The Forming of Destiny and Life after Death
GA 157a
7 December 1915, Berlin
4. The Connection Between the Spiritual and the Physical Worlds, and How They Are Experienced After Death
In every domain Spiritual Science has to show us the connection between the spiritual worlds and the world which we perceive through our senses while in our earthly bodies, and which we seek to grasp through intellectual thoughts. In several lectures we have been especially occupied in considering the connection that exists between the life led by man as a soul between death and rebirth, and the life he passes here, while incarnated in a physical body. We must continually bear firmly in mind that man, so long as he lives within his physical body, directs his thoughts to that sphere which he has to experience after death and before rebirth. We direct our thoughts to that sphere, not in order to satisfy mere curiosity, but because we have always been able to convince ourselves through our Spiritual Science, that in turning our thought to that other world, we are able to make a contribution to this world, by ennobling and invigorating the conceptions needed for our acting, thinking, feeling, etc. We must hold firmly to the thought that many of life's secrets can only be solved if we have the courage to approach what may be called the riddle of death. Now to-day, in order to consider the connection between the spiritual and sense world, from a special standpoint, we may commence with a trivial observation, yet one which contains profound feeling. We shall start from the fact of which we have often spoken, the fact that man goes through the gate of death. I repeat, we start from something which is of every-day occurrence but is connected with very deep experiences, gripping man in the depths of his soul. As you know, when we stand face to face with a man here in the physical world, we form thoughts which can unite us to him. We surround him with feelings of sympathy, or antipathy, etc. We feel either friendship or enmity for him. Briefly, we form here in the physical world a certain relation to another man. This relation may arise through ties of blood, or it may be brought about by the preferences which occur in daily life. All this can be comprehended in the expression, ‘The relation of man to man.’ Now, when a man with whom we have been united through various ties leaves the physical world and passes through the gates of death, at first there remains to us the memory of this man, that is, a number of feelings and thoughts have arisen as a result of our relation to him, and which we ourselves have experienced. But since he passed away from us through the gates of death these thoughts and feelings which united us with him, now live on in a very different manner. While he lived with us here on the physical plane, we knew that at any time, in addition to the relation our souls had formed to him, the outer physical presentment itself might also appear; we knew that we could bring our inner experience to bear upon this outer reality of his. And if at any time by some means the man changed, we had to expect that the feelings we formerly had towards him would also change in one way or another. We do not often think of the radical difference it makes when suddenly, or even not suddenly, the moment comes, when henceforward we can only carry in our soul the memory of our friend, when we know, ‘Never more will our eyes see him, or our hands grasp his.’ The picture we formed of him remains fundamentally as already fixed. But a radical change appears in the relation of the two people. As has been said, it may sound trivial, but it cuts deeply into the inner life in each individual case, when a human soul which formerly impressed us from without by means of its physical embodiments, becomes nothing but a memory.
Let us now compare such a memory with others which we construct from our experience. A great part of our physical life is lived in memory. We know what we ourselves have experienced; we know, for instance, the events which have occurred to us and for which we have retained ideas. We know that we can revert to times now past through these thoughts, times in which the events in question took place. But now, if we examine the contents of the greater part of these recollections, we find that in our thoughts we bear something within us which is no longer here, past events, events which as reality we can no longer meet with in the external world, for they belong to the past. If we have absorbed some of the thoughts of Spiritual Science, then the memory of our dead, or of one who has gone through the gates of death, is quite different to our psychic gaze. We then hold thoughts in us, but these thoughts are fixed on reality—a reality certainly not accessible to us in the external physical world, but existing in the spiritual world. That to which those thoughts are directed is present, although it cannot enter the sphere of our vision; but there is quite a different conception in our memory from the mere remembrance of what occurred here, in the physical world. Now, if we observe the fact involved in this, in relation to the entire Cosmos, we can then say that we carry in our souls thoughts of a being who is in the spiritual world. Now we know, and this must be especially clear to us from the considerations pursued here in the last three lectures, we know that not only does the longing of souls incarnated here ascend to the spiritual world, but that the consciousness of those who have passed through the gates of death, and who are now living in the intermediate world between death and rebirth, also extends to what transpires here in the physical world. We can say: Those discarnate souls who live in the spiritual world, receive into their consciousness, from the physical world, that which their spiritual gaze and their spiritual vision directed down to earth, enables them to perceive. I pointed out in one of the last lectures how souls still incarnated here in physical bodies can be perceived by the so-called dead, and distinguished from souls who are already discarnate and living in the intermediate stage, between death and rebirth. I explained that souls living in the spiritual world must continually be active in order to get any perception. For instance, they may be aware that another soul is quite near them, but in order to perceive it, they must exert inner activity. They have, as it were, to construct a picture. The picture will not appear of itself, as it does here, in the physical world. In the spiritual world comes first the thought of an ‘existing presence;’ and then one must, as it were, inwardly experience this existing entity, so that the picture may arise. The process is reversed; for there is a significant difference in the construction of the picture, which refers to those souls already in the spiritual world, and the picture of such as are still incarnate on the earth; the discarnate soul must produce the picture of a soul that is already in the spiritual world entirely from itself, and it must be thoroughly active in so doing: but it may remain more passive in reference to a soul still living on the earth, and then the picture rather comes to it. The effort made is much slighter as regards a soul living on the earth, than with one already discarnate; less inner activity is necessary, and this represents the distinction between the two, to those souls living between death and rebirth. If you grasp this, you will realise that after the soul has passed through the gates of death and lives the life of the spiritual world, it not only beholds the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, and the other human souls living with it in the spiritual world, but there also appears the world of souls to which it was related before going through the gates of death.
The important distinction must be firmly retained, that while man here on earth has that which constitutes earth existence actually around him, and can only comparatively speaking grasp the other world in spirit, this is reversed on entering the spiritual world. What the soul can there see of itself, without an effort, is our world; and from there it is the ‘other world;’ but the soul must exert itself to make its own world, the world in which it then is, always perceptible, and must always construct it for itself. Thus when man is in the spiritual world, it is that world on which he must continually work; and what is then to him ‘the other world’ always arises as if of itself. But now within this ‘other world,’ which for us on earth is this world, there appear the human souls, with that which lives in them; especially those human souls with whom relations were established during life on earth. These human souls appear. Now within this sea of spiritual perception which we make here, in our souls, of the ‘other world’ there occasionally appear the memories of those who have gone through the gates of death. Picture this very clearly to yourselves. Let us suppose that we lived in a time in which nobody could remember any dead person; the dead would still perceive these human souls—in which there lived no memory of the dead. In this ocean of spiritual perceptions which the discarnate souls can see, are preserved the memories of the dead. They live within it. That is something which through man's free will and love here is added to what the dead can always see from the other side. Thus it is something added.
Now here again we come to a point when important questions arise to the spiritual investigator. Here is one question which the spiritual investigator must investigate. Of what significance is it to one who has gone through the gates of death when he now sees embedded in the souls ebbing and flowing in our world, the memories which these souls streaming by have of the dead? When he perceives these memories what do they mean to him? Now in spiritual investigation when such a question arises it must first of all be thoroughly experienced. One must live into it. If one begins to speculate as to a possible solution to such a question, as to a possible answer, one will certainly arrive at a false conclusion. For the effort of the ordinary brain-fettered understanding gives, as a rule, no solution. That can only be ascertained through inner activity. The answers to questions relating to the enigmas of the spiritual world descend from the spiritual world as by an act of grace. One must wait. There is really nothing else to be done but to live with the question and meditate on it again and again. Let it live in the soul with all the feelings aroused by it, and then calmly wait; wait till one is worthy—that is the right word—worthy to receive an answer from the spiritual world. And, as a rule, this comes from quite a different quarter than one would expect. Thus the answer comes from the spiritual world at the right moment, that is, at the moment when one has sufficiently prepared one's soul to receive the answer. As to whether it is then the right answer, can as little be decided theoretically, as can any statement concerning physical reality; experience alone can furnish the criterion. To those who are always denying spiritual reality by saying, ‘That cannot be proved; and everything must be proved,’ I should like to put one question: Would it have been possible to prove the existence of a whale in the physical world if none had ever been discovered? Nothing can be proved, unless it can be shown in the same way as a reality; even in the spiritual world one must experience that which is reality.
Now that which enters one's consciousness as the solution, may of course appear in many different forms, according to the preparation one has made in one's soul. The truth may present itself in many ways, but nevertheless it must be experienced as the truth. For example, if one lets the above question live aright in the soul, there then appears, apparently from quite a different quarter, a picture, an inner picture, which, I may say, gives one an inner impression of offering something concerning the solution of the riddle in question. The picture may arise of a man who allows himself to be photographed, or has his portrait painted. The principle point in the picture will be some physical thing, an image of this physical thing, and there finally arises all that pertains to the realm of art, to the artistic presentation. Now, if you consider how physical life runs its course, you know that in physical life man is confronted with the outer occurrences of nature, the external beings, and events of nature. They run their course and expire. It is similar with all human concerns, with what man attends to and plans for his necessities, and so on: with what he makes as history. But beyond all this man seeks something which really has nothing to do with the immediate necessities of the world. The human soul is aware that if nature and history merely ran their course in connection with the satisfaction of human needs, life would become barren and desolate. Man creates here in physical existence something above and beyond the course of nature and necessity. He does not merely feel the need of seeing a certain landscape, but also of copying it. He so arranges his life that anyone connected with him can get one or more copies of it. Starting from this we can think of the whole realm of art as something that man creates here which is higher reality than the ordinary reality pertaining to nature and history. Just think what the world would miss if there were no Art, if Art did not add that which she can produce from her own sources to that which is self-existing. Art creates something which, one may say, need not of necessity exist. If she were not there, all the necessities of nature might still go on. One may suppose that even if no single copy of nature had been made and no artistic representation, life would still pursue its course, from the beginning to the end of the earth. We can picture to ourselves all that men would then be without. But theoretically, it might be possible for our earth to be punished through the inability to evolve any Art. We have in Art something extending beyond life. Think of all that Art has created in the world, and also of the progress of man through the world; there you have in a sense two parallel progressive processes: the necessities of nature and history, and the stream of Art which is inserted in them.
Now just as Art, in a sense, brings as by enchantment a spiritual world into the world of physical reality, so another world conjures up into the world of those who have gone through the gates of death, these memories which fill our souls here. As far as the dead are concerned the world here might run its course without any memories living in the souls here, memories born of love and all our human relationships. But then the world of the dead would be to them as a world would be to us—in which we could find nothing transcending ordinary reality. That is an extraordinarily significant connection; for, through the thoughts of love, through the memories, and all that thus transpires in our souls in connection with those no longer in the physical world, there is created for the dead something analogous to artistic creation here. And whereas here in the physical world a man must bring forth artistic creation out of his own soul, must contribute something out of his own being; to those now in the spiritual world, the opposite must occur. It must be brought to them from their other world from the souls still incarnated here—from the souls whom they can contemplate more passively than those already with them in the spiritual world. That which the course of nature and history would be to us, if it ran on simply of itself, without Art, without everything man creates above and beyond the immediate reality, such would our world be for the dead, if the souls still on the physical plane retained no memories of them.
Now, such things as these are not really known in the physical life of man. We may put it thus! These things are not known by the ordinary consciousness, but the deeper subconsciousness is aware of them. And life is always directed in accordance with this. Why has a value always been laid by human communities on the celebration of All Souls Day, and days for the dead? And those who cannot share in the usual memorials for the dead, have nevertheless, their own days set apart for this. Why is this? Because in the depths of man's subconsciousness there lives what may be called a dim knowledge of what takes place in the world by keeping alive the memory of the dead. When the receptive soul of the seer celebrates All Souls Day, or a Sunday devoted to the dead, or some similar day when many people come together full of the memories of their dead, he sees the dead participate in the ceremony; it is to them, with certain natural differences, as it is here when on our globe people visit a cathedral and behold those forms which they could never see unless something had been created out of the artist's imagination, unless something had been added to physical existence; it is the same when they hear a symphony, or music of that sort. Something is reproduced in all these memories, which, in a sense, transcends the ordinary level of existence. And as Art inserts herself into the physical course of human history, so do these memories insert themselves into the picture of their world which the souls between death and rebirth receive. In such customs, which are formed in human communities, that secret knowledge contained in the depths of the soul finds expression. And many a worthy custom is connected with this deeper sub-consciousness. We feel greater reverence for the connections of life when we can permeate them with what Spiritual Science offers to us, than if we are unable to do this. Each time that a dead person contacts a remembrance of himself in the soul of a man who was in some way connected with him here, it is always as if something streamed over to him which beautified his life, and enhanced its value. And as to us here, beauty comes from Art, so to the dead, beauty streams to them from what rays forth out of the hearts and souls of those who keep them in memory.
