spirit of the people belongs to the experiences after death, which we gradually shed. Much has been said about the many things that human beings shed after death, but these things also include our connection with the folk spirit. The folk spirit works in the progress of Earth's development; it works in the way humanity develops on Earth from generation to generation. After death, between death and new birth, we must detach ourselves from the folk spirit in the same way that we detach ourselves from other things. This also explains the significance of heroic death, for example death on the battlefield, as it is perceived. Those who feel it correctly—and those who go through this death with the right attitude certainly feel it correctly—know that this death is a death of love, that it is not suffered for the individual, not for what one can keep for oneself during the entire time between death and rebirth; but that it is suffered for the soul of the people, in that this physical body and etheric body are selflessly given up. One cannot imagine death on the battlefield without knowing it to be permeated by real, most intimate love, by the carrying of human beings by that which contributes to the salvation of humanity in the future. This is the greatness, the significance, the enormity of death on the battlefield, when it is experienced in the right spirit. For it is unthinkable without being connected with love.
But we must cast off our connection with the individual folk spirit between death and rebirth. It must fall away from us. We must enter a region where we do not live with the individual national spirit as such. However, this does not mean that we can immediately pass into other national spirits. That is the case between falling asleep and waking up. We must become completely free from what is merely earthly and enter into the life that is detached from what constitutes the development of humanity on earth. So we must also detach ourselves from everything that connects us to the folk spirits. And this is again what, when we acquire it as knowledge, broadens and enlarges our horizon of feeling by allowing us to look toward the other that we seek and that is not around us when we live on the horizon of physical existence.
Now, as you can already see from yesterday's characterization of the individual folk spirits, it is inherent in the consciousness of these folk spirits that one tends more toward the individuality of the human being, toward what the human being is as an individual, while the other tends less toward this. I have compared this to one person looking more inward and another living more in the outer world. With the folk spirits, it is the case that one is more concerned with individual human beings, the other less. This in turn determines, depending on which folk spirit we belong to, how we are connected with what the folk spirit creates in our etheric body, what it prepares there. Hence there are certain differences in the process of casting off, of gradually slipping out of what the folk spirit does with us after death.
Take, for example, the French national spirit. It is a national spirit whose inspirations are connected with a highly developed culture, a culture that is only conceivable because this national spirit looks back to ancient Greece, as I have already explained. This national spirit now works on the people who belong to the nation in question — this is precisely the nature of those national spirits that correspond to highly developed cultures — in such a way that deep impressions arise in the human etheric body, that the signature of the national spirit is sharply imprinted in the etheric body. This is connected with what I pointed out yesterday, that the French are attached to the image they have of themselves. For the fact that such impressions arising from the influence of the national spirit on the etheric body occur has the consequence that when the soul leaves the body at death, sharp impressions remain in the etheric body and also in the astral body of the human being. Especially when one belongs to a people such as the French, the soul leaves physical existence with a sharply defined astral body. The consequence of this is that one has much to do in stripping away what remains of the national spirit after death.
If we now compare this stripping away of the nature of the national spirit, as conditioned by the French people, with that conditioned, for example, by the Russian national soul, we find that the latter is actually the opposite. The Russian national soul is, as it were, young, and it is even less concerned with the individual human beings entrusted to it. Therefore, when individual human beings pass through the gate of death, they are little influenced by the Russian national soul in relation to their etheric and astral bodies. If we now look at the whole situation in the spiritual world, we find, when we look at the souls that have passed through the gate of death, that we encounter the souls of the French people with sharply defined etheric bodies as well as sharply defined astral bodies, whereas we find the Russian souls with etheric and astral bodies that are little influenced by the national spirit. The consequence of this is that these different souls can be used in different ways by the guiding spirits who must advance human evolution.
Now we are in a time that really cannot move forward unless a certain amount of spiritual truths are revealed to humanity. This has often been discussed, to the point where it has been said that by a certain time in our century, the revelation of Christ will be opened to human beings in the spiritual world. But we can take it to mean that something spiritual must come into the world. This spiritual element that enters into human evolution is first fought for by the spirits in the supersensible sphere; and in this supersensible sphere, higher spirits, spirits of higher hierarchies, fight for the spiritual stream to penetrate into human evolution. But in their struggle they make use of those who have passed through the gate of death as forces that play a part. For the human being in the life between death and new birth always works and acts in what happens in the world. And since he is formed in different ways, he acts in very different ways, depending on whether he comes, for example, from a French or a Russian body. Therefore, the spirits of the various higher hierarchies can make use of these souls in different ways.
