World Mysteries and Theosophy
GA 54
12 April 1906, Berlin
Translated by D. S. Osmond
Easter and the Awakening to Cosmic Thought
Goethe often described, in many different ways, a feeling of which he was persistently aware. He said, in effect: When I see the irrelevance manifesting in the passions, emotions and actions of men, I feel the strong urge to turn to all-powerful Nature and be comforted by her majesty and consistency. In such utterances Goethe was referring to what since time immemorial humanity had brought to expression in the Festivals. The Festivals are reminders of the striving to turn away from the chaotic life of men's passions, urges and activities to the consistent, harmonious processes and events in Nature. The great Festivals are connected with definite and distinctive phenomena in the Heavens and with ever-recurring happenings in Nature. Easter is one such Festival. For Christians today, Easter is the Festival of the Resurrection of their Redeemer; it was celebrated not only as a symbol of Nature's awakening but also of Man's awakening. Man was urged to awaken to the reality underlying certain inner experiences.
In ancient Egypt we find a festival connected with Osiris. In Greece a Spring festival was celebrated in honour of Dionysos. There were similar institutions in Asia Minor, where the resurrection or return of a God was associated with the re-awakening of Nature. In India, too, there are festivals dedicated to the God Vishnu. Brahmanism speaks of three aspects of the Deity, namely, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The supreme God, Brahma, is referred to as the Great Architect of the World, who brings about order and harmony: Vishnu is described as a kind of redeemer, liberator, an awakener of slumbering life. And Shiva, originally, is the Being who blesses the slumbering life that has been awakened by Vishnu and raises it to whatever heights can be reached. A particular festival was therefore dedicated to Vishnu It was said that he goes to sleep at the time of the year when we celebrate Christmas and wakes at the time of our Easter Festival. Those who adhere to this Eastern teaching celebrate the days of their Festival in a characteristic way. For the whole of this period they abstain from certain foods and drinks, for example, all pod-producing plants, all kinds of oils, all salt, all intoxicating beverages and all meat. This is the way in which people prepare themselves to understand what was actually celebrated in the Vishnu Festival, namely, the resurrection of the God and the awakening of all Nature.
The Christmas Festival too, the old festival of the Winter solstice, is connected with particular happenings in Nature. The days leading up to this point of time become progressively shorter and the Sun's power steadily weakens. But from Christmas onwards greater and greater warmth again streams from the Sun. Christmas is the Festival of the reborn Sun.
It was the wish of Christianity to establish a link with these ancient Festivals. The date of the birth of Jesus can be taken to be the day when the Sun's power again begins to increase in the heavens. In the Easter Festival the spiritual significance of the World's Saviour was thus connected with the physical Sun and with the awakening and returning life in Spring.
As in the case of all ancient festivals, the fixing of the date of the Easter Festival was also determined by a certain constellation in the heavens. In the first century A.D. the symbol of Christianity was the Cross, with a lamb at its foot. Lamb and Ram are synonymous. During the epoch when preparation was being made for Christianity, the Sun was rising in the constellation of the Ram or Lamb. As we all know, the Sun moves through all the zodiacal constellations, every year progressing a little farther forward. Approximately seven hundred years before the coming of Christ, the Sun began to rise in the constellation of the Ram (Aries). Before then it rose in the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). In those times the people expressed what seemed to them important in connection with the evolution of humanity, in the symbol of the Bull, because the Sun then rose in that constellation. When the rising Sun moved forward into the constellation of the Ram or Lamb, the Ram became a figure of significance in the sagas and myths of the people. Jason brings the golden fleece from Colchis. Christ Jesus Himself is called the Lamb of God and in the earliest period of Christianity He is portrayed as the Lamb at the foot of the Cross. Thus the Easter Festival is obviously connected with the Constellation of the Ram or Lamb. The Festival of the Resurrection of the Redeemer is celebrated at the time when, in Nature, everything awakens to new life after having lain as if dead during the Winter months.
Between the Christmas and the Easter Festivals there is certainly a correspondence but in their relation to the happenings in Nature there is a great difference. In its deepest significance, Easter is always felt to be the festival of the greatest mystery connected with Man. It is not merely a festival celebrating the re-awakening of Nature but is essentially more than that. It is an expression of the significance in Christianity of the Resurrection after death. Vishnu's sleep sets in at the time when, in Winter, the Sun again begins to ascend. It is precisely at this time that we celebrate our Christmas Festival. When the Easter Festival is celebrated the Sun is continuing its ascent which had been in process since the Christmas Festival.
We must penetrate very deeply into the mysteries of man's nature if we are to understand the feelings of Initiates when they wished to give expression to the true facts underlying the Easter Festival. Man is a two-fold being—on the one side he is a being of soul-and-spirit, and on the other side a physical being. The physical being is an actual confluence of all the phenomena of Nature in man's environment. Paracelsus speaks of man as the quintessence of all that is outspread in external Nature. Nature contains the letters, as it were, and Man forms the word that is composed of these letters.