That is one connection between the world here and the spiritual world there. And this thought is closely connected with that other thought, which should arise from much of what can be cultivated in Spiritual Science, the thought of the value and importance of earth life. Spiritual Science does not lead us to despise the earth, with all that it can bring forth; it leads us rather to consider life as a part of the whole life of the Cosmos, as a necessary part, which is arranged in conformity with what is active in the spiritual world, and without which the spiritual world would not appear in its perfection. And henceforth when we turn our attention to the fact that from out of our physical world must spring forth beauty for the dead, we are struck by the thought that the spiritual world would lack this beauty, if there were no physical world, with the human souls who, while still in the body, were able to evolve thoughts full of feeling and sentiment for those no longer in this world. It signified a great deal, when in olden times, whole peoples over and over again devoted themselves reverently at their festivals to the thought of their great ancestors, and united in feeling for the memory of their great forefathers. It was of extreme significance, when they inaugurated such memorial days. For it always meant the flashing up of something beautiful for the spiritual worlds, that is, for the souls living there between death and rebirth. And while here on earth it is not very rational, to put it mildly, to take special pleasure in one's own portrait; nevertheless for the dead it is important to find their image in those souls who still remain here. For we must bear well in mind that our earth-man appears very different to us when we consider him from the standpoint of the spiritual, from the standpoint of the dead. We have often emphasised this. Here we are enclosed within our skin. What we designate as ‘we,’ as ‘I,’ that which is most precious to us, is shut in by our skin. This holds good even for the most selfless people; perhaps it holds good for them to a higher degree than for those who consider themselves less selfless. First and foremost we value that which is shut up inside this skin; then comes the rest of the world. We regard that as our outer world. But the most significant thing is that when we are outside our bodies we are one with the outer world and live in it. I have often described this going forth, this expansion of oneself over the outer world. And that which then bears the same relation to us as does the outer world now, is just what we have experienced here between birth and death. In a sense we can say that the outer world becomes our inner world, and what is now our inner world then becomes our outer world. Hence that significant experience on entering the land of the spirit, ‘Thou art That,’ described in my book Theosophy. We then look back at our external world here, which is encompassed by our Ego. But there the soul unable to be as egoistic as it was here, looks back on the thoughts which appear, as thoughts of itself. That is, as it were, the external world that confronts it, which is really incorporated into the compass of what we can designate as the ‘Beautiful,’ that which exalts one. There comes into this—which has become an outer world consisting of the memory of all we have undergone between birth and death—something which does not live in this, does not belong to this life of ours, but lives in other souls and relates itself to us. That really means the insertion of something transcending ourselves, transcending our outer world, just as here some work of art rises above the ordinary reality which exists in itself. And just as it is improper for a man here to be in love with himself, and also with his own portrait, so there it is quite natural for a man to stand in that sort of relation to what arises as an image in the souls left behind—the other presentation of himself—to stand before that picture, just as here we stand before a landscape and compare it with the scene itself. Thus when this question comes before the soul, one is shown the presentment of the man and his picture, and from this one finds a way of answering the question. Speculation as a rule does not help at all, one must learn to wait, to wait patiently. In reality one should only trouble oneself about the question relating to the spiritual world, for the answers can only be given to the human soul as by a revealing act of grace.
In this lecture I have pointed out that certain arrangements, such as memorial festivals and days of remembrance as organised by men, are connected with a profound knowledge, outside the range of ordinary consciousness. That rests in the fact that man has in the depths of his soul, a dim but comprehensive knowledge—I have repeatedly touched upon this—and that he actually draws the knowledge embraced by his consciousness from out of this comprehensive wisdom. I have pointed out how clever we should really be if we could with our ordinary consciousness embrace everything included in the astral body. This astral body goes through life wiser, in a much higher sense than we usually believe. We do not value the wisdom of our astral body because we are quite unaware of it, but we can at least form some idea of its comprehensive wisdom, if we place the following before our souls.
Our lives are lived, as we might say, in the daytime. Now, we judge events very little according to their connections. If we consider them in their setting, many things would seem very, very different to us. Consider this: Suppose we made a plan, we propose doing something, and we decide in the morning what we intend doing during the evening. At midday something occurs which prevents us fulfilling the evening plan. We are really vexed that we are not able to carry it out. We think how much finer and better it would have been if we had been able to accomplish that particular thing. The astral body, however, with its more embracing but subconscious knowledge, is of a different opinion! In such a case the astral body often says: ‘Yes, if you fulfil what you had intended for the evening, you will be put in a position in which you may perhaps fall and break your leg.’ Of course it may be quite possible that we absolutely cannot avoid this; and if we accomplish in the evening what we have arranged, there may previously be a combination of circumstances that brings about the breaking of our leg. We do not know of this in our ordinary consciousness, but the astral body perceives it. And it therefore leads us into a position in which we ourselves prevent the fulfilment of the evening programme. The intervention which vexes us so much, is sometimes caused by this extraordinary wise knowledge of the whole setting of our life. It is not born of chance, but arises entirely from the wisdom of our astral body, of which we remain unconscious, as regards our ordinary consciousness. If we could only see why we do some things and omit others, perhaps because we cannot do otherwise, or are led away first to something else—if we could perceive all that, we should see that there is always a connection in our life which proceeds from something within us, wiser than we are in our ordinary consciousness. It is a part of our life's arrangement, but the whole purpose is not perceptible. But as soon as we rightly hold the thought in our minds of our connection with the spiritual world, the matter will then become clear to us. Over us there is a Being that in a limited sense belongs to us, a Being of the Hierarchy of the Angels, our Guardian Angel. Indeed, at the present time we always turn at the beginning of our lectures to the Guardian Spirits of those who have to fulfil the severe demands of the time outside in the world. Now, this Guardian Spirit of ours sees the whole connection. For a long time there has been a feeling in human consciousness that certain connections, imperceptible to us, are perceived by our Guardian Angel. Occasionally the following takes place: The boundary between what we can see and what we cannot see with ordinary consciousness, varies. There are, indeed, persons here, who go through life with a certain inner satisfaction, for no matter what comes to them they submit, because they believe in a ruling wisdom. They are permeated with a feeling that even things which may cause annoyance are also dominated by a ruling wisdom. It is often very difficult to believe in a ruling wisdom, when something happens which absolutely interferes with our plans. But one of those very impulses which may easily bring us well into connection with the workings of the spiritual world, consists in our feeling ourselves cared for by this ruling wisdom, without thereby becoming indolent or lazy, without believing that this wisdom works independently for us individually. Thus the boundary is movable; and in reference to our actions, and to forming of intentions, it varies greatly. In ordinary consciousness there are certainly impulses of an intimate and delicate nature. How often does it happen that we plan something for a later time; then something occurs, and we feel that we must do this which will really hinder the later action. We have the feeling to act as immediate necessity demands and to set about the matter with a certain delicacy, for we know if we set about it roughly that it will disperse and vanish before us. We all have to a greater or less degree within us, besides the self on which our freedom depends, a second self that wants to feel its way through life, and believes it attains far more through what it gropes for, than through what it can strictly measure by intellect. The boundary is movable.
But at certain times the boundary is even more adjustable. And now comes a point which should be correctly grasped with reference to practical life. There are persons—and in a certain respect we are all gripped by that which rules in such people—there are persons who have a sort of longing, a sort of passion to order their life aright, so to traverse the paths of life that they can order it correctly. Let us take an exceptional case. Suppose a man you know forms a friendship for another. You may say: ‘I really cannot understand why he has formed this friendship. I cannot make it out. No real affinity exists between these two, yet he does all he can to approach this man.’ It seems incomprehensible; and only a long time afterwards we see the reason. The man in question may need the other for something much later on. He formed a friendship with him, not because he found something in him which gave him pleasure; he did not form this friendship for its own sake, but as a means to something which would apply later. He regulated his life rightly. Through forming that friendship he attained some prospect, through which his friend could later help him in some situation. And the consequence is that something actually takes place through the help of the so-called friend which could not otherwise have occurred. If you apply this thought to life, you will see how often it occurs, that people arrange something which they do not immediately desire, but they wish it so arranged, because they will have need of its after-effects. Thus we must say that there are people who, in the adjustment of their life show an enormous subtlety—we cannot call this wisdom; we should feel an inner objection to calling it wisdom. But these people display great cunning in doing something at an earlier stage of their life which cannot profit them in any way at the time, but can only do so at some later epoch. And we may express the following feeling: ‘I really did not think so and so was so clever, for when I approached him and exchanged thoughts with him or was in his society he really seemed much too stupid to order his life so cleverly.’ Now that comes about because what a man carries in his astral body can be much cleverer than his ordinary consciousness. And if he strongly checks his egotism and drives it down to the sphere of unconsciousness, if he does not live in accordance with a certain primitive instinct, but, as it were, allows his egotism to dominate, it then lays holds of his subconsciousness: and that other man that dwells in us all, but who as a rule trains us to take life in a more natural and direct manner, then guides him to organise his life, and to create beforehand the conditions for something later. Then we see the astral body ruling with its cleverness; but permeated, not by what usually dominates in life, but by the egotism forced out of the ordinary consciousness down into the astral consciousness. And we see such a man apparently going through life with much more, of what we might call calculation, than should come to him from his ordinary consciousness. There are many dangerous sides to the evolution of the human soul. And it is very important to become aware of this: that the moment we meet what is ordinarily unconscious in us, we must try not to approach it with too much egotism. Therefore, the avoidance of egotism in the development towards the spiritual worlds must again and again be emphasised. For beneath our ordinary consciousness there really rules something which may be permeated by the consciousness of our Guardian Spirit from the Hierarchy of the Angels. Then arises that which to the ordinary consciousness makes a man seem to act without reflection, but which is nevertheless subject to a certain law. I expressed this law very simply in one of the Mystery Plays by letting one of the characters say: ‘The heart must often direct our Karma.’ And if one transcends that which the heart indicates as Karma, and lets reason prevail, then reason sometimes administers a strong dose of egotism. Or it may be that egotism so prevails that we find man more subtle than he seems to be, judging by his ordinary consciousness. In that case he has pressed the egotism down into his astral body. Then comes something into the working of his soul, not now from the regular Beings of the Hierarchy of the Angels but something Luciferic, which enables the man to embrace a wider sphere than he could consciously do at this present stage of his evolution. Thus we see that what must of necessity be strongly emphasised, when one is approaching spiritual evolution, is really something delicate and intimate; for we must of course strive to expand our consciousness, but in doing so, we should always take care to obliterate the hindrance that is created when our egotism is removed either into a deeper or a higher sphere of consciousness.
You may ask: ‘How can we do this?’ It is very easy to say that we should not remove egotism from our ordinary consciousness. But how are we to avoid doing this? Well, this cannot be done by rules, but solely through widening one's interests. When a man extends his interests he is always in some way already fighting his egotism. For with each new interest we acquire we go a little beyond ourselves. Therefore, we strive for Spiritual Science in this manner; that is, we are taught not only to pay attention to what man so willingly listens to because of his egotism, but to have our interests really extended. How often does the demand arise, again and again: ‘Why are the books written in a way so difficult to understand? Could they not be written in a simpler fashion?’ And someone or another makes suggestions as to how these books could be written for the people and made popular. One must really beware of gaining such popularity, for it only enhances egotism. If it were made so easy to enter Spiritual Science then each one could enter without overcoming his egotism. But in the work accomplished spiritually by the efforts we have to make, we get rid of a little of our egotism; we enter what we wish to acquire through Spiritual Science in a more hallowed frame of mind if we have had to take trouble over it, than if it had been presented to us in quite an easy and popular form. For example, a person has come home and said: ‘There are so many people who have to work all day long. If these people have to sit down in the evening to read these difficult books, they do not get on very well. For such as these there ought to be books quite easy to read.’ To this I had to answer—and quite correctly: ‘Why should one prevent these people from applying even the little time at their disposal to reading such books as are purposely written with full regard to spiritual conditions? Why should they occupy the little time they have in reading books which may be more convenient, but which trivialise the matter even textually?’ For it is just because these books do not place the soul in the right attitude, that they drag down into the trivial life that which should lead one away from it, even as regards the nature of the experience connected with another sphere.
It will become of special importance in Spiritual Science that we should bear in mind not only the ‘What’ (the matter) but the ‘How’ (the manner): that we should really bestir ourselves gradually to acquire ideas of a world quite different from the ordinary physical world, and thus gradually to accustom ourselves to form conceptions different from those we can build so comfortably in the physical world. And now, in conclusion, I should like to mention a concept which we shall require in our next lecture. But I shall mention it to-day, so that you may see that it is well to assimilate new words for that which transpires in the spiritual world.