What lies ahead in human evolution is, however, connected with the fact that a powerful struggle is currently taking place in the spiritual world. But struggle in the spiritual world means something different from struggle in the physical world. A struggle in the spiritual world means working together to bring about something fruitful. This struggle is something necessary for the development of humanity; in short, it is a struggle that leads to something. Certain spirits of the higher hierarchies are fighting this struggle. And they are fighting it by making use of certain young souls coming from the Eastern cultural sphere and certain souls coming from the Western cultures. It is a struggle that will continue for a long time, a struggle between Russian souls who have passed through the gate of death and French souls who have passed through death; a war between spiritual Russia and spiritual France. It is a terrible war, if we use the words of the physical plane. Anyone who looks into the spiritual world today sees this battle between spiritual Russia and spiritual France, and the spiritual world is full of it. It is a harrowing battle!
And now, assuming this, we see what is happening on the physical plane: an alliance is being formed. This is the mirror image of the struggle in the spiritual world. These things are among the difficulties that spiritual research has to go through. Do not believe that one can generalize by simply saying: One can easily derive spiritual truths by always thinking the opposite of what is happening on the physical plane. One would arrive at the most erroneous and foolish conclusions if one were to apply this as a rule. For this may be the case in five out of a hundred instances, but in ninety-five instances it is not. All spiritual truths are individual and must always be viewed individually; they cannot be found through mere dialectic. But the truth I have spoken is one of those that are particularly shocking today, because it can once again draw our attention to how different the world is when we see behind the veil of Maya, and how in what are outward human deeds, the opposite of what is actually reality, the spiritual, can be present.
If we look at things in this way, it is quite impossible that our feelings should not also change when we consider what is happening externally. For we come to the conclusion that in external events we must first make distinctions in order to see what is true. Just as a cloud formation looks indistinct when we see it in the distance, but is quite different when we come closer, so too do things appear in the events of human history. And in the midst of this, I would say, between the warring parties in the East and West, lies the spiritual realm of Germany, which is there to mediate between both sides, to truly mediate between both sides — which is what it does. And while this mediation takes place in the spirit on both sides, we see in the physical world the outbreak of conflict on both sides and between both sides.
In a certain sense, what we are now experiencing is connected with the deepest impulse of human development in our time. I have often said: Why do we actually pursue anthroposophy? We pursue it because it is a world task, a demand made on humanity by the spiritual world. A number of imaginations must be communicated to humanity; in the course of the next period of time, people must take in a number of spiritual truths. This, I would say, is predestined in the course of human evolution. On the other hand, there is of course the contradiction, the real contradiction, the conflict, that people must first gradually mature, and that this is a slow process. But the imaginations want to enter into human development. Something wants to enter into human development which, I would say, is a step above the physical plane, which lies higher. People still reject this today, reject it in the most comprehensive sense. Hence the counter-image appears. And the counter-image of the imaginations are passions, emotional outbursts that come from the depths of human nature, which lie just as deeply beneath the physical plane as the imaginations lie above it. When we see people today treating each other with hatred, with real untruthfulness — what then are this hatred and this untruthfulness? They are the mirror images of imaginations striving to emerge, which now come out in this form because people resist them. What lies a certain distance above the physical plane emerges as its product of transformation, as that which lies just as far below the physical plane; this must work itself out. We can also find justification in general human karma for what happens in such an unpleasant way.
Why must it be that people receive a certain amount of spiritual truths right now, in our age? We can answer this question in the following way.
Two cases are possible. One is that human beings have a certain sense for spiritual truths, that they do not turn a deaf ear to them, but take them into their souls and hearts, that they become, in a sense, anthroposophists, as one can become an anthroposophist in our time. Or the other case is possible, that human beings reject spiritual truths, saying, for example, that it is all foolish, stupid nonsense; that it all springs from the minds of a few foolish fantasists who would do better to do something else.
Now, when a person passes through the gate of death, he naturally enters the spiritual world. And if someone were to say, “Is it only by acquiring knowledge of this spiritual world between birth and death that one enters the spiritual world? — one could say to him in a certain sense: Of course, those who know nothing about it also enter the spiritual world; they enter the spiritual world quite naturally. — But what is the difference between these two types of people? The difference is considerable. I am now speaking only of our time, for spiritual truths are individual. And if someone were to say in response to what I have just said: So imaginations that cannot come out always turn into a war of blasphemy, as is now the case? — that would be a false view; for in other times they can behave quite differently. Spiritual truths are always individual, and what I am about to say is only an individual truth for our time.