When we observe a human being closely, we recognise the wisdom that is displayed in his constitution and structure. Not without reason has the body been called the temple of the soul. All the laws that can be observed in the dead stone, in the living plant—all have assembled in Man into a unity. When we study the marvellous structure of the human brain with its countless cells cooperating among themselves in a way that enables all the thoughts and sentient experiences filling the soul of man to come to expression, we realise with what supreme wisdom the human body has been constructed. But in the surrounding world too we behold an array of crystallised wisdom. When we look out into the world, applying what knowledge we possess to the laws in operation there, and then turn to observe the human being, we see all Nature concentrated in him. That is why sages have spoken of Man as the Microcosm, while in Nature they beheld the Macrocosm.
In this sense Schiller wrote to Goethe in a letter of 23rd August 1794: “You take the whole of Nature into your purview in order to shed light upon a single sentence; in the totality of her (Nature's) manifold external manifestations you seek the explanation for the individual. From the simple organisation you proceed, step by step, to the more complex, in order finally to build up genetically from the materials of Nature's whole edifice the most complex organisation of all—Man.” The wonderful organisation of the body enables the human soul to have sight of the surrounding world. Through the senses the soul beholds the world and endeavours to fathom the wisdom by which that world has been constructed.
With this in mind let us now think of an undeveloped human being. The wisdom made manifest in his bodily structure is the greatest that can possibly be imagined. The sum-total of divine wisdom is concentrated in a single human body. Yet in this body there dwells a childlike soul hardly capable of producing the most elementary thoughts that would enable it to understand the mysterious forces operating in its own heart, brain and blood. The soul develops slowly to a higher stage where it can understand the powers that have been at work with the object of producing the human body. This body itself bears the hallmark of an infinitely long past. Physical man is the crown of the rest of creation. What was it that had necessarily to precede the building of the human body, what had to come to pass before the cosmic wisdom was concentrated in this human being? The cosmic wisdom is concentrated in the body of a human being standing before us. Yet it is in the soul of an undeveloped human being that this wisdom first begins to manifest. The soul hardly so much as dreams of the great cosmic thoughts according to which the human being has evolved. Nevertheless, we can glimpse a future when people will be conscious of the reality of soul and spirit still lying in man as though asleep. Cosmic thought has been active through ages without number, has been active in Nature, always with the purpose of finally producing the crown of all its creative work—the human body.
Cosmic wisdom is now slumbering in the human body, in order subsequently to acquire self-knowledge in man's soul, in order to build an eye in man's being through which to be recognised. Cosmic wisdom without, cosmic wisdom within, creative in the present as it was in the past and will be in future time. Gazing upwards we glimpse the ultimate goal, surmising the existence of a great soul by which the cosmic wisdom that existed from the very beginning has been understood and absolved. Our deepest feelings rise up within us full of expectation when we contemplate the past and the future in this way.
When the soul begins to recognise the wonders accomplished by the cosmic wisdom and when clarity and illumination have been achieved, the Sun may well be accepted as the worthiest symbol of this inner awakening. Through the gate of the senses the soul is able to gaze into the external world because the Sun illumines the contents of that world. Fundamentally speaking, what man perceives in the external world is the result of the Sun's reflected light. It is the Sun that wakens in the soul the power to behold the external world. An awakening soul, one that is beginning to recognise the seasons as expressions of cosmic thought—such a soul sees the rising Sun as its liberation.
When the Sun again begins its ascent, when the days lengthen, the soul turns to the Sun, declaring: To you I owe the possibility of discerning, outspread around me, the cosmic thought that sleeps within me and within all other human beings.
Such an individual is now able to survey his earlier existence—one which preceded his present understanding of the activities of cosmic thought. Man himself is more ancient than his senses. Through spiritual investigation we are able eventually to reach the point in the far past when man's senses were in process of coming into existence, when only their very earliest beginnings were present. At that stage the senses were not yet doors enabling the soul to become aware of the environment.
Schopenhauer realised this and was referring to the turning-point when man acquired the faculty of sensory perception, when he stated: This visible world first came into existence when an eye was there to behold it.
The Sun formed the eye for itself and for the light. In still earlier times, when as yet man had no outer vision, he had inner vision. In the primeval ages of evolution, outer objects did not give rise to ideas or mental conceptions in man, but these rose up in him from within. Vision in those ancient times was vision in the astral light. Men were then endowed with a faculty of dim, shadowy clairvoyance. It was still with a faculty of dim, hazy vision that they beheld the world of the Germanic Gods and formed their conceptions of the Gods accordingly. This dim clairvoyance faded into darkness and gradually passed away altogether. It was extinguished by the strong light of the physical Sun whereby the physical world was made visible to the senses. Astral vision then died away altogether.