We have a word which expresses the manner of a man's life between birth and death, which expresses this life as it strikes us. We see the young child fresh and rounded, its inner life flowing through its outer form; teeming, as we say, with inner life, up to a certain year when life pours itself into the outer form. Then comes a time when the inner life ceases to flow, when we become wrinkled and things change with us. In short, we can follow up this outer life from birth to death in the changes presented by the physical body as life runs its course. We call this growing old for the quite trivial reason that when we are born the physical body is young, and when we die it is old. Now with the etheric body the case is really quite different. Our etheric body is old, if we can use the word at all in this connection, it is old through the forces by which it is fashioned at conception or birth. It is already old when we begin our physical life. It is then already formed and chiseled out, it has a great many inner formations (they are movements, yet inner formations); these are taken from it as life proceeds. But on the other hand the life force is enhanced; it is young when we grow old. While we say of the physical body—we are aging—of the etheric body we must say we are growing young. And it is well to use this expression. We really grow young as regards our etheric body, for at our birth its whole forces are directed to all that is enclosed in the human skin. When at a certain age we pass through death, the etheric body enters into a certain relationship with the whole Cosmos. It recovers the forces which have been taken from it. The moment we became children its connection with the Cosmos was broken. It had then to send all its forces into the small space enclosed in the human skin. It was compressed, as it were, to one point of the Cosmos. Now the etheric body revives, and gradually takes it place in the Cosmos in proportion as the physical body ages. Although somewhat of an exaggeration, we may say when we become wrinkled, the etheric body becomes chubby and again becomes an image of the external force, the creative, abounding force, in the same way as the physical body is an expression of this force at the beginning of childhood. We grow young as regards our etheric body. Thus it will gradually become necessary to coin words wherewith really to grasp the absolutely different relations of the spiritual world, It is important that we should acquaint ourselves with this radical difference in the whole perception of the spiritual world, as opposed to the physical world. We shall start our considerations next time from this point.
From the fighters' courage,
From the blood of battles,
From the mourners' suffering,
From the people's sacrifice,
There will ripen fruits of Spirit
If with consciousness the soul
Turns her thought to Spirit Realms.
Vierter Vortrag
Geisteswissenschaft soll uns ja auf allen Gebieten den Zusammenhang zeigen zwischen den geistigen Welten und den Welten, die wir, während wir in unserem Erdenleibe sind, wahrnehmen durch unsere Sinne, die wir zu verstehen suchen durch die Gedanken unseres Verstandes. Nun haben wir uns durch einige Betrachtungen hindurch beschäftigt insbesondere mit den Zusammenhängen, die da bestehen zwischen dem Leben, das der Mensch als Seele führt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, und dem Leben, das er hier im physischen Leibe verkörpert führt. Wir halten ja immer den Gedanken fest, daß der Mensch, solange er hier innerhalb des physischen Leibes lebt, seine Gedanken nach der Sphäre richtet, die er zu durchleben hat zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Wir halten den Gedanken fest nach dieser Sphäre gerichtet, nicht um eine bloße Neugierde zu befriedigen, sondern weil wir uns durch unsere geisteswissenschaftlichen Betrachtungen haben überzeugen können, daß das Hineindringen der Gedanken jener anderen Welt in diese Welt auch beiträgt zu dem, was diese Welt hier an erhöhenden, an durchkraftenden Gedanken für Wirken, Denken, Empfinden und so weiter sich erringen kann. Wir müssen an dem Gedanken festhalten, daß sich viele Geheimnisse des Lebens nur auflösen lassen, wenn man den Mut hat, an das Rätsel des Todes, wie man es nennen kann, heranzutreten. Nun können wir heute, um von einem ganz besonderen Gesichtspunkte aus wiederum den Zusammenhang der geistigen Welt mit der sinnlichen hier vor unser Seelenauge treten zu lassen, von einer trivialen Betrachtung, die allerdings vieles an tiefgehenden Empfindungen einschließt, ausgehen.
Wir gehen aus von der Tatsache, die wir ja oftmals besprochen haben, wie der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet. Ich sage, wir gehen aus von etwas, was alltäglich ist, was aber doch mit tiefgehenden und den Menschen in seiner tiefsten Seele ergreifenden Erlebnissen zusammenhängt. Wenn wir einem Menschen hier in der physischen Welt gegenüberstehen, machen wir uns die Gedanken, die uns mit ihm verbinden können, wir bilden ihm gegenüber unsere Empfindungen, unsere Gefühle von Sympathie, von Antipathie aus, wir stehen ihm mehr oder weniger freundschaftlich oder mehr oder weniger ablehnend gegenüber, kurz, wir bilden uns hier in der physischen Welt ein gewisses Verhältnis aus zu einem anderen Menschen. Dieses Verhältnis kann durch die Bande des Blutes gegeben sein, es kann sich auch erst durch die im Leben zutagetretende Wahlverwandtschaft zur Geltung bringen. Das alleswird gefaßt werden können unter dem, was in diesem Augenblicke mit «Verhältnis zwischen Mensch und Mensch» gemeint ist.
Wenn nun der Mensch, mit dem uns irgendwelche Bande zusammengehalten haben, hinweggeht von der physischen Welt und durch die Pforte des Todes tritt, so bleibt uns von diesem Menschen zunächst die Erinnerung zurück, das heißt eine Summe von Empfindungen, Gedanken, die wir aus dem Verhältnis zu ihm in uns rege gemacht haben, die wir in uns belebt haben. Und in einer ganz anderen Weise leben von jetzt an, da der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes von uns hinweggegangen ist, die Empfindungen, die Vorstellungen, die Gedanken, die uns mit ihm verbinden, als sie früher, da er noch mit uns den physischen Plan bewohnt hat, lebten. Als er mit uns den physischen Plan bewohnt hat, wußten wir, daß jederzeit zu dem, was wir uns in unserer Seele im Verhältnis zu ihm ausgebildet haben, die äußere physische Realität hinzutreten kann, daß wir mit unseren inneren Erlebnissen der äußeren physischen Realität gegenübertreten können. Wir müssen auch jederzeit gewärtig sein, daß der Mensch durch irgendeine neue Art, sich darzuleben, die Empfindungen, die Gefühle, die wir bisher für ihn gehabt haben, in der einen oder in der anderen Richtung verändert. Wir denken oftmals nicht an den radikalen Unterschied, der auftritt, wenn plötzlich, oder auch nicht plötzlich, der Augenblick eintritt, wo wir fortan nur noch die Erinnerung an den betreffenden Menschen in unserer Seele tragen können, wo wir wissen können: unseren Augen wird er nicht mehr erscheinen, unsere Hand wird er nicht mehr ergreifen. Das Bild, das wir von ihm gebildet haben, bleibt im wesentlichen dasjenige, was wir uns schon gebildet haben. Es ist etwas ganz Radikales, das in dem Verhältnis zweier Menschen eintritt. Wie gesagt, es ist etwas, was trivial für den Gedanken klingt, was aber tief eingreifend ist in unser Innenleben, in dem einzelnen Falle, wo es eintritt: die Tatsache, daß Erinnerung uns wird eine Menschenseele, die bisher durch ihre physische Verkörperung auf uns von außen her einen Eindruck gemacht hat.
Aber vergleichen wir nun diese Erinnerung mit anderen Erinnerungen, die wir uns sonst aus unseren Erlebnissen bilden. Wir leben ja zu einem großen Teile unser physisches Leben in Erinnerungen aus. Wir wissen von dem, was wir erlebt haben. Sagen wir zum Beispiel, wir wissen von Ereignissen, die an uns vorübergezogen sind, von denen wir Gedanken behalten haben, wir wissen, daß wir uns durch diese Gedanken an verflossene Zeiten wenden können, in denen die betreffenden Ereignisse stattgefunden haben. Überblickenwir nun aber dasjenige, was wir so in dem größten Teile unserer Erinnerungen haben - ich sage, in dem größten Teile unserer Erinnerungen -, so tragen wir in Gedanken etwas in uns, was nicht mehr da ist: verflossene Ereignisse, Ereignisse, deren Wirklichkeit wir nicht mehr in der äußeren Welt antreffen können, die der Vergangenheit angehören.
Ganz anders ist vor unserem seelischen Auge, wenn wir das Geistige der Geisteswissenschaft aufgenommen haben, dasjenige, was wir Erinnerung an einen Verstorbenen nennen müssen, Erinnerung an eine Seele, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist. Ganz anders ist das. Da tragen wir Gedanken in uns, aber für diese Gedanken ist etwas Wirkliches da, allerdings nicht in der uns zugänglichen äußeren, physischen Welt, aber in der geistigen Welt. Dasjenige, worauf sich diese Gedanken beziehen, das ist da, obzwar es nicht in die Sphäre unserer Sichtbarkeit eintreten kann. Das ist eine ganz andere Erinnerungsvorstellung als eine Erinnerungsvorstellung an etwas, was hier in der physischen Welt vergangen ist. Wenn wir die Tatsache, die hier vorliegt, im Verhältnis zu der gesamten Welt einmal betrachten wollen, so können wir sagen: Wir tragen in unserer Seele Gedanken an eine Wesenheit, die in der geistigen Welt ist. Nun wissen wir - und insbesondere muß uns das klargeworden sein aus Betrachtungen, die wir an den letzten drei Abenden, die wir hier zusammensein konnten, gehalten haben -, daß nicht nur die Sehnsuchten der Seelen, die hier verkörpert sind, hinaufgehen nach den geistigen Welten, sondern daß auch das Bewußtsein der Seelen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, die nun leben in der Welt zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, sich heruntererstreckt auf dasjenige, was hier in der physischen Welt vorgeht. Wir können uns sagen: Diejenigen Seelen, die entkörpert in der geistigen Welt leben, bekommen von der physischen Welt hier dasjenige in ihr Bewußtsein herauf, was sie vermöge ihrer geistigen Anschauung und ihres geistigen Herabsehens eben wahrnehmen können. Ich habe in einer der letzten Betrachtungen angedeutet, wie Seelen, die noch hier im physischen Leibe verkörpert leben, wahrgenommen werden von den sogenannten toten Seelen, im Gegensatz zu der Wahrnehmung, die sie von Seelen haben, die wie sie leben in der Zeit zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Ich habe ausgeführt, wie die Seelen, die in der geistigen Welt leben, um eine Wahrnehmung zu haben, immer tätig sein müssen, wie sie zum Beispiel wissen: Jetzt ist eine andere Seele in deiner Nähe -, wie sie aber, um sie anzuschauen, innerlich tätig sein müssen. Sie müssen sich gleichsam das Bild konstruieren, das Bild entsteht nicht von selbst, wie es hier in der physischen Welt entsteht. Man hat in der geistigen Welt zuerst den Gedanken des «Da-seins» und muß dann gleichsam innerlich miterleben dieses «Da-sein», damit das Bild entsteht. Es ist der umgekehrte Weg.
Nun ist aber doch ein bedeutsamer Unterschied in der Bildkonstruktion in bezug auf diejenigen Seelen, die auch schon in der geistigen Welt sind, und solche, die noch hier auf der Erde im physischen Leibe verkörpert sind. Während der Mensch im Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt das Bild einer Seele, die auch schon in der geistigen Welt ist, ganz und gar aus sich heraus erzeugen muß, während er da ganz und gar tätig sein muß, fühlt er sich bei einer Seele, welche noch hier auf der Erde lebt, mehr passiv — das Bild kommt ihm mehr entgegen. Also die Tätigkeit ist eine geringere bei einer Seele, die noch hier auf Erden lebt, als bei einer Seele, die auch schon entkörpert ist, die innere Anstrengung ist eine geringere. Dadurch drückt sich eben der Unterschied aus für diejenigen, die zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt leben. Wenn Sie das nehmen, so werden Sie sich sagen: Wenn sich die Seele, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, in die geistige Welt so hineinlebt, hält sie nicht nur ihre Umschau über jene Wesen der höheren Hierarchien oder der Menschenseelen, die auch mit ihr in der geistigen Welt leben, sondern es taucht vor ihr auch die Welt der Seelen hier auf, namentlich derjenigen, zu denen sie Beziehung gehabt hat hier, bevor sie durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist. Es ist ja dieser bedeutsame Unterschied noch festzuhalten, daß, während hier der Mensch auf Erden im Grunde genommen das, was das Erdendasein ausmacht, immer um sich hat und nur im Geiste ergreifen kann — das «nur» ist natürlich sehr vergleichsweise nur zu nehmen - die «andere» Welt, so ist es, wenn die Seele in der geistigen Welt ist, gerade umgekehrt. Das, was sie dort von selbst sieht, das ist unsere Welt, die Welt, die von dort aus die jenseitige ist, wahrend sie sich anstrengen muß, um die eigene Welt, in der sie dann ist, immer als Wahrnehmung zu haben, um sie sich immer zu konstruieren. Also dort ist das Diesseits dasjenige, was man sich immerfort erarbeiten muß, und das Jenseits ist dasjenige, was eigentlich immer sich wie von selbst ergibt. Nun aber tauchen innerhalb dieses Jenseits — was für uns Diesseits ist, von der anderen Seite gesehen aber das Jenseits — die Menschenseelen auf mit demjenigen, was in ihnen lebt, insbesondere diejenigen Menschenseelen, zu denen Beziehungen während der Erdenzeit angeknüpft worden sind. Diese Menschenseelen treten auf. Aber innerhalb, ich möchte sagen, dieses Meeres von geistigen Wahrnehmungen, die da von der anderen Welt hier an und in den Menschenseelen gemacht werden, treten zuweilen auf die Erinnerungen an diejenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind. Stellen Sie sich das lebendig vor. Denken wir uns einmal hypothetisch, wir lebten in einem Zeitpunkte, in dem sich keine Seele irgendeines Toten erinnerte. Dann würden natürlich die Toten die Menschenseelen auch sehen, aber in diesen Menschenseelen würden keine Erinnerungen an die Toten leben. In dieses Meer, das sich den entkörperten Seelen darbietet, gehen nun hinein die Erinnerungen, die Erinnerungen an die Toten. Da leben sie drinnen. Das ist etwas, was durch den freien Willen der Menschen und durch die Liebe der Menschen hier hinzukommt zu dem, was der Tote von der anderen Seite immer sehen kann. Das ist also etwas, was hinzukommt.