The person who passes through the gate of death without having cared about the possibility of taking in spiritual things in our time, surrenders his soul to the higher worlds when he passes through the gate of death, almost as he received it when he entered physical existence through birth, and the higher worlds have nothing of him except what they gave him when he was incarnated. But those who, not merely through faith, but through living in the spiritual worlds here, acquire what can be obtained from the spiritual world, do not surrender their souls to the spiritual worlds at death as they received them at birth, but also surrender to the supersensible beings what they have acquired here in terms of concepts, ideas, and feelings, and that does not belong only to him, but to the supersensible beings. Those who do not bring this with them will of course also live in the spiritual world, but they will contribute nothing to the progress of humanity. If people had always lived this way, or if they were to live this way from a certain point in time, no progress would have been made, or from a certain point in time humanity would have remained as it was. The fact that progress and further development take place, that souls can always find something new when they enter the earth in new incarnations, depends on their finding opportunities to absorb within themselves what is the special mission of the time. Ultimately, it is therefore a kind of decision whether or not one enters into a relationship with the spiritual world. Someone might say, for example: What do I care about the progress of humanity? What do I care about the development of the earth? Let the earth stand still! I live above it. — Those who have no real love, no interest in the progress of the earth, can talk like that. But those who carry love for the progress of humanity as their highest duty within themselves cannot choose this path. Freedom also exists in this realm. Therefore, it is only through freedom and love for true human progress and human salvation that souls will come to anthroposophy. One cannot even become an anthroposophist out of mere egoism, for if one does, one contributes to progress, which one would otherwise withdraw from. One acts in love, not merely for oneself, but for something else.
This is what I always want to bring to light in all discussions of the spiritual science we are seeking: that this science is a living, active force. I am not talking about seeing, I am talking about this science; seeing only produces results. I am talking about the results becoming alive in human beings. Spiritual science is something living, something active, something that lives into the soul, something that works and creates in our souls. That is why I have often used the comparison: to talk only about love – and to consider this talk especially in the theosophical movement – is like standing in front of a stove and preaching that it should become warm, because that is its duty as a stove. No matter how beautiful the sermon about its purpose as a stove, it will not become warm. But it will become warm if you put wood in it and light it. This is basically the case with all preaching about human love, and this preaching has hardly more success with people than preaching to a stove that it should become warm. After all, this preaching has been done throughout the ages, and its success can be observed. But what is not merely knowledge of the spiritual world, what is not merely imagination or words, but what is alive and effective in words, that is the wood we give to our soul, and that burns when it is properly absorbed by our soul. It is precisely from disputes such as today's that one can learn this; there, knowledge burns, there knowledge becomes love, for man is transformed by the spiritual life he has recognized in his depths, in his foundations. This profound transformation is even quite uncomfortable for him; he rejects spiritual truth and would rather remain with Maya.
But this is also, in essence, the next reason why it is so often said that spiritual truths should not be revealed too much to the public. After all, these are not truths that, when spoken, have the same neutral effect as physics or chemistry, but truths to which the human soul cannot remain completely neutral, which it must either reject or accept. But in order to accept them, it must change in a certain way from what it is in ordinary physical life. That is why the world becomes somewhat agitated, excited by the communication of deeper spiritual truths. But our time is called upon not to shy away from this excitement, but to really go through it. For only in this way can the ground be prepared for a new spiritual life, which we must look forward to and at whose starting point we nevertheless stand. And the signs of the times point to us how necessary it is to understand certain things. For one can stand incomprehensible and uncomprehending before much of what is happening in the outer world today. Try to summarize various things. I have the task here, as it were, of speaking to you more intimately than is possible in a public lecture. I have the task of formulating what I have said in public lectures related to current events in such a way that it can become effective truth; of shaping it in such a way that it is now correctly expressed in our time. Try to gather some of these things together, and you will see that an effort has been made throughout: to evoke a little more accurate concepts, more accurate perceptions and feelings about the connection between even immediate events than are otherwise so easily spread.
Try, for example, to note that in my first public lecture I endeavored to prove how truly the German people were, in essence, completely imbued with a tendency toward peace, toward peaceful development, and how truly it can be said that the German people as such did not want the war. But when we listen to people on the left and right, they all say the same thing, they all emphasize that they did not want the war! The French did not want the war, the English did not want the war, they had to wage it for “moral reasons.” But these moral reasons arose in just eighteen hours! Everyone emphasizes that they did not want the war. Let us stick to that—for there is a great deal of truth in it—and follow my line of reasoning when I pointed out that the German people did not want the war. But I did not conclude from this that the other side wanted it. Instead, in my first public speech, I expressly said that at most one question could be raised, namely: Who could have prevented the war? And I pointed to the Russian East, for it could have prevented the war.