When man looks into the future, he realises that his astral vision must return, but at a higher stage. What has now been extinguished for the sake of physical vision will return and combine with physical vision in order to generate clairvoyance—clear seeing in the fullest sense. In the future, a still more lucid consciousness will accompany man's waking vision. To physical vision will be added vision in the astral light, that is to say, perception with organs of soul. Those whom we have called the leaders of men are individuals who through lives of renunciation have developed in themselves the condition which later on is established in all mankind—these leaders of men already possess the faculty of astral vision which makes soul and spirit visible to them.
The Easter Festival is connected spiritually not only with the awakening of the Sun but with the unfolding of the plant world in Spring. Just as the seed-corn is sunk into the soil and slumbers in order eventually to awaken anew, so the astral light in man's constitution was obliged to slumber in order eventually to be reawakened. The symbol of the Easter Festival is the seed-corn which sacrifices itself in order to enable a new plant to come into existence. This is the sacrifice of a phase in the life of Nature in order that a new one may begin. Sacrifice and Becoming are interwoven in the Easter Festival.
Richard Wagner was conscious of the beauty and majesty of this thought. In the year 1857 in the Villa Wesendonck by the Lake of Zurich, while he was looking at the spectacle of awakening Nature, the thought came to him of the Saviour who had died and had awakened, the thought of Jesus Christ, also of Parsifal who was seeking for what is most holy in the soul.
All the leaders of humanity who know how the higher life of man wakes out of the lower nature, have understood the Easter thought. Dante too, in his Divine Comedy describes his awakening on a Good Friday. This is brought to our attention at the very beginning of the poem. It was in his thirty-sixth year, that is to say, in the middle of his life, that Dante had the great vision he describes. Seventy years being the normal span of human life, thirty-five is the middle of this period. Thirty-five years are reckoned to be the period devoted to the development of physical experience. At the age of thirty-five the human being has reached the degree of maturity when spiritual experience can be added to physical experience. He is ready for perception of the spiritual world.
When all the waking, nascent forces of physical existence are amalgamated, the time begins for the spiritual awakening. Hence Dante connects his vision with the Easter Festival.
Whereas the original increase of the Sun's power is celebrated in the Christmas Festival, the Easter Festival takes place at the middle point of the Sun's increasing power. This was also the point when, in the middle of his life, Dante became aware of the dawn of spiritual life within himself. The Easter Festival is rightly celebrated at the middle point of the Sun's ascent; for this corresponds with the time when, in man, the slumbering astral light is reawakened. The Sun's power wakens the seed-corn that is slumbering in the earth. The seed-corn is an image of what arises in man when what occultists call the astral light is born within him. Therefore, Easter is also the festival of the resurrection that takes place in the inner nature of man.
It has been thought that there is a kind of contradiction between what a Christian sees in the Easter Festival, and the idea of Karma. There seems at first to be a contradiction between the idea of Karma and redemption by the Son of Man. Those who do not understand very much about the fundamentals of anthroposophical thought may see a contradiction between the redemption wrought by Christ Jesus and the idea of Karma. Such people say that the thought of redemption by the God contradicts the fact of self-redemption through Karma. But the truth is that they understand neither the Easter thought of redemption nor the thought of the justice of Karma. It would certainly not be right if someone seeing another person suffer were to say to him: you yourself were the cause of this suffering—and then were to refuse to help him because Karma must take its course. This would be a misunderstanding of Karma. What Karma says is this: help the one who is suffering for you are actually there in order to help him. You do not violate karmic necessity by helping your fellow man. On the contrary, you are helping him to bear his Karma. You are then yourself a redeemer of suffering.
So too, instead of a single individual, a whole group of people can be helped. By helping them we become part of their Karma.
When a Being as all-powerful as Christ Jesus comes to the help of the human race, His sacrificial death becomes a factor in the collective Karma of mankind. He could bear and help this Karma, and we may be sure that the redemption through Him plays an essential role in its fulfilment.
The thought of Resurrection and Redemption can in reality be fully grasped only through a knowledge of Spiritual Science. In the Christianity of the future there will be no contradiction between the idea of Karma and Redemption. Because cause and effect belong together in the spiritual life, this great deed of sacrifice by Christ Jesus must also have its effect in the life of mankind.
Spiritual Science adds depth to the thought underlying the Easter Festival—a thought that is inscribed and can be read in the world of the stars.
In the middle of his span of life the human being is surrounded by inharmonious, bewildering conditions. But he knows too that just as the world came forth from chaos, so will harmony eventually proceed from his still disorderly inner nature. The inner Saviour in man, the bringer of unity and harmony to counter all disharmony—this inner Saviour will arise, acting with the ordered regularity of the course of the planets around the Sun. Let everyone be reminded by the Easter Festival of the resurrection of the Spirit in the existing nature of man.