Sehen Sie, hier haben wir wieder einen Punkt, wo dem Geistesforscher wichtige Fragen aufgehen, wo der Geistesforscher die Frage aufwerfen muß: Was geschieht für denjenigen, der durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, dadurch, daß er nun eingebettet sieht in die flutenden Seelen hier in unserer Welt die Erinnerungen, die diese flutenden Seelen an die Toten haben, was geschieht dadurch, daß er diese Erinnerungen wahrnimmt? Es ist bei der Geistesforschung so, daß man, wenn einem eine solche Rätselfrage aufgeht, diese Rätselfrage zuerst gründlich erleben muß. Man muß sich hineinleben. Wenn man nun anfängt zu spekulieren, wie die Lösung einer solchen Frage sein könnte, wie die Antwort sein könnte, dann kommt man sicher zunächst auf das Falsche. Denn das Anstrengen des gewöhnlichen, an das Gehirn gebundenen Verstandes, das gibt in der Regel durchaus keine Lösung. Man kann durch dasjenige, was innere Anstrengung ist, die Lösung nur vorbereiten. Die Lösungen von Rätselfragen, die sich auf die geistige Welt beziehen, ergeben sich wirklich so, daß sie herauskommen aus der geistigen Welt wie eine Begnadung. Man muß warten. Man kann eigentlich nichts anderes tun, als in der Frage so recht leben, immer wieder und wiederum die Frage durchmeditieren, die Frage mit allen Empfindungsqualitäten, die sie entwickeln kann, in der Seele aufleben lassen und ruhig warten, bis man —- der Ausdruck ist wirklich ganz richtig gebraucht — gewürdigt wird, aus der geistigen Welt heraus eine Antwort zu bekommen. Und die kommt einem in der Regel von einer ganz anderen Seite zu, als man eigentlich denkt. Es kommt aus der geistigen Welt heraus dann die Antwort im rechten Augenblick, das heißt im Augenblick, wo man die eigene Seele genügend präpariert hat, so daf3 sie die Antwort entgegennehmen kann. Daß es die rechte Antwort ist, ja das läßt sich nicht durch eine Theorie ausmachen, ebensowenig wie durch Theorie sich etwas über die physische Wirklichkeit ausmachen läßt. Das läßt sich nur durch das Erleben selber ausmachen. Diejenigen, die jede geistige Wirklichkeit immer nur ableugnen und sagen: das kann man nicht beweisen, es muß alles bewiesen werden — denen möchte ich nur die Frage stellen, ob jemals schon ein Mensch in der physischen Welt das Dasein eines Walfisches hätte beweisen können, wenn dieser nicht gefunden worden wäre. Nichts kann man beweisen, was nicht in irgendeiner Weise in Wirklichkeit aufgezeigt werden muß. So muß man auch in der geistigen Welt dasjenige erleben, was Wirklichkeit ist.
Nun gewiß, dasjenige, was da eintritt in das Bewußtsein als Lösung, es stellt sich, je nachdem man sich zubereitet hat in der Seele, in der verschiedensten Weise dar. Auf mannigfache Weise kann sich die Wahrheit darstellen, aber sie ist doch als die Wahrheit zu erleben. Wenn man sich diese Rätselfrage, die ich eben jetzt hingestellt habe, so recht in der Seele leben läßt, da tritt auf, scheinbar von einer ganz anderen Seite her, ein inneres Bild, welches, ich möchte sagen, den inneren Anspruch darauf macht, einem etwas zu geben über die Lösung des betreffenden Rätsels. Da kann auftreten das Bild eines Menschen, der etwa sich photographieren läßt, der sein Porträt bilden läßt. Überhaupt tritt auf das Bild irgendeiner physischen Sache, eine Nachbildung dieser physischen Sache. Und zuletzt tritt auf alles dasjenige, was man in den Bereich des Künstlerischen und auch der künstlerischen Darstellung setzen kann. WennSie sich vorstellen, wie das physische Leben verläuft, so können Sie sich sagen, dieses physische Leben verläuft so, daß der Mensch den äußeren Naturwesen und Naturereignissen gegenübersteht: die laufen ab. Ebenso laufen die menschlichen Angelegenheiten ab, dasjenige, was der Mensch sorgt und webt für seine Bedürfnisse und so weiter, dasjenige, was ihm in der Geschichte abläuft. Aber darüber hinaus sucht der Mensch etwas, was im Grunde genommen nichts zu tun hat mit dem unmittelbar Notwendigen in der Welt. Die Menschenseele wird gewahr, daß, wenn nur die Natur und die Geschichte mit den menschlichen Bedürfnisbefriedigungen ablaufen würde, das Leben öde und kahl wäre. Der Mensch schafft über den Naturlauf und über den Bedürfnislauf hinaus etwas hier im physischen Dasein. Er bekommt das Bedürfnis, nicht bloß, sagen wir, irgendeine Landschaft zu sehen, sondern diese Landschaft auch nachzubilden. Er richtet es im Leben so ein, daß jemand, der mit ihm in irgendeinem Zusammenhang steht, von ihm ein Bild bekommen kann und dergleichen mehr. Wir können, von da ausgehend, an das ganze Reich der Kunst denken, das der Mensch hier als eine höhere Wirklichkeit über die Wirklichkeit hinaus schafft zu der gewöhnlichen Natur- und Geschichtswirklichkeit hinzu. Denken Sie, was alles nicht in der Welt ware, wenn es keine Kunst gäbe, wenn die Kunst nicht hinzubringen würde zu dem, was, wir können sagen, von selbst da ist, dasjenige, was sie aus ihrem Quell zu geben vermag. Die Kunst schafft etwas, was durch Notwendigkeit nicht da zu sein brauchte. Wäre es nicht da, so könnte alles Naturnotwendige gleichwohl geschehen: Man Könnte sich denken, daß ohne irgendeine Nachbildung oder künstlerische Darstellung der Verlauf des Lebens vom Erdenanfang bis zum Erdenende ginge. Was alles die Menschen dann nicht hätten, das mag man sich ausmalen. Aber theoretisch möglich wäre es, daß unsere Erde gestraft wäre damit, daß sich auf ihr keine Kunst entwickeln könnte. Wir haben in der Kunst etwas über das Leben Hinausgehendes. Denken Sie sich alles das, was in der Kunst geschaffen ist, in der Welt stehend und die Menschen also durch die Welt gehend, dann haben Sie gewissermaßen zwei parallel laufende Prozesse: die Natur- und Geschichtsnotwendigkeiten und dasjenige, was als künstlerische Strömung hineingestellt ist.
Sehen Sie, so wie die Kunst gewissermaßen eine geistige Welt hereinzaubert in die physische Wirklichkeit, so zaubert die Erinnerung, die hier in der Seele Platz greift, eine andere Welt in die Welt derer, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, herein. Für die Toten könnte die Welt ablaufen, ohne daß in den Seelen hier Erinnerungen lebten, die aus Liebe, die aus allen menschlichen Verhältnissen geboren sind. Aber es würde dann für die Toten die Welt, die die ihre ist, so ablaufen, wie für uns eine Welt ablaufen würde, in der wir nichts finden könnten, was über die gewöhnliche Wirklichkeit hinausgeht. Das ist ein ungeheuer bedeutungsvoller Zusammenhang, daß durch die Gedanken der Liebe, durch die Gedanken der Erinnerung, durch all das, was uns in dieser Weise in der Seele aufgeht im Zusammenhang mit denen, die nicht mehr in der physischen Welt sind, für die, die nicht in der physischen Welt sind, dort etwas Analoges geschaffen wird demjenigen, was hier das künstlerische Schaffen ist. Und so wie der Mensch das künstlerische Schaffen aus sich heraus in der physischen Welt hier vollbringen muß, aus dem Eigenen etwas hinzutun muß, so muß wiederum für diejenigen, die in der geistigen Welt sind, das Entgegengesetzte eintreten. Es muß ihnen von der anderen Welt entgegengebracht werden, von den Seelen, die hier zurückgeblieben sind, die hier noch verkörpert sind; von den Seelen, die sie mehr passiv sehen als diejenigen Seelen, die schon mit ihnen in der geistigen Welt stehen. Was für uns Natur- und Geschichtsverlauf wären, die sich nur von selbst vollziehen, ohne Kunst, ohne all dasjenige, was der Mensch bildet über die unmittelbare Wirklichkeit hinaus, das wäre für die Toten eine Welt, in der nicht innerhalb der physischen Welt zurückgebliebene Seelen lebten mit Erinnerungen.
Solche Dinge, sehen Sie, sie werden nicht gewußt innerhalb des physischen Lebens der Menschen. Man sagt so, sie werden nicht gewußt —. Sie werden nicht gewußt von dem, was das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein ist, aber von demjenigen, was tieferes unterbewußtes Bewußtsein ist, werden diese Dinge gewußt, und das Leben wurde auch immer danach eingerichtet. Warum wurde Wert darauf gelegt von den menschlichen Gemeinschaften, daß Allerseelentage, Totentage und dergleichen gefeiert werden? Und derjenige, der nicht an einem allgemeinen Totentage teilnehmen kann, hat eben seine eigenen Totentage. Warum ist das? Weil in dem unterbewußten Bewußtsein der Menschen eben das lebt, was man nennen könnte ein dunkles Bewußtsein von dem, was in die Welt hineingestellt wird dadurch, daß die Erinnerungen an die Toten belebt werden, besonders belebt werden. Wenn die offene Seele des Geistesschauers an einem Allerseelentag oder an einem Totensonntag oder dergleichen dahin geht, wo viele Menschen erscheinen mit den Erinnerungen an die Toten, so nimmt sie wahr, daß da die Toten teilnehmen, und es ist für die Toten dann so, nur natürlich entsprechend verschieden gedacht, wie wenn hier auf dem physischen Erdenrund die Menschen einen Dom besuchen und jene Formen schauen wurden, die sie nicht schauen könnten, wenn nicht aus der künstlerischen Phantasie heraus zu dem physischen Dasein etwas hinzuerschaffen worden wäre, oder wenn sie eine Symphonie hören oder dergleichen. Es ist gewissermaßen das über das gewöhnliche Maß des Daseins hinaus Entstehende, das sich in all diesen Erinnerungen darbietet. Und wie sich die Kunst hineinstellt in den physisch-historischen Menschenverlauf, so stellen sich die Erinnerungen an die Toten herein in das Bild, das die Seelen zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt von ihrer Welt aus bekommen. In solchen Gebräuchen, die sich bilden innerhalb der menschlichen Gemeinschaften, drückt sich eben jenes geheime Wissen aus, das die Seelen in ihren Untergründen haben, und mancher ehrwürdige Gebrauch hängt eben mit diesem unterbewußten Bewußtsein zusammen.
Wir stehen vor den Zusammenhängen des Lebens viel bewundernder noch, wenn wir sie durchdringen können mit dem, was uns die Geisteswissenschaft an die Hand gibt, als wenn wir sie nicht damit durchdringen können. Wenn der Tote in der Seele eines Menschen, der mit ihm in einem Verhältnis hier gestanden hat, eine Erinnerung an sich antrifft, so ist es immer so, wie wenn ihm etwas entgegentreten würde, was ihm das Leben verschönt, was ihm das Leben erhöht. Und setzt sich hier für uns Schönheit aus demjenigen zusammen, was Kunst ist, so setzt sich für die Toten Schönheit zusammen aus demjenigen, was hinaufstrahit aus den Herzen, den Seelen der an ihre Toten sich erinnernden Menschen.