But this is what I particularly emphasized, that the correct answer depends on the correct question. If someone emphasizes that they did not want the war, it does not follow that the other side wanted it. Both sides cannot have wanted it, and yet it happened. If one disregards the peculiar circumstances of Russia, one can basically say that the war was not really wanted in the sense of what is meant by “want” on the physical plane. Rather, this war arose in an incomprehensible manner through the elemental necessity of opposing forces, through elemental forces that were fundamentally repelled by each other. For never before has such a world-historical event sprung up in so few days as if from a box, showing that what takes place in external events is something that emerges from spiritual conditions and manifests itself physically.
Viewed in this light, today's events are something that stand as an example to make people realize that when the question is raised, “Did he do it, or did she do it?”, you will never get the right answer. Instead, you must assume that something else has been at work, you must make yourself go a little deeper. Only then will we learn to speak correctly about events.
There is another reason why we must bring ourselves to take a deeper view of things. We see how contradictory the world of today is. People cannot yet help but interpret things in such a way that they blame others entirely. Once a time comes when the deeper truths about karma have passed into the minds of human beings, this way of blaming others for what has to be experienced will no longer exist. For then people will know that every people experiences in its karma what it has to experience for its own sake. The people experience the necessity of strengthening their forces in struggle, not because of others, but for their own sake, in order to advance; the other is, in a certain sense, only the executor. This diverts attention to the karma of the soul of the people. And the statement: Here I stand, and there stands the other, who is to blame, who causes me to go through these events, through these struggles, who instigated them, appears, when viewed from a higher perspective, like a fifty-year-old man looking at a child — the child is young, and he is old; when the child was not yet there, he was not yet old, and as the child grows up, he grows old—and if he were to say: The child is to blame for my growing old; for if the child did not grow up and become older, I would not grow old! But the child can only make him aware of growing old.
It should be noted that every people must experience what it experiences, even if it is the most difficult events, out of its karma. Do not say that when such a truth enters the minds of human beings, it will be something inconsolable that enters their minds; rather, it will lead to a heroic view of life, a courageous view of life, a view of life that includes evolution. When such an outlook on life takes hold of people, they will see it as a waste of energy to always blame others and always proceed according to the usual conclusions. They will appeal to the forces that can bring them forward. They will learn to identify with their destiny in every area of life. We have seen in public lectures that this destiny, which we so readily regard as something external, is only truly understood when we flow into this destiny. The same is true of the karma of a people. When love comes to earth, this attitude will come among human beings.
But to you, my dear friends, who have devoted yourselves to a spiritual movement, I would like to appeal again today — as I have done in the past — to consider that in the future it will be necessary that the spiritual horizon in which we live be filled not only with thoughts that were already there before, but that it be filled with new thoughts. But these can only be thoughts that spring from the spiritual world. It will not be a matter of indifference whether or not there will be a number of people in the near future who send thoughts up into the spiritual world, such as those that arise from a contemplation such as the one we have engaged in today. If you fall asleep meditating on these truths, you will contribute to ensuring that what is to come in the future will come about in the right way and for the good of humanity. You are not idle for the progress of humanity when you meditate on the thoughts that the present time demands, so that humanity may truly advance. May many of us succeed in placing alongside the work that is done with blood and death the spiritual work that consists in filling the world with right thoughts, with thoughts that are in accordance with the mission of our time. And then we will feel that these are the true thoughts of love. Oh, how many people today, searching for quotations and reaching for the much-loved Büchmann in order to say something right, have quoted the words of the ancient Heraclitus, who called war the “father of all things.” Heraclitus said it rightly, and those who repeat it also say it rightly. But a child does not come from the father alone. The mother belongs to the child. Just as war is the father, so is peaceful work the mother. In order for the father not to remain sterile, the mother must be there. And she must emerge from the minds of those who understand the tasks of our time in a spiritual way and who know how to attain love from knowledge.
This is what I would like to place in your souls during this present gathering, so that, in accordance with the demands of our time, our spiritual science does not remain a satisfaction of our curiosity or our thirst for knowledge, but so that it gives us the right living forces which, as we develop them, become the true consolation for the suffering that our time brings with it. For true consolation is that which does not lead to weakness, but has strength in its wake, which rallies itself — whether spiritually or physically — but in any case to action. We must remember again and again how necessary it is in our time that a number of people have a free urge for spiritual deepening. For this means that it is not the individual human being but the whole of humanity that is moving forward. And with this attitude, we remember once more the thoughts we send out in the sense indicated above to those who stand outside:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To those earthly beings entrusted to your care
So that, united with your power
Our plea may shine forth
To the souls that seek it lovingly.
And with regard to those who have already passed through the gates of death:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the people of the spheres entrusted to your care,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
Upon the souls that seek it lovingly.