Das Osterfest
Goethe hat in der verschiedensten Weise ein ganz bestimmtes Gefühl, das er oft gehabt hat, zum Ausdruck gebracht. Er sagte: Wenn ich hinblicke auf die Inkonsequenz der menschlichen Leidenschaften, Empfindungen und Handlungen, dann fühle ich so recht den Zug, mich zur allgewaltigen Natur hinzuwenden und mich aufzurichten an ihrer Konsequenz und Folgerichtigkeit. — Dem, was die Menschheit seit den ältesten Zeiten in der Einrichtung der Feste zum Ausdrucke gebracht hat, liegt das Bestreben zugrunde, aufzublicken von dem chaotischen Leben der menschlichen Leidenschaften, Triebe und Handlungen, zu den großen konsequenten einheitlichen Tatsachen der großen Natur. Schön stimmt es zu diesen großen Tatsachen der großen Natur, daß große Feste zusammenhängen mit bezeichnenden Erscheinungen in der Natur. Ein solches mit den Erscheinungen in der Natur zusammenhängendes Fest ist das Osterfest, das für den Christen von heute das Auferstehungsfest seines Erlösers ist, das von altersher begangen wurde als das Erwachen von etwas für den Menschen ganz Besonderem. Wir blicken auf das alte Ägypten mit seinem Osiris-Isis-HorusKult, der die ununterbrochene Verjüngung der ewig unsterblichen Natur ausdrückt; blicken auf Griechenand und finden ein Fest dort zu Ehren des Dionysos, ein Frühlingsfest, das mit der erwachenden Natur im Frühling in irgendeiner Weise zusammengebracht wird. In Indien gibt es eine Vishnufestzeit im Frühling. Das Göttliche teilt sich für den Brahmanismus in drei Aspekte, in Brahma, Vishnu und Shiva. Brahma nennt man mit Recht den großen Baumeister der Welt, der Ordnung und Harmonie in der Welt bewirkt. Vishnu bezeichnet man als eine Art Erlöser, Befreier, Erwecker des schlummernden Lebens, und Shiva ist derjenige, der das von Vishnu erweckte schlummernde Leben segnet und emporhebt zu den Höhen, zu denen man es überhaupt erheben kann. Eine Art Festzeit war dem Vishnu geweiht. Man sagte, er schlafe ein zu der Zeit des Jahres, wo wir das Weihnachtsfest feiern und erwache zur Zeit des Osterfestes. Die, welche sich seine Diener nennen, feiern diese ganze Zeit in einer bedeutsamen Weise: sie enthalten sich dann bestimmter Speisen und Getränke und des Fleisches. So bereiten sie sich vor, um ein Verständnis für das zu haben, was vor sich geht, wenn beim Vishnufest die Auferstehung gefeiert wird, dieErweckung der gesamten Natur. Auch das Weihnachtsfest knüpft an in bedeutsamer Weise an große Naturtatsachen, daran, daß die Kraft der Sonne immer schwächer und schwächer wird, daß die Tage immer kürzer werden und daß von Weihnachten an die Sonne wieder größere Wärme ausstrahlt, so daß das Weihnachtsfest ein Fest der wiedergeborenen Sonne ist. So ähnlich war es auch von den Christen empfunden worden, das Wintersonnenfest. Als das Christentum im 6. und 7. Jahrhundert anknüpfen wollte an alte, heilige Geschehnisse, da wurde die Geburt des Christus Jesus auf den Tag verlegt, an dem die Sonne wieder aufstieg am Himmel. Die geistige Bedeutung des Weltheilandes wurde in Zusammenhang gebracht mit der physischen Sonne und dem erwachenden und wiedererstehenden Leben.
Im Frühling wird mit dem Osterfest auch angeknüpft, wie in allen ähnlichen Festen, an ein gewisses Sonnenereignis, das auch in äußeren Bräuchen zum Ausdruck kommt. Im i. Jahrhundert des Christentums, da wurde das Symbol des Christentums dargestellt im Kreuze, an dessen Fuß ein Lamm ist. Lamm und Widder bedeuten dasselbe. Im Frühling erscheint die Sonne in jener Zeit, in der das Christentum sich vorbereitete, im Sterngebilde des Widders oder Lammes. Ihren Weg macht die Sonne durch die Sternbilder des Tierkreises; sie rückt jedes Jahr ein Stückchen vor. Ungefähr sechshundert bis siebenhundert Jahre vor Christus Jesus rückte die Sonne in dieses Sternbild vor. Zweitausendfünfhundert Jahre rückt die Sonne in diesem Sternbild weiter; vorher war sie im Sternbild des Stieres. Damals haben die Völker dasjenige, was ihnen als bedeutungsvoll vorkam im Zusammenhang mit der Menschheitsentwickelung, gefeiert durch den Stier, weil damals die Sonne im Sternbild des Stieres stand. Als die Sonne eintrat in das Sternbild des Widders oder Lammes, da erschien auch in den Sagen und Mythen der Völker der Widder als etwas Bedeutsames. Das Widderfell holt Jason von Kolchis herüber. Der Christus Jesus selbst bezeichnet sich als das Lamm Gottes, und er wird dargestellt in der ersten Zeit des Christentums symbolisch als das Lamm am Fuße des Kreuzes. So kann man das Osterfest in Zusammenhang bringen mit dem Sternbild des Widders oder Lammes, und dieses Fest deshalb als das Auferstehungsfest des Erlösers betrachten, weil der Erlöser alles zu einem neuen Leben hervorruft, nachdem es erstorben war die Wintermonate hindurch.