Das ist auch ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Welt hier und der geistigen Welt dort. Und es ist dies ein solcher Gedanke, der eng zusammenhängt mit jenem anderen Gedanken, der aus vielem, vielem hervorgeht, was in der Geisteswissenschaft gepflogen werden kann, dem Gedanken von dem Wertvollen, dem Wichtigen des Erdenlebens. Geisteswissenschaft führt uns nicht dahin, die Erde mit alledem, was sie hervorbringen kann, zu verachten, sondern Geisteswissenschaft führt uns dahin, das physische Erdenleben als ein Glied zu betrachten innerhalb des gesamten Weltenlebens und als ein notwendiges Glied; als ein Glied, das auf das hin angelegt ist, was in der geistigen Welt wirkt und ohne das die geistige Welt nicht in ihrer Vollständigkeit erscheinen würde. Und wenn wir nunmehr unseren Blick sozusagen dahin wenden, daß aus unserer physischen Welt heraus die Schönheit für die Toten ersprießen muß, so schließt sich uns der Gedanke auf, daß diese Schönheit für die geistige Welt fehlen würde, wenn es nicht eine physische Welt geben könnte mit Menschenseelen, die im Leibe auch noch Gedanken, gefühlsdurchtränkte, empfindungsdurchwellte Gedanken entwickeln könnten an diejenigen, die nicht in der physischen Welt sind. Es bedeutete viel, meine lieben Freunde, wenn in alten Zeiten zum Beispiel ganze Volksstämme immer wieder und wiederum hingebungsvoll in ihren Festen an die großen Ahnen dachten, wenn sie vereinigten ihre Gefühle im Hinblick auf einen großen Ahn. Es bedeutete viel, wenn sie solche Gedenktage einrichteten, denn das war immer das Aufleuchten eines Schönen für die geistigen Welten, das heißt für die Seelen, die zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt standen. Und so wenig, nun, sagen wir, um milde zu sprechen, so wenig «unalbern» es wäre, wenn jemand besonderes Gefallen hier auf der Erde an seinem eigenen Bildnis, an seinem eigenen Porträt fände — das ist ja natürlich etwas Albernes, nicht wahr? -, so bedeutsam ist nun das Bild, das der Tote findet bei den hier Zurückgebliebenen von sich selber. Denn, meine lieben Freunde, das müssen wir festhalten: Unser Erdenmensch wird etwas ganz anderes für uns, wenn wir ihn, als Tote, vom Gesichtspunkte des Geistigen aus betrachten; das haben wir öfters betont. Hier sind wir innerhalb unserer Haut eingeschlossen, hier ist uns dasjenige, was wir als «wir», als «ich» bezeichnen, eben das innerhalb der Haut Eingeschlossene, was uns wert ist. Auch für den «selbstlosen» Menschen gilt das! Für die «ganz selbstlosen Menschen» gilt das vielleicht sogar um einen Grad mehr als für diejenigen, die sich weniger selbstlos dünken! Wert ist uns vor allen Dingen, was innerhalb dieser Haut eingeschlossen ist, dann kommt die übrige Welt. Wir blicken zu dieser übrigen Welt als zur Außsenwelt. Das ist aber gerade das Bedeutungsvolle, daß wir, wenn wir aus unserem Körper draußen sind, mit der Außenwelt vereinigt werden; wir leben in dieser Außenwelt. Dieses Aufgehen, dieses Sich-Ausbreiten über die Außenwelt, ich habe es öfters beschrieben. Und dasjenige, was dann sich so zu uns verhält wie jetzt die Außenwelt, das ist das, was wir gerade hier zwischen Geburt und Tod für uns ausgelebt haben. Die Außenwelt wird, wir Können sagen, gewissermaßen unsere Innenwelt; und das, was hier unsere Innenwelt ist, wird dann unsere Außenwelt. Daher diese bedeutsame Erfahrung, wie ich sie in meiner «Theosophie» berührte, beim Betreten des Geisterlandes: «Das bist du.»
Also unsere Innenwelt hier, die unser Ich umfaßt, auf die blicken wir dann hin, das ist die Außenwelt. Und da ist es so, daß jene Seele, die nun nicht in dieser Weise egoistisch sein kann, wie sie hier egoistisch ist, zurüuckblickt auf die Gedanken, die ihr entgegentreten als die Gedanken an sie. Das ist dasjenige, was wie eine Außenwelt ihr entgegentritt, was wirklich einverleibt sein darf in den Umfang dessen, was wir dann als das Schöne bezeichnen, als dasjenige, was uns erhebt, was uns dann erheben darf. Es kommt zu dem, was eine Außenwelt ist - nämlich die Erinnerung an das, was wir durchgemacht haben zwischen Geburt und Tod -, etwas hinzu, was nicht in diesem unserem Leben lebt, sondern was in anderen Seelen lebt, aber sich auf uns bezieht. Das ist wirklich das Hineinstellen eines über uns, das heißt über unsere Außenwelt Hinausgehenden, wie hier das Hineinstellen des Kunstwerkes etwas ist, was über die gewöhnliche, von selbst dastehende Wirklichkeit hinausgeht. So wenig «nett» es hier ist von dem Menschen, wenn er nicht nur in sich, sondern noch dazu in sein Bild verliebt ist, so selbstverständlich ist es dort, daß man zu dem, was in den Seelen, die zurückgeblieben sind, als Bild von einem auftritt und hinzukommt zu der anderen Erscheinung, die man von sich hat, daß man zu dem so steht, wie man hier etwa steht zu einem Landschaftsbild im Verhältnis zur Landschaft oder dergleichen. So ist es also, daß man, wenn einem diese Rätselfrage vor die Seele kommt, das Bild von dem Menschen und seinem Bild in den Seelen der Hinterbliebenen erhält und daß man von da aus den Weg findet zur Beantwortung einer solchen Rätselfrage. Das Spekulieren führt in der Regel zu nichts, sondern das Wartenkönnen, das geduldige Abwarten. Dasjenige, womit man sich bemühen soll, sind eigentlich mit Bezug auf die geistigen Welten die Fragen; die Antworten müssen sich durch Gnade, durch sich offenbarende Gnade der Menschenseele ergeben.
Ich habe im Verlaufe dieser Betrachtung eben darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie die Menschen Einrichtungen treffen, Erinnerungstage, Erinnerungsfeste im allgemeinen, die zusammenhängen mit einem tiefen, aber vom gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht umfaßten Wissen. Das hängt damit zusammen, daß der Mensch überhaupt in den Untergründen seiner Seele ein dumpfes, umfassendes Wissen hat - ich habe hier schon wiederholt darauf aufmerksam gemacht und daß er eigentlich das Wissen, das er mit seinem Bewußtsein umfaßt, herausholt aus seinem umfassenden Wissen. Ich habe darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie gescheit wir eigentlich wären, wenn wir all das mit unserem Oberbewußstsein umfassen könnten, was unser astralischer Leib umfaßt. Aber dieser Astralleib, der geht auch in einem viel höheren Sinne wissend durch das Leben, als wir gewöhnlich glauben. Wir schätzen dieses Wissen unseres Astralleibes nicht, weil wir eben nichts davon wissen; aber wir können uns wenigstens eine Vorstellung machen von diesem umfassenderen Wissen des Astralleibes, wenn wir uns das Folgende vor die Seele stellen:
Sehen Sie, wir leben so, wir können es ja sagen, gewissermaßen in den Tag hinein. Wir beurteilen die Ereignisse sehr wenig nach ihrem Zusammenhange. Würden wir sie nach ihrem Zusammenhange betrachten, so würde uns manches ganz, ganz anders erscheinen. Denken Sie doch nur einmal, es kann passieren, nicht wahr, daß wir uns irgend etwas vornehmen: Wir nehmen uns am Morgen etwas vor, was wir am Abend ausführen wollen. Mittags passiert uns irgend etwas, was uns verhindert, die Sache am Abend auszuführen. Wir ärgern uns zuweilen gründlich, daß wir die Sache am Abend nicht ausführen können. Wir sind der Meinung, daß es viel schöner, viel richtiger gewesen wäre, wenn wir die Sache hätten ausführen können. Der Astralleib mit seinem umfassenderen, aber uns nicht zum Bewußtsein kommenden Wissen, der weiß das eben anders. Der Astralleib sieht in einem solchen Falle oftmals: Wenn du die Angelegenheit, die du dir für abends vorgenommen hast, ausführst, so kommst du in eine Lage, wo du vielleicht hinfällst und dir ein Bein brichst. Es kann ja durchaus im Bereich der Möglichkeiten liegen, daß wir dem gar nicht entgehen können; wenn wir abends das, was wir uns vorgenommen haben, ausführen, so gibt es eben eine Konstellation vorher, daß wir uns ein Bein brechen. Das wissen wir in unserem Oberbewußtsein nicht, aber der Astralleib durchschaut das, und er führt uns nun in eine solche Lage, durch die wir selber verhindern, daß das eintritt, was wir abends haben ausführen wollen. Daß das eingetreten ist, worüber wir so ärgerlich waren, das ist zuweilen im Gesamtzusammenhang unseres Lebens außerordentlich weise. Aber das wird nicht aus dem Zufall herausgeboren, sondern es wird ganz aus der Weisheit unseres Astralleibes, die uns eigentlich aus dem Oberbewußtsein heraus unbewußt bleibt, gemacht. Wenn wir einsehen könnten, warum wir manches tun und einiges nicht tun, vielleicht weil wir etwas anderes nicht tun könnten oder zu etwas anderem erst geführt werden, wenn wir das alles durchschauen könnten, so würden wir immer einen Zusammenhang in unserem Leben sehen, der von einem Weiseren in uns ausgeht, als wir in unserem Oberbewußtsein sind.
Es ist schon in unserem Leben Zusammenhang, aber dieser Zusammenhang wird nicht in seiner ganzen Sphäre durchschaut. Und sobald wir uns richtig den Gedanken vor die Seele halten, wie wir eigentlich mit den geistigen Welten zusammenhängen, so wird uns die Sache schon klar. Über uns liegt ein Wesen, das im engeren Sinne zu uns gehört, ein Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, unser schützender Geist. Wir wenden uns sogar jetzt immer im Beginn unserer Betrachtungen an die schützenden Geister derjenigen, die draußen die großen Forderungen der Zeit unmittelbar zu erfüllen haben. Dieser schützende Geist sieht nun hinein in den Zusammenhang. Aus einem Gefühl heraus war das lange im Menschenbewußtsein rege, daß) gewisse Zusammenhänge, die wir nicht überschauen, von diesem schützenden Geist überschaut werden. Nun sind aber die Grenzen zwischen dem, was wir überschauen, und dem, was wir nicht überschauen mit unserem Bewußtsein, veränderlich. Es gibt ja wirklich Menschen hier, die dadurch mit einer gewissen inneren Zufriedenheit durch das Leben gehen, daß sie das, was an sie herankommt, eben an sich herankommen lassen, weil sie an die waltende Weisheit glauben, weil sie durchdrungen sind davon, daß auch dasjenige, worüber man so leicht ärgerlich werden kann, vom Walten der Weisheit durchtränkt ist. Es ist ja manchmal schwer, wenn etwas passiert, was so recht gegen unsere Absichten geht, an die waltende Weisheit zu glauben. Aber darin besteht gerade einer derjenigen Impulse, die uns so recht in Zusammenhang mit den Wirkungen der geistigen Welt bringen, daß wir uns hineinzufügen wissen in die waltende Weisheit, ohne bequem oder faul dadurch zu werden, ohne zu glauben, daß diese waltende Weisheit selbständig für uns handelt. Die Grenze ist also verschiebbar, und auch in bezug auf das Handeln, auf das Bilden von Absichten ist die Grenze verschiebbar. Da treten allerdings in das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein Impulse herein, die etwas Intimes, Zartes haben. Wie oft, nicht wahr, kommt es, daß wir uns etwas vornehmen für einen späteren Zeitraum. Nun kommt irgend etwas, wir haben das Gefühl, wir müssen dies tun, was eigentlich verhindert das Spätere. Wir haben das Gefühl, aus der sich bietenden Notwendigkeit heraus zu handeln und die Sache ja nicht unzart anfassen zu dürfen, denn wir wissen: Wenn wir sie unzart anfassen, dann zersplittert sie sich vor uns, dann zerstiebt sie. Wir haben neben dem, worauf wir unsere Freiheit richten, mehr oder weniger deutlich einen Menschen in uns, der sich durch das Leben durchtasten will und der glaubt, durch das, was er ertasten kann, viel mehr zu erreichen als durch dasjenige, was er mit seinen Begriffen ganz genau sich abzirkeln kann. Die Grenze ist verschiebbar.
Aber die Grenze ist zuweilen noch mehr verschiebbar, und da kommt ein Punkt in Betracht, der wirklich recht ins Auge gefaßt werden soll gegenüber dem praktischen Leben. Es gibt Menschen und in gewisser Beziehung sind wir alle ergriffen von dem, was in solchen Menschen waltet —, die auch eine gewisse Sehnsucht, eine gewisse Begierde haben, sich ihr Leben zurechtzulegen, so zwischen den Zeilen des Lebens durchzugehen. Nehmen Sie einen auffallenden Fall an: Sie kennen einen Menschen, der schließt mit einem anderen Menschen Freundschaft. Sie sagen sich zunächst: Ich kann wirklich nicht recht begreifen, warum der mit diesem anderen Freundschaft schließt, es ist mir nicht durchsichtig, es herrscht keine rechte Beziehung zwischen diesen beiden Menschen, aber der tut alles, um an diesen Menschen heranzukommen. Man kann es nicht begreifen, und man merkt manchmal erst sehr lange nachher, warum das geschehen ist: Der Betreffende braucht diesen Menschen vielleicht erst viel später zu etwas. Er hat mit diesem Menschen Freundschaft geschlossen, nicht weil er an ihm etwas erlebt hat, was er gerne hatte, nicht um seiner selbst willen, sondern als Mittel für etwas, was erst später eintreten solite. Er hat sich das Leben «zurechtgerückt»: Dadurch, daß er mit ihm Freundschaft geschlossen hat, ist dieser Mensch zu etwas gekommen, wodurch er ihm später in einer Situation helfen kann. Und die Folge davon ist, daß nun wirklich das eintritt, mit Hilfe jenes sogenannten Freundes, was sonst nicht eingetreten wäre.