Damit allein treten das Weihnachtsfest und das Osterfest nicht so deutlich auseinander, denn die Sonne gewinnt wieder an Kraft seit dem eigenen Auferstehungsfeste, dem Weihnachtsfeste. Es muß im Osterfest noch etwas anderes ausgedrückt sein. Das Osterfest wird in seiner tiefsten Bedeutung immer als das Fest des größten Menschenmysteriums empfunden werden, nicht bloß als eine Art Fest der Natur, das an die Sonne anknüpft, sondern es ist noch wesentlich mehr: es ist angedeutet in der christlichen Bedeutung der Auferstehung nach dem Tode. Und in dem Erwachen des Vishnu ist mehr noch hingewiesen auf das Erwachen nach dem Tode. Das Erwachen des Vishnu fällt in die Zeit, wo die Sonne im Winter wieder ihren Aufstieg beginnt, und das Osterfest ist ein Fortsetzen der aufsteigenden Sonnenkraft, die schon im Aufsteigen ist seit dem Weihnachtsfest. Tief in die Geheimnisse der Menschennatur müssen wir hineinblicken, wenn wir verstehen wollen, was für Empfindungen die Eingeweihten gehabt haben, wenn sie das im Osterfeste zum Ausdruck bringen wollten.
Der Mensch erscheint uns als eine doppelte Wesenheit, verbindend seelisch-geistige Wesenheit einerseits mit physischer Wesenheit andererseits. Die physische Wesenheit ist ein Zusammenfluß aller übrigen Naturerscheinungen, die in der Umgebung des Menschen sind: sie alle erscheinen wie ein schöner Extrakt in der Menschennatur, in der sie wie zusammengeflossen sind. Bedeutsam stellt uns Paracelsus den Menschen dar als einen Zusammenfluß dessen, was draußen in der Welt ausgebreitet ist: Wie die Buchstaben erscheine uns die Natur, und der Mensch bildet das Wort, das aus diesen Buchstaben zusammengesetzt ist. — In seinem Aufbau liegt die größte Weisheit; er ist physisch ein Tempel der Seele. Alle Gesetze, die wir an dem toten Stein, an der lebendigen Pflanze, an dem von Lust und Leid erfüllten Tiere beobachten können, sie sind zusammengefügt im Menschen, sie sind dort weisheitsvoll zu einer Einheit verschmolzen. Wenn wir den Wunderbau des menschlichen Gehirnes mit seinen unzähligen Zellen betrachten, die zusammenwirken so, daß all das zum Ausdruck kommen kann, was die Gedanken, die Empfindungen des Menschen sind, was seine Seele irgendwie durchzieht, so erkennen wir die allwaltende Weisheit in der Einrichtung seines physischen Leibes. In der ganzen Umwelt, wenn wir hinausblicken, erkennen wir kristallisierte Weisheit. Und wenn wir alle Gesetze der Umwelt mit unserer Erkenntnis durchdringen und dann auf den Menschen zurückschauen, so sehen wir konzentriert in ihm die ganze Natur, sehen ihn als Mikrokosmos im Makrokosmos. In dem Sinne war es, daß Schiller zu Goethe sagte: «Sie nehmen die ganze Natur zusammen, um über das Einzelne Licht zu bekommen; in der Allheit ihrer Erscheinungsarten suchen Sie den Erklärungsgrund für das Individuum auf. Von der einfachen Organisation steigen Sie, Schritt vor Schritt, zu den mehr verwickelten hinauf, um endlich die verwickeltste von allen, den Menschen, genetisch aus den Materialien des ganzen Naturgebäudes zu erbauen.»
Durch den wunderbaren Aufbau des menschlichen Leibes vermag die menschliche Seele den Blick auf die Umwelt zu richten. Durch die Sinne schaut der seelische Mensch sich die Welt an und sucht nach und nach jene Weisheit zu ergründen, durch welche die Welt aufgebaut ist.
Betrachten wir einen noch recht unentwickelten Menschen von diesem Gesichtspunkte: Sein Leib ist das Vernünftigste, was nur auszudenken ist; zusammengeflossen ist die ganze göttliche Vernunft in dem einen Menschenleibe. Darinnen aber wohnt eine recht kindliche Seele, die kaum die ersten Gedanken entwickeln kann, um jene geheimnisvolle Kraft zu verstehen, die im Herzen, im Gehirn, im Blut waltet. Ganz langsam entwickelt sich die Menschenseele hinauf, um allmählich das zu verstehen, was an dem Menschenleibe gearbeitet hat. Das aber trägt an sich das Gepräge einer langen Vergangenheit. Der Mensch steht da als die Krone der übrigen Schöpfung. Aonen mußten vorangehen, bis die Weltenweisheit in diesem Menschenleibe zusammengefaßt wurde.
Doch in der Seele des unentwickelten Menschen beginnt erst die Weltenweisheit zu wachsen. Da träumt sie kaum erst von dem großen Gedanken des Allgeistes, welcher den Menschen aufgebaut hat. Was aber jetzt noch wie schlafend im Menschen wohnt, das Seelisch-Geistige, wird in der Zukunft vom Menschen begriffen werden. Der Weltengedanke, er hat durch unzählige Jahresläufe gewirkt, er hat in der Natur schaffend gewirkt, um zuletzt die Krone all dieses Schaffens, den menschlichen Leib zu bilden. In diesem menschlichen Leibe schlummert nun die Weltenweisheit, um in der Menschenseele sich selbst zu erkennen, um sich im Menschen ein Auge zu bilden, um sich selbst zu erfassen. Weltenweisheit draußen, Weltenweisheit drinnen, schaffend in der Gegenwart wie in der Vergangenheit, schaffend in die Zukunft hinein, die wir in ihrer Erhabenheit nur ahnen können. Die tiefsten menschlichen Gefühle werden aufgerufen, wenn wir so Vergangenheit und Zukunft betrachten.
Wenn die Seele anfängt, das Wunderbare zu begreifen, das von der Weltenweisheit aufgebaut wurde, wenn sie darüber zur besonnenen Klarheit, zum lichtvollen Herzenswissen gelangt, dann mag ihr die Sonne als das herrlichste Symbolum erscheinen, das dieses innere Erwachen ausdrückt, das der Seele durch die Tore der Sinne den Zugang in die Außenwelt eröffnet. Das Licht empfängt der Mensch, weil die Sonne die Dinge beleuchtet. Das, was der Mensch in der Außenwelt sieht, ist das widergespiegelte Sonnenlicht. Die Sonne erweckt in der Seele die Kraft, die Außenwelt anzuschauen. Die erwachende Sonnenseele im Menschen, die anfängt in den Jahreszeiten den Weltengedanken zu erkennen, sie erblickt in der aufgehenden Sonne ihren Befreier.
Wenn die Sonne wieder ihren Aufstieg beginnt, wenn die Tage wieder zunehmen, dann blickt die Seele zur Sonne hin und sagt: Dir verdanke ich die Möglichkeit, in meiner Umgebung den Weltengedanken ausgebreitet zu sehen, der in mir und in allen andern schläft. - Und nun blickt der Mensch auf sein früheres Dasein, auf das, was vorausgegangen ist dem tastenden Erfühlen des Weltengedankens. Der Mensch ist ja viel, viel älter als seine Sinne. Die geistige Forschung läßt uns zu jenem Zeitpunkte gelangen, in dem des Menschen Sinne erst in schwachen Anfängen sich herausgestalteten. Wir kommen zu dem Zeitpunkt, wo die Sinne noch nicht die Tore waren, durch welche die Seele die Umgebung wahrnehmen konnte. Schopenhauer hat dies empfunden und hat den Wendepunkt, wo der Mensch zur sinnlichen Wahrnehmung der Welt gelangt, charakterisiert. Das meint er, wenn er sagt: Diese sichtbare Welt ist erst entstanden, als ein Auge da war, um die Welt zu sehen. — Die Sonne hat das Auge, Licht hat das Licht gebildet. Früher, als solch ein äußerliches Schauen noch nicht war, da hatte der Mensch ein inneres Schauen. In Urzeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung, da regte nicht ein äußerer Gegenstand den Menschen zu Wahrnehmungen an, von innen heraus aber stiegen Vorstellungen in ihm auf: das alte Anschauen war ein Anschauen im astralischen Licht. Der Mensch hatte damals ein dumpfes, dämmeriges Hellsehen.
In der germanischen Götterwelt hat der Mensch auch die Götter gesehen in dumpfem, dämmerigem, astralischem Anschauen und seine Göttervorstellungen daraus geschöpft. Dieses dumpfe Hellsehen stieg herunter in die Finsternis und verschwand allmählich ganz. Es wurde ausgelöscht durch das kräftige Licht der physischen Sonne, die am Himmel erschien und die physische Welt für die Sinne sichtbar machte. So trat des Menschen astralisches Schauen zurück. Wenn der Mensch in die Zukunft blickt, da wird ihm klar, daß dieses astralische Anschauen auf einer höheren Stufe wiederkehren muß: Aufleben wird wieder, was jetzt wegen des physischen Anschauens erloschen ist, damit das volle wache Hellsehen des Menschen herbeigeführt werden könne. Zu dem Tagesanschauen wird hinzukommen ein noch helleres, leuchtenderes Leben des Menschen im Lichte der Zukunft. Zu dem physischen Anschauen tritt noch hinzu das Schauen in astralischem Lichte.