Dehnen Sie diesen Gedanken über das Leben aus, so werden Sie sehen, wie ungeheuer verbreitet das im Leben ist, daß sich die Menschen vorher etwas zurechtlegen, das sie nicht so unmittelbar wollen, wie sie es sich zurechtlegen, sondern von dem sie wollen, daß es so ist, weil sie es eigentlich erst in den Wirkungen gebrauchen wollen. Man mußt also sagen: Es gibt Menschen, welche in diesem Sich-Zurechtlegen-des-Lebens eine — wir können jetzt nicht sagen Weisheit, denn wir werden ein inneres Widerstreben haben, dies Weisheit zu nennen -, aber welche eine ungeheure Schlauheit haben, eine ganz ungeheure Schlauheit, in früheren Stadien ihres Lebens etwas zu tun, was ihnen nicht in diesen Stadien, sondern erst in nachherigen Stadien ihres Lebens irgendwie zugute kommen soll. Und wir haben dann das Gefühl: Ich hätte den Menschen eigentlich gar nicht für so schlau gehalten, denn wenn ich mit ihm zusammenkomme, wenn ich mit ihm Gedanken austausche, wenn ich mit ihm zusammenlebe, da ist er eigentlich viel dummer, als er sein muß, wenn er sich das Leben so zurechtzimmert.
Sehen Sie, das kommt davon her, weil in der Tat dasjenige, was der Mensch im astralischen Leibe trägt, gescheiter sein kann als das, was er in seinem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein trägt. Wenn der Mensch stark seinen Egoismus hinunterdrängt in das Unbewußte, wenn er nicht mit einer gewissen Ursprünglichkeit lebt, sondern wenn er so sehr seinen Egoismus, ich möchte sagen, überspringen läßt, dann ergreift sein Egoismus auch sein unterbewußtes Bewußtsein, und es lebt in ihm der Mensch, der in uns allen lebt, aber der uns sonst anleitet, das Leben eben zu nehmen in elementarer, in unmittelbarer Weise: er leitet ihn dann an, das Leben zu deichseln, sich einzurichten, sich vorher die Bedingungen zu schaffen für ein Späteres. Da sehen wir walten den astralischen Leib mit seiner Gescheitheit. Aber wir schen ihn jetzt durchtränkt, nicht von dem, was wir sonst im Leben walten sehen, sondern wir sehen von dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein den Egoismus hinuntergedrängt in das astralische Bewußtsein, und wir sehen, daß der Mensch eigentlich mit viel mehr scheinbarer, wie wir dann sagen, «Überlegung» durch das Leben geht, als ihm nach seinem Bewußtsein eigentlich schon zukommt. Da liegen viele gefährliche Seiten für die Entwickelung der Menschenseele, und sehr wichtig ist es, daß man sich dessen bewußt ist, daß} man in dem Augenblick, wo man herantritt an dasjenige, was in uns sonst unbewußt wirkt, versucht, nicht zu stark mit seinem Egoismus heranzutreten. Deshalb muß auch immer wieder und wiederum dieses Absehen von dem Egoismus für die Entwickelung nach der geistigen Welt hin betont werden.
Da, unter unserem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein, waltet wirklich etwas, was durchsetzt sein kann vom Bewußtsein unseres schützenden Geistes aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, und dann kommt eben dasjenige zustande, was uns manchmal vor dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein der Menschen unbesonnen erscheinen lassen kann, was aber doch unter einer gewissen Regel steht, die ich in einem der Mysterien sehr einfach habe ausdrücken wollen dadurch, daß ich sagte oder durch eine Person sagen ließ: Die Herzen müssen oftmals das Karma deuten. - Wenn man aber darüber hinausgeht, über dasjenige, was das Herz deutet im Karma, wenn man den Verstand walten läßt, so setzt sich diesem Verstand zuweilen eine starke Dosis von Egoismus bei. Oder aber es kann dieser Egoismus so darinnen walten, daß wir den Menschen schlauer finden, als er uns von seinem unmittelbaren Bewußtsein heraus erscheint. Dann hat er den Egoismus hinuntergedrängt in seinen astralischen Leib. Da kommt ihm etwas, jetzt nicht von den regulären Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, sondern etwas Luziferisches in das Wirken der Seele hinein, etwas, was den Menschen eine weitere Sphäre umkreisen läßt, als er eigentlich bewußt umkreisen würde nach seiner entsprechenden Entwickelungsstufe. Wir sehen, daf3 dasjenige, was so notwendig ist zu betonen, gerade wenn man an die geisteswissenschaftliche Entwickelung herantritt, wirklich etwas Zartes und Intimes ist; denn selbstverständlich sollen wir unser Bewußtsein erweitern, aber wir sollen uns unser Bewußtsein erweiternd auch immerzu bemühen, das Hindernis hinwegzuschaffen, das durch das Hinunternehmen oder Hinaufnehmen - das ist ja ganz gleichgültig, das eine oder das andere - des Egoismus in eine tiefere oder höhere Bewußtseinssphäre entsteht.
Sie können fragen: Ja, wie können wir denn das? Es ist gut sagen, man solle den Egoismus nicht aus seinem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein herausbringen. Wie kann man vermeiden, den Egoismus aus seinem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein zu bringen? — Ja, sehen Sie, meine lieben Freunde, das kann man nicht durch Regeln, sondern das kann man nur dadurch, daß man seine Interessen erweitert. Wenn man seine Interessen erweitert, dann bekämpft man schon immer in irgendeiner Weise seinen Egoismus. Denn mit jedem neuen Interesse, das man gewinnt, geht man ein Stück aus sich heraus. Deshalb wird Geisteswissenschaft durch uns so betrieben, wie sie betrieben wird, daß nicht immer nur Rücksicht genommen wird auf dasjenige, was die Menschen nun gerade aus ihrem Egoismus heraus gerne hören wollen, sondern daß wirklich die Interessen erweitert werden. Wie oft wird immer wieder und wiederum die Frage gestellt: Warum sind die Bücher so unverständlich geschrieben? Könnte man sie nicht viel populärer schreiben? Und der eine oder andere macht Vorschläge, wie man recht, recht populär die Bücher schreiben könnte. Man muß sich eigentlich wehren dagegen, diese Popularität zu erreichen, denn sie erhöht nur den Egoismus. Wenn es gar so leicht ist, in die Geisteswissenschaft hineinzukommen, so kann eben jeder ohne Überwindung seines Egoismus hineinkommen. Aber in der Arbeit, die man geistig durchmachen muß, wenn man sich etwas anstrengt, muß man schon ein Stück von seinem Egoismus wegbringen, und so kommt man unegoistischer hinein in dasjenige, was man erreichen will durch die Geisteswissenschaft, wenn man sich etwas anstrengen muß, als wenn es ganz populär dargestellt wird. Wir haben es zum Beispiel erleben müssen, daß jemand auftrat, der sagte: Es gibt so viele Menschen, welche den ganzen Tag zu arbeiten haben. Wenn sich diese Menschen abends hinsetzen und die schweren Bücher lesen sollen, so kommen sie damit nicht zurecht. Denen sollte man doch ganz leicht lesbare Bücher liefern. -— Darauf mußte man ihm sagen: Warum soll man diese Menschen verhindern, die wenige Zeit, die sie haben, dazu zu nehmen, die Bücher zu lesen, die mit voller Absicht aus den geistigen Bedingungen heraus geschrieben worden sind? Warum sollen sie diese Zeit verwenden, um Schriften zu lesen, die zwar bequem zu lesen sind, die aber, weil sie die Dinge trivialisieren, selbst wenn sie vielleicht dem Wortlaut nach dasselbe geben, dadurch, daß sie die Seelen nicht in dieselbe Lage versetzen, dennoch in das triviale Leben dasjenige herabzerren, was gerade herausführen soll aus dem trivialen Leben auch mit Bezug auf die Art und Weise, wie man es durchlebt in einer anderen Sphäre?
Das wird von ganz besonderer Wichtigkeit sein, daß man bei der Geisteswissenschaft nicht bloß das «Was», sondern das «Wie» ins Auge faßt, daß man sich wirklich allmählich bequemt, sich hineinzuleben in Vorstellungen über eine Welt, die nun einmal ganz anders ist als die gewöhnliche physische Welt, und daher auch sich angewöhnt, nach und nach, andere Vorstellungen sich zu bilden, als diejenigen sind, die man sich in so bequemer Weise aus der physischen Welt heraus gebildet hat. Und da möchte ich heute am Schlusse noch eine Vorstellung erwägen, die wir bei der nächsten Betrachtung heute in acht Tagen wieder brauchen werden. Aber ich will sie schon heute erwägen, damit Sie sehen, daß man vielleicht sogar gut tut, sich neue Worte anzueignen fur dasjenige, was in der geistigen Welt vor sich geht.
Für die Art und Weise, wie ein Mensch zwischen Geburt und Tod lebt, haben wir ein Wort, das etwas ausdrückt im Leben, ausdrückt in Anlehnung an dasjenige, was wir sehen: das Wort «altern». Wir sehen das Kind frisch, rund, das innere Leben durch die außeren Formen fließend, wir sehen das Kind bis zu einem gewissen Jahre strotzend von innerem Leben, das sich in die äußere Form ergießt. Dann kommt die Zeit, wo das innere Leben nicht mehr so sich ergießt, wo wir Runzeln bekommen, wo es anders wird mit uns. Kurz, wir verfolgen dieses äußere Leben von der Geburt bis zum Tode nach der Art, wie sich uns der physische Leib darstellt in diesem Lebensverlauf. Das nennen wir altern aus dem ganz trivialen Grunde, weil unser physischer Leib jung ist, wenn wir geboren werden, und alt ist, wenn wir sterben.
Mit dem Ätherleib ist es ganz anders. Unser Ätherleib, wenn wir das Wort überhaupt anwenden wollen, ist durch die Kräfte, durch die er gebildet wird, alt, wenn er zur Geburt oder Empfängnis hingeleitet wird. Er ist alt, indem wir eben erst unser physisches Leben anfangen, da ist er ausgeprägt und ausziseliert, da hat er viele, viele innere Formungen - es sind Bewegungen, aber die sind innere Formungen. Die werden ihm genommen im Verlaufe des Lebens, aber dafür wird die Kraft, zu leben, erhöht, und er ist ein Kind, wenn wir alt sterben. Der Ätherleib macht gerade die umgekehrte Entwickelung durch als der physische Leib. Wenn wir vom physischen Leibe sagen «wir altern», müßten wir vom Ätherleibe sagen «wir jüngern», und es ist gut, diesen Ausdruck zu bilden: Wir «jüngern» in bezug auf unseren Ätherleib. Wir «jüngern» wirklich in bezug auf unseren Ätherleib, so daß wir diesen Ätherleib, wenn wir geboren werden, in seiner Kraft gerichtet haben auf all dasjenige, was eingeschlossen ist in der menschlichen Haut, während er, wenn wir in einem gewissen Alter durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, eine Art Verwandtschaft hat mit dem ganzen Kosmos. Er hat die Kräfte wieder zurückbekommen, die ihm genommen waren. In dem Augenblick, wo wir Kind waren, da war sein Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos unterbrochen, da mußte er alle seine Kräfte in den einzigen Raum hineinsenden, der in der menschlichen Haut eingeschlossen ist, da war er auf einen Punkt der Welt gleichsam zusammengedrängt. Nun wird er wiederum frisch, nun wird er wiederum in den Kosmos immer mehr und mehr hineingestellt in demselben Maße, als der physische Leib altert. Wir können sagen - der Ausdruck ist natürlich sehr übertrieben -: Während wir fahl und runzelig werden, wird der Ätherleib pausbackig und ist wiederum ein Abbild der äußeren Kraft, der äußeren schaffenden, strotzenden Kraft, wie der physische Leib ein Ausdruck ist der äußeren strotzenden, schaffenden Kraft im Anfange der Kindheit. Wir «jüngern» mit Bezug auf den Ätherleib. Und es wird schon die Notwendigkeit auch nach und nach kommen, geradezu Worte zu bilden, um die ganz andersartigen Verhältnisse der geistigen Welt wirklich auffassen zu können. Das ist wichtig, daß wir uns mit diesem radikalen Unterschied in der ganzen Anschauung der geistigen Welt gegenüber der physischen Welt bekanntmachen. An diesem Punkte wollen wir dann das nächste Mal unsere Betrachtungen anknüpfen.
Fourth Lecture
Spiritual science aims to show us, in all areas of life, the connection between the spiritual worlds and the worlds that we perceive with our senses while we are in our earthly bodies, and which we seek to understand through the thoughts of our intellect. Now, through a number of considerations, we have been particularly concerned with the connections that exist between the life that human beings lead as souls between death and a new birth, and the life that they lead here in their physical bodies. We always hold fast to the thought that as long as human beings live here in their physical bodies, they direct their thoughts toward the sphere they have to pass through between death and a new birth. We hold fast to the idea of directing our thoughts toward this sphere, not to satisfy mere curiosity, but because our spiritual scientific observations have convinced us that the penetration of thoughts from that other world into this world also contributes to what this world can achieve here in terms of uplifting, invigorating thoughts for action, thinking, feeling, and so on. We must hold fast to the idea that many of life's mysteries can only be solved if we have the courage to approach the riddle of death, as we might call it. Now, in order to bring the connection between the spiritual world and the sensory world before our mind's eye from a very special point of view, we can start from a trivial observation, which nevertheless contains many profound feelings.