Führer der Menschheit sind jene Geister, welche durch ein entsagungsvolles irdisches Leben es vermocht haben, den Zustand schon vor dem Tode für sich herzustellen, den man das Schreiten durch die Todespforte nennt. Er schließt jene Erfahrungen in sich ein, die später der ganzen Menschheit zuteil werden, wenn sie das astralische Anschauen erworben haben wird, das ihr das Seelische und Geistige wahrnehmbar machen wird. Dieses Wahrnehmbarmachen des GeistigSeelischen um uns her, das nannten die Eingeweihten immer das Erwachen, die Auferstehung, die geistige Wiedergeburt, die dem Menschen zu den Gaben der physischen Sinne die Gaben der geistigen Sinne gibt. Ein inneres Osterfest feiert derjenige, der das neue astralische Anschauen in sich erwachen fühlt.
So können wir begreifen, daß das Frühlingsfest immer solche Symbole mit sich führt, die an Tod und an Auferstehung erinnern. Tot ist im Menschen das astralische Licht; es schläft. Aber wiederauferstehen wird dieses Licht im Menschen. Ein Fest, das auf das Erwachen des astralischen Lichts in der Zukunft hinweist, ist das Osterfest,
Der Schlafzustand des Vishnu beginnt um die Weihnachtszeit, wo das astralische Licht in Schlummer versank und das physische Licht erwachte. Wenn der Mensch dazu gelangt, dem Persönlichen zu entsagen, dann erwacht das astralische Licht wieder in ihm, dann kann er das Osterfest feiern, dann darf Vishnu wieder in seiner Seele erwachen.
In kosmisch geistvoller Erkenntnis wird das Osterfest nicht nur an das Erwachen der Sonne angeknüpft, sondern an das Aufgehen der Pflanzenwelt im Frühling. So wie das Saatkorn in die Erde versenkt ist und faulen muß, um neu zu erwachen, so muß das astralische Licht schlummern im Menschenleibe, um wieder auferweckt zu werden. Das Symbol des Osterfestes ist das Saatkorn, das sich hinopfert, um eine neue Pflanze erstehen zu lassen. Es ist das Opfer einer Phase der Natur, um eine neue erstehen zu lassen. Opfer und Werden — das drängt sich in dem Osterfeste zusammen. Schön und groß hat Richard Wagner diesen Gedanken empfunden. Er war am Zürcher See 1857 in der Villa Wesendonk; da sah er hinaus auf die erwachende Natur. Mit dem Gedanken an sie kam ihm der Gedanke an den erstorbenen und wiedererwachenden Weltenheiland, an den Christus Jesus, und der Gedanke an den Parzival, der in der Seele das Heiligste sucht.
Alle die Führer der Menschheit, die gewußt haben, wie das höhere geistige Leben der Menschen erwacht aus der niedrigen Natur heraus, sie haben den Ostergedanken verstanden. Daher hat auch Dante in seiner «Divina Comedia» sein Erwachen am Karfreitag dargestellt. Gleich am Anfang des Gedichtes wird uns das klar. Im fünfunddreißigsten Jahre seines Lebens hat Dante diese große Vision, die er schildert. In der Mitte seines Lebens läßt er sie sich vollziehen. Siebzig Jahre zählt das normale Menschenleben, fünfunddreißig Jahre ist die Mitte. Fünfunddreißig Jahre rechnet er für das Heranentwickeln der physischen Erfahrung, in welcher der Mensch noch immer neue physische Erfahrungen aufnimmt. Dann ist der Mensch dafür reif, daß zu der physischen Erfahrung die geistige tritt. Er ist dann reif zur Wahrnehmung der geistigen Welt. Wenn die wachsenden, werdenden Kräfte des Physischen alle vereint sind, dann beginnt der Zeitpunkt, wo das Geistige zum Leben erweckt wird. Darum läßt Dante an dem Osterfeste diese Vision entstehen.
Das ursprüngliche Wachsen der Sonnenkraft wird in dem Weihnachtsfeste gefeiert. Das Osterfest wird geknüpft an die Mitte der wachsenden Sonnenkraft. Im Frühlingsmittelpunkt, im Osterpunkte stehen wir, wo Dante in der Mitte des menschlichen Lebens zu stehen glaubte, als er das geistige Leben in sich aufgehen empfand. Mit Recht wird das Osterfest in die Mitte des Aufstiegs der Sonne gestellt, entsprechend dem Zeitpunkt, wo im Menschen das schlummernde astralische Licht wieder erweckt wird. Die Sonnenkraft weckt die schlummernde Saat, das in der Erde ruhende Samenkorn. Das Samenkorn ist ein Bild geworden für das, was in der Menschennatur sich vollzieht, wenn im Menschen das erwacht, was der Okkultist das astralische Licht nennt. Es wird geboren im Innern des Menschen. Das Osterfest ist das Fest der Auferstehung im Innern des Menschen. Der Gedanke des erlösenden Christus ist in Zusammenhang gebracht worden mit dem kosmischen Gedanken.