We start from the fact, which we have often discussed, that human beings pass through the gate of death. I say we start from something that is everyday, but which is nevertheless connected with profound experiences that touch human beings in the depths of their souls. When we encounter a person here in the physical world, we think about the things that connect us to them, we form our impressions of them, our feelings of sympathy or antipathy, we are more or less friendly or more or less hostile toward them—in short, we form a certain relationship with another person here in the physical world. This relationship may be based on blood ties, or it may only come to the fore through affinities that emerge during life. All of this can be summed up under what is meant at this moment by “relationship between human beings.”
When a person with whom we have had some kind of bond leaves the physical world and passes through the gate of death, what remains of that person is, at first, our memory, that is, a sum of feelings and thoughts that we have brought to life within ourselves through our relationship with them. And in a completely different way, from now on, since the person has passed away from us through the gate of death, the feelings, the ideas, the thoughts that connect us to him live on, as they did before, when he still inhabited the physical plane with us. When he lived with us on the physical plane, we knew that at any moment the external physical reality could join what we had formed in our souls in relation to him, that we could confront the external physical reality with our inner experiences. We must also be aware at all times that through some new way of expressing himself, the person may change the feelings and emotions we have had for him in one direction or another. We often do not think about the radical difference that occurs when suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly, the moment arrives when we can only carry the memory of the person in question in our soul, when we know that they will no longer appear before our eyes, that they will no longer take our hand. The image we have formed of them remains essentially the same as the one we had already formed. It is something very radical that happens in the relationship between two people. As I said, it is something that sounds trivial to the mind, but which has a profound effect on our inner life in the individual case where it occurs: the fact that memory becomes a human soul that has previously made an impression on us from outside through its physical embodiment.
But let us now compare this memory with other memories that we otherwise form from our experiences. We live a large part of our physical life in memories. We know about what we have experienced. Let us say, for example, that we know about events that have passed us by, that we have retained thoughts about them, that we know that through these thoughts we can turn to past times in which the events in question took place. But if we now survey what we have in the greater part of our memories—I say, in the greater part of our memories—we carry something in our thoughts that is no longer there: past events, events whose reality we can no longer encounter in the external world, which belong to the past.
It is quite different before our spiritual eye, when we have taken in the spiritual science, what we must call the memory of a deceased person, the memory of a soul that has passed through the gate of death. It is quite different. We carry thoughts within us, but there is something real for these thoughts, though not in the external, physical world accessible to us, but in the spiritual world. That to which these thoughts refer is there, even though it cannot enter the sphere of our visibility. This is a completely different concept of memory than remembering something that has passed away here in the physical world. If we want to consider the fact that is here in relation to the whole world, we can say: We carry thoughts in our soul of a being that is in the spiritual world. Now we know—and this must have become clear to us especially from the reflections we have made during the last three evenings we have been able to spend together here—that not only do the longings of the souls embodied here ascend to the spiritual worlds, but also that the consciousness of the souls who have passed through the gate of death who now live in the world between death and new birth, extends down to what is happening here in the physical world. We can say to ourselves: those souls who live disembodied in the spiritual world receive from the physical world here that which they are able to perceive by virtue of their spiritual vision and their spiritual downward gaze. In one of my last reflections, I indicated how souls who still live embodied here in the physical body are perceived by the so-called dead souls, in contrast to the perception they have of souls who, like them, live in the time between death and new birth. I explained how souls who live in the spiritual world must always be active in order to have perception, as they know, for example: Now there is another soul near you—but in order to see it, they must be active inwardly. They must, as it were, construct the image; the image does not arise by itself, as it does here in the physical world. In the spiritual world, one first has the thought of “being there” and then must, as it were, inwardly experience this “being there” in order for the image to arise. It is the reverse process.
Now, however, there is a significant difference in the construction of images between those souls who are already in the spiritual world and those who are still here on earth in physical bodies. While the human being in life between death and new birth must create the image of a soul that is already in the spiritual world entirely from within himself, while he must be completely active there, he feels more passive toward a soul that still lives here on earth—the image comes more toward him. Thus, the activity is less in a soul that still lives here on earth than in a soul that has already left the body; the inner effort is less. This expresses the difference for those who live between death and a new birth. If you take this, you will say to yourself: When the soul, after passing through the gate of death, lives itself into the spiritual world, it not only looks around at those beings of the higher hierarchies or the human souls who also live with it in the spiritual world, but the world of souls here also appears before it, namely those to whom it had a relationship here before it passed through the gate of death. It is important to note the significant difference that while here on earth, human beings are essentially surrounded by what constitutes earthly existence and can only grasp it in spirit—the word “only” is, of course, to be taken in a very comparative sense—the “other” world is the exact opposite when the soul is in the spiritual world. What it sees there of its own accord is our world, the world that is the other world from there, while it must strive to always perceive its own world, in which it then is, in order to always construct it for itself. So there, the here is what one must constantly work to achieve, and the there is what actually always arises of its own accord. But now, within this beyond—which for us is the here, but seen from the other side is the beyond—human souls appear with what lives within them, especially those human souls with whom relationships were established during their time on earth. These human souls appear. But within, I would say, this sea of spiritual perceptions that are made here from the other world and in the human souls, the memories of those who have passed through the gate of death sometimes appear. Imagine this vividly. Let us imagine hypothetically that we lived at a time when no soul of any dead person remembered anything. Then, of course, the dead would also see the human souls, but no memories of the dead would live in these human souls. Into this sea that presents itself to the disembodied souls now enter the memories, the memories of the dead. There they live inside. This is something that is added by the free will of human beings and by the love of human beings to what the dead can always see from the other side. So this is something that is added.
You see, here we have another point where important questions arise for the spiritual researcher, where the spiritual researcher must ask the question: What happens to someone who has passed through the gate of death, now that they are embedded in the flowing souls here in our world, the memories that these flowing souls have of the dead? What happens when they perceive these memories? In spiritual research, when such a puzzling question arises, one must first experience it thoroughly. You have to live into it. If you start speculating about what the solution to such a question might be, what the answer might be, then you will certainly come to the wrong conclusion at first. For straining the ordinary mind, which is bound to the brain, usually does not yield any solution at all. Through inner effort, one can only prepare the solution. The solutions to riddles relating to the spiritual world really come about in such a way that they emerge from the spiritual world like a gift. One must wait. There is really nothing else you can do but live with the question, meditate on it again and again, let it live in your soul with all the feelings it can evoke, and wait quietly until you are—and the expression is really quite accurate here—worthy of receiving an answer from the spiritual world. And it usually comes from a completely different direction than you would expect. The answer then comes from the spiritual world at the right moment, that is, at the moment when you have prepared your own soul sufficiently so that it can receive the answer. That it is the right answer cannot be determined by theory, any more than theory can determine anything about physical reality. It can only be determined through experience itself. To those who always deny any spiritual reality and say, “That cannot be proven; everything must be proven,” I would simply ask whether any human being in the physical world could ever have proven the existence of a whale if one had not been found. Nothing can be proven that cannot be demonstrated in some way in reality. So in the spiritual world, too, one must experience what is reality.
Now, of course, what enters consciousness as a solution presents itself in various ways, depending on how one has prepared oneself in the soul. Truth can present itself in many ways, but it must still be experienced as truth. If you allow this riddle, which I have just posed, to live in your soul, an inner image arises, seemingly from a completely different source, which, I would say, makes an inner claim to give you something about the solution to the riddle in question. The image of a person who is having his photograph taken, who is having his portrait painted, may appear. In general, an image of some physical thing appears, a reproduction of this physical thing. And finally, everything that can be placed in the realm of art and artistic representation appears. If you imagine how physical life proceeds, you can say that physical life proceeds in such a way that human beings are confronted with external natural beings and natural events: they take place. Human affairs also unfold in the same way, that is, what humans do and weave for their needs and so on, what happens to them in history. But beyond that, humans seek something that has nothing to do with the immediate necessities of the world. The human soul becomes aware that if only nature and history were to proceed with the satisfaction of human needs, life would be bleak and barren. Human beings create something here in physical existence that goes beyond the course of nature and the course of needs. They feel the need not only to see, say, a landscape, but also to reproduce that landscape. He arranges his life in such a way that someone who is connected to him in some way can obtain a picture of him and so on. From this point of view, we can think of the whole realm of art, which man creates here as a higher reality beyond reality, in addition to the ordinary reality of nature and history. Think of all that would not exist in the world if there were no art, if art did not bring about what we might call that which is there of its own accord, that which it is able to give from its source. Art creates something that did not need to exist out of necessity. If it did not exist, everything that is necessary in nature could still happen: one could imagine that without any imitation or artistic representation, the course of life would proceed from the beginning of the earth to the end of the earth. One can imagine what people would then be missing. But it would be theoretically possible that our earth would be punished by the fact that no art could develop on it. In art, we have something that transcends life. Imagine everything that has been created in art standing in the world and people walking through it, then you have, in a sense, two parallel processes: the necessities of nature and history and that which is placed within them as an artistic current.
You see, just as art conjures up a spiritual world into physical reality, so memory, which takes root here in the soul, conjures up another world into the world of those who have passed through the gates of death. For the dead, the world could go on without the memories that live in our souls, memories born of love and of all human relationships. But then the world that is theirs would go on for the dead as a world would go on for us in which we could find nothing that goes beyond ordinary reality. This is an immensely significant connection: through thoughts of love, through thoughts of remembrance, through everything that arises in our souls in this way in connection with those who are no longer in the physical world, something analogous to artistic creation here is created for those who are not in the physical world. And just as human beings must accomplish artistic creation out of themselves in the physical world here, must add something from themselves, so the opposite must occur for those who are in the spiritual world. It must be brought to them from the other world, by the souls who have remained here, who are still embodied here; by the souls who see them more passively than those souls who are already with them in the spiritual world. What for us would be the course of nature and history, which takes place only by itself, without art, without all that which man forms beyond immediate reality, would be for the dead a world in which souls left behind within the physical world lived with memories.
Such things, you see, are not known within the physical life of human beings. People say they are not known—they are not known by ordinary consciousness, but they are known by a deeper subconscious consciousness, and life has always been organized accordingly. Why did human communities place such importance on celebrating All Souls' Day, All Souls' Day, and the like? And those who cannot participate in a general Day of the Dead have their own Days of the Dead. Why is that? Because in the subconscious consciousness of human beings there lives what one might call a dark consciousness of what is brought into the world by the fact that memories of the dead are brought to life, especially brought to life. When the open soul of the spiritual seer goes on All Souls' Day or All Souls' Sunday or the like, where many people appear with memories of the dead, it perceives that the dead are participating, and it is then for the dead, only naturally conceived differently, as if here on the physical earth people were visiting a cathedral and seeing forms that they could not see if something had not been added to physical existence out of artistic imagination, or if they were to hear a symphony or the like. It is, in a sense, that which arises beyond the ordinary measure of existence that presents itself in all these memories. And just as art inserts itself into the physical-historical course of human life, so the memories of the dead insert themselves into the picture that souls receive from their world between death and a new birth. Such customs, which develop within human communities, express the secret knowledge that souls have in their depths, and many venerable customs are connected with this subconscious awareness.
We stand before the connections of life with even greater admiration when we can penetrate them with what spiritual science provides us than when we cannot penetrate them with it. When the dead person encounters a memory of himself in the soul of someone who had a relationship with him here, it is always as if something were coming toward him that beautifies his life, that elevates his life. And if beauty for us is composed of what art is, then beauty for the dead is composed of what shines forth from the hearts and souls of the people who remember their dead.
This is also a connection between the world here and the spiritual world there. And it is this thought that is closely related to that other thought which emerges from much, much of what can be cultivated in spiritual science, the thought of the value and importance of earthly life. Spiritual science does not lead us to despise the earth with all that it can produce, but rather to regard physical life on earth as a link within the whole of world life, and as a necessary link; as a link that is designed for what is at work in the spiritual world and without which the spiritual world would not appear in its completeness. And if we now turn our gaze, so to speak, to the fact that beauty must spring forth from our physical world for the dead, the thought arises that this beauty would be lacking for the spiritual world if there could not be a physical world with human souls who, while still in the body, could develop thoughts that are imbued with feeling and and filled with feeling, toward those who are not in the physical world. It meant a great deal, my dear friends, when in ancient times, for example, entire tribes repeatedly and devotedly remembered their great ancestors in their festivals, when they united their feelings in regard to a great ancestor. It meant a lot when they established such days of remembrance, for that was always a shining light for the spiritual worlds, that is, for the souls standing between death and a new birth. And so little, let us say, to put it mildly, so little “silly” it would be if someone here on earth took particular pleasure in their own image, in their own portrait — that is, of course, something silly, isn't it? — so significant is the image that the dead find of themselves among those left behind here. For, my dear friends, we must remember this: our earthly human being becomes something completely different for us when we view him, as a dead person, from the spiritual point of view; we have emphasized this many times. Here we are enclosed within our skin; here, what we call “we,” “I,” is precisely that which is enclosed within the skin, that which is valuable to us. This also applies to the “selfless” person! For the “completely selfless person,” this may even apply to a greater degree than for those who consider themselves less selfless! Above all, what is enclosed within this skin is valuable to us, then comes the rest of the world. We look at this rest of the world as the outer world. But this is precisely what is significant: when we are outside our bodies, we are united with the outside world; we live in this outside world. I have often described this merging, this spreading out over the outside world. And that which then relates to us as the outside world does now is what we have lived out for ourselves here between birth and death. The outer world becomes, we might say, our inner world, and what is our inner world here then becomes our outer world. Hence this significant experience, as I touched upon in my Theosophy, upon entering the spirit world: “That is you.”
So our inner world here, which encompasses our ego, is what we then look at; that is the outer world. And there it is so that the soul, which cannot now be selfish in the same way as it is selfish here, looks back at the thoughts that confront it as thoughts about itself. That is what confronts it as an outer world, what may truly be incorporated into the scope of what we then call beauty, as that which elevates us, that which may then elevate us. Something is added to what constitutes an external world—namely, the memory of what we have gone through between birth and death—something that does not live in our life, but lives in other souls, yet relates to us. This is truly the insertion of something above us, that is, beyond our external world, just as the insertion of a work of art is something that goes beyond ordinary, self-contained reality. As unattractive as it may be it is here for a person who is not only in love with himself but also with his image, it is just as natural there that one stands in relation to what appears in the souls of those left behind as an image of oneself and joins the other appearance one has of oneself, that one stands to it as one stands here, for example, to a landscape painting in relation to the landscape or the like. So it is that when this riddle comes before one's soul, one receives the image of the person and his image in the souls of those left behind, and from there one finds the way to answer such a riddle. Speculation usually leads to nothing, but the ability to wait, to wait patiently. What one should strive for, in relation to the spiritual worlds, are actually the questions; the answers must come through grace, through the grace revealed in the human soul.
In the course of this consideration, I have just pointed out how people establish institutions, days of remembrance, commemorative celebrations in general, which are connected with a deep knowledge that is not comprehended by ordinary consciousness. This is connected with the fact that human beings have a vague, comprehensive knowledge in the depths of their souls—I have repeatedly pointed this out here—and that they actually draw the knowledge they grasp with their consciousness out of this comprehensive knowledge. I have pointed out how clever we would actually be if we could comprehend with our higher consciousness everything that our astral body comprehends. But this astral body also goes through life with a much higher level of knowledge than we usually believe. We do not value this knowledge of our astral body because we know nothing about it; but we can at least form an idea of this more comprehensive knowledge of the astral body if we consider the following:
You see, we live, so to speak, from day to day. We judge events very little in terms of their connection to one another. If we were to consider them in their connection, many things would appear quite different to us. Just think, it can happen, can't it, that we decide to do something: we decide in the morning what we want to do in the evening. At noon, something happens that prevents us from doing it in the evening. We are sometimes thoroughly annoyed that we cannot do it in the evening. We think it would have been much nicer, much better, if we had been able to do it. The astral body, with its more comprehensive knowledge, which we are not aware of, knows better. In such cases, the astral body often sees that if you carry out what you have planned for the evening, you will find yourself in a situation where you might fall and break a leg. It may well be within the realm of possibility that we cannot avoid this; if we carry out what we have planned for the evening, there is a constellation beforehand that we will break a leg. We are not aware of this in our conscious mind, but the astral body sees through it and leads us into a situation in which we ourselves prevent what we wanted to do in the evening from happening. That what we were so annoyed about happened is sometimes extremely wise in the overall context of our life. But this is not born out of chance; it is entirely the result of the wisdom of our astral body, which actually remains unconscious to us in our conscious mind. If we could understand why we do some things and not others, perhaps because we cannot do something else or are only led to something else, if we could see through all this, we would always see a connection in our lives that comes from a wiser being within us than we are in our higher consciousness.
There is already a connection in our lives, but this connection is not understood in its entirety. And as soon as we truly contemplate how we are actually connected to the spiritual worlds, the matter becomes clear to us. Above us is a being that belongs to us in the strictest sense, a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, our guardian spirit. Even now, at the beginning of our reflections, we always turn to the protective spirits of those who have to fulfill the great demands of the time directly outside. This protective spirit now sees into the connection. Out of a feeling, it has long been active in human consciousness that certain connections that we cannot see are seen by this protective spirit. However, the boundaries between what we can see and what we cannot see with our consciousness are changeable. There are indeed people here who go through life with a certain inner contentment because they allow what comes to them to come to them, because they believe in the wisdom that rules, because they are imbued with the knowledge that even those things that can so easily make us angry are imbued with the wisdom that rules. It is sometimes difficult to believe in the wisdom that prevails when something happens that goes against our intentions. But this is precisely one of the impulses that brings us into contact with the effects of the spiritual world, so that we know how to fit into the wisdom that prevails without becoming complacent or lazy, without believing that this wisdom acts independently for us. The boundary is therefore shiftable, and it is also shiftable in relation to action and the formation of intentions. However, impulses enter our ordinary consciousness that have something intimate and delicate about them. How often, isn't it true, do we make plans for a later time? Then something comes along, we feel we have to do it, what is actually preventing us from doing it later? We feel we have to act out of the necessity that presents itself and that we must not treat the matter insensitively, because we know that if we treat it insensitively, it will fragment before us, it will shatter. In addition to what we direct our freedom toward, we have, more or less clearly, a person within us who wants to feel his way through life and who believes that he can achieve much more through what he can feel than through what he can precisely define with his concepts. The boundary is flexible.
But the boundary is sometimes even more flexible, and there comes a point that really needs to be considered in relation to practical life. There are people—and in a certain sense we are all moved by what drives them—who also have a certain longing, a certain desire to shape their lives, to navigate between the lines of life. Take a striking example: you know a person who becomes friends with another person. At first you say to yourself: I really cannot understand why this person is becoming friends with the other, it is not clear to me, there is no real relationship between these two people, but the one is doing everything to get close to the other. You can't understand it, and sometimes it takes a long time to realize why it happened: Perhaps the person in question needs this other person for something much later on. He has become friends with this person, not because he has experienced something he liked about him, not for his own sake, but as a means to something that will only happen later. He has “adjusted” his life: by befriending this person, he has enabled them to achieve something that will help him later in a certain situation. And the result is that, with the help of this so-called friend, something happens that would not otherwise have happened.
Extend this idea about life, and you will see how incredibly widespread it is in life that people arrange things in advance that they do not want immediately, but rather want them to be that way because they actually want to use them later. So we must say: There are people who, in this way of arranging their lives, have—we cannot say wisdom, because we will have an inner resistance to calling it wisdom—but who have an enormous cleverness, a quite enormous cleverness, in doing something in earlier stages of their lives that will not benefit them in those stages, but only in later stages of their lives. And then we have the feeling: I didn't actually think this person was so clever, because when I meet them, when I exchange thoughts with them, when I live with them, they are actually much more stupid than they need to be if they are arranging their life in this way.
You see, this comes from the fact that what people carry in their astral body can actually be smarter than what they carry in their ordinary consciousness. When people strongly suppress their egoism into the unconscious, when they do not live with a certain originality, but when they allow their egoism to, I would say, jump over them, then their egoism also takes hold of their subconscious consciousness, and the person who lives in all of us lives in them, but who otherwise guides us to take life in an elementary, immediate way: he then guides him to organize his life, to settle down, to create the conditions for a later life. Here we see the astral body with its cleverness at work. But now we see it saturated, not with what we otherwise see at work in life, but we see egoism pushed down from ordinary consciousness into astral consciousness, and we see that human beings actually go through life with much more apparent “consideration,” as we then say, than their consciousness actually warrants. There are many dangerous aspects to the development of the human soul, and it is very important to be aware that, at the moment when we approach that which otherwise works unconsciously within us, we must try not to approach it too strongly with our egoism. That is why it must be emphasized again and again that egoism must be set aside for development toward the spiritual world.
For beneath our ordinary consciousness there really is something at work which can be permeated by the consciousness of our protective spirit from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, and then something comes about which can sometimes appear rash to the ordinary consciousness of human beings, but which is nevertheless subject to a certain rule, which I have tried to express very simply in one of the mysteries by saying, or having a person say: The hearts must often interpret karma. But if one goes beyond what the heart interprets in karma, if one allows the intellect to prevail, then a strong dose of egoism sometimes attaches itself to this intellect. Or this egoism can prevail to such an extent that we find people more clever than they appear to us from their immediate consciousness. Then they have pushed their egoism down into their astral body. Something then comes into the soul's activity, not from the regular beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi, but something Luciferic, something that causes the human being to circle in a sphere wider than he would consciously circle according to his stage of development. We see that what is so necessary to emphasize especially when approaching spiritual scientific development, is really something delicate and intimate; for of course we should expand our consciousness, but in expanding our consciousness we should also constantly strive to remove the obstacle that arises through the removal or elevation—it does not matter which— one or the other—of egoism arises in a deeper or higher sphere of consciousness.
You may ask: Yes, but how can we do that? It is all well and well to say that we should not remove egoism from our ordinary consciousness. How can one avoid removing egoism from one's ordinary consciousness? — Yes, you see, my dear friends, this cannot be done by rules, but only by broadening one's interests. When one broadens one's interests, one is already fighting one's egoism in some way. For with every new interest one gains, one steps a little out of oneself. That is why we practice spiritual science in the way we do, so that we do not always just take into consideration what people want to hear out of their egoism, but really broaden their interests. How often is the question asked again and again: Why are the books written in such an incomprehensible way? Couldn't they be written in a much more popular style? And one or the other makes suggestions as to how the books could be written in a really popular style. One must actually resist achieving this popularity, because it only increases egoism. If it is so easy to enter into spiritual science, then anyone can do so without overcoming their egoism. But in the work that one has to go through intellectually when one makes an effort, one has to give up a piece of one's egoism, and so one enters more unselfishly into what one wants to achieve through spiritual science when one has to make an effort than when it is presented in a very popular way. For example, we had to experience someone who said: There are so many people who have to work all day. When these people sit down in the evening and are supposed to read difficult books, they cannot cope with them. They should be given books that are very easy to read. — One had to say to him: Why should one prevent these people from using the little time they have to read books that have been written with full intention out of spiritual considerations? Why should they use this time to read writings that are easy to read but, because they trivialize things, even if they may say the same thing in words, by not putting souls in the same position, nevertheless drag down into trivial life that which is supposed to lead out of trivial life, also with regard to the way in which it is lived through in another sphere?
It will be of particular importance in spiritual science to consider not only the “what” but also the “how.” , that one really gradually makes the effort to live into ideas about a world that is quite different from the ordinary physical world, and therefore also gradually gets used to forming ideas other than those that one has so conveniently formed from the physical world. And now, at the end, I would like to consider an idea that we will need again in our next discussion in eight days' time. But I want to consider it today so that you can see that it may even be a good idea to adopt new words for what goes on in the spiritual world.
We have a word that expresses something in life, based on what we see, for the way a person lives between birth and death: the word “aging.” We see the child fresh, round, with inner life flowing through the outer forms; we see the child until a certain age bursting with inner life that pours out into the outer form. Then comes the time when the inner life no longer pours out in this way, when we get wrinkles, when we change. In short, we follow this outer life from birth to death according to the way the physical body presents itself to us in the course of life. We call this aging for the very trivial reason that our physical body is young when we are born and old when we die.
With the etheric body, it is quite different. Our etheric body, if we want to use the word at all, is old through the forces that form it when it is guided toward birth or conception. It is old when we begin our physical life; it is well-developed and chiseled out, and it has many, many inner formations—these are movements, but they are inner formations. These are taken away from it in the course of life, but in return the power to live is increased, and it is a child when we die old. The etheric body undergoes the opposite development to the physical body. When we say of the physical body that we are aging, we should say of the etheric body that we are becoming younger, and it is good to use this expression: we are becoming younger in relation to our etheric body. We really do “grow younger” in relation to our etheric body, so that when we are born, we have directed the power of this etheric body toward everything enclosed within the human skin, whereas when we pass through the gate of death at a certain age, it has a kind of kinship with the entire cosmos. It has regained the powers that were taken from it. At the moment when we were children, its connection with the cosmos was interrupted, and it had to send all its forces into the only space enclosed by the human skin; it was, as it were, compressed into a single point in the world. Now it becomes fresh again, now it is placed more and more into the cosmos in the same measure as the physical body ages. We can say — the expression is of course very exaggerated — that while we become pale and wrinkled, the etheric body becomes chubby and is once again a reflection of the external force, the external creative, bursting force, just as the physical body is an expression of the external bursting, creative force at the beginning of childhood. We “grow younger” in relation to the etheric body. And it will gradually become necessary to form words in order to truly comprehend the completely different conditions of the spiritual world. It is important that we familiarize ourselves with this radical difference in the entire view of the spiritual world as opposed to the physical world. We will then continue our reflections on this point next time.