Es ist eine Art Gegensatz gefühlt worden zwischen dem, was der Christ im Osterfeste sieht, und zwischen der geisteswissenschaftlichen Idee des Karma. Es scheint ein Gegensatz zu sein, diese Idee des Karma und die der Erlösung durch den Menschensohn. Die nicht viel verstehen von der Grundanschauung des geisteswissenschaftlichen Gedankens, sehen einen solchen Widerspruch zwischen der Erlösung durch den Christus Jesus und der Idee des Karma. Sie sagen: Der Gedanke von dem erlösenden Gott widerspricht der Selbsterlösung durch das Karma. — Sie verstehen weder im richtigen Sinne den Ostergedanken der Erlösung noch den Gedanken der Gerechtigkeit des Karma. Es wäre nicht richtig, wenn jemand einen andern leiden sähe und sagte zu ihm: Du hast selbst dies Leiden verursacht — und er ihm deshalb nicht helfen wollte, weil das Karma sich auswirken soll. Das ist ein Mißverstehen des Karma. Das Karma sagt im Gegenteil: Hilf dem, der leidet, denn du bist ja da, um zu helfen. Du verbesserst das Konto des Karma der Notwendigkeit, indem du deinem Mitmenschen hilfst. Dadurch gibst du ihm die Möglichkeit, sein Karma zu tragen. Du erscheinst dann als der Erlöser vom Leiden. — So kann man auch, statt einem einzelnen, einem ganzen Kreis Menschen helfen. Dadurch fügt man sich ein in das Karma dieser Menschen, indem man ihnen hilft. Wenn eine mächtige Individualität wie der Christus Jesus der ganzen Menschheit zu Hilfe kommt, so ist es sein Opfertod, der hineinwirkt in das Karma der ganzen Menschheit. Er konnte das Karma der ganzen Menschheit tragen helfen, und wir dürfen die Sicherheit haben, daß die Erlösung durch Christus Jesus in das Karma der Menschheit aufgenommen wurde.
Gerade der Auferstehungs- und Erlösungsgedanke wird durch die Geisteswissenschaft erst recht begriffen werden. Ein Christentum der Zukunft wird Karma und Erlösung zusammen vereinigen. Weil Ursache und Wirkung im geistigen Leben zusammenhängen, darum muß diese große Opfertat im Leben der Menschen auch ihre Wirkung haben. Auch auf diesen Festesgedanken wirkt Geisteswissenschaft vertiefend. Der Gedanke, der geschrieben zu sein scheint in der Sternenwelt, den wir zu lesen glauben in der Sternenwelt, diesen Gedanken des Osterfestes vertieft die GeistErkenntnis. Aber auch im Aufgange des Geistes in der Zukunft, der sich in der Menschenwesenheit vollziehen wird, erblicken wir die Tiefe des Ostergedankens. Jetzt lebt der Mensch in der Mitte seines Lebens in unharmonischen, verwirrenden Zuständen. Aber er weiß auch: Wie aus dem Chaos die Welt hervorgegangen ist, so wird aus seinem Innern, das noch chaotisch ist, einst die Harmonie hervorgehen. Wie der regelmäßige Gang der Planeten um die Sonne, so wird der innere Heiland des Menschen erstehen, der gegenüber aller Disharmonie das Einheitliche, das Harmonische bedeuten wird. Ein jeder soll durch das Osterfest erinnert werden an die Auferstehung des Geistes aus der jetzigen verdunkelten Natur des Menschen.
Easter
Goethe expressed a very specific feeling that he often had in a variety of ways. He said: When I look at the inconsistency of human passions, feelings, and actions, I feel a strong urge to turn to almighty nature and lift myself up with its consistency and logicality. — What humanity has expressed since ancient times in the institution of festivals is based on the desire to look up from the chaotic life of human passions, drives, and actions to the great, consistent, unified facts of the great nature. It is fitting that these great facts of the great nature are connected with significant phenomena in nature. One such festival connected with phenomena in nature is Easter, which for Christians today is the festival of the resurrection of their Savior, and which has been celebrated since ancient times as the awakening of something very special for mankind. We look at ancient Egypt with its Osiris-Isis-Horus cult, which expresses the uninterrupted rejuvenation of eternally immortal nature; we look at Greece and find a festival there in honor of Dionysus, a spring festival that is in some way connected with the awakening of nature in spring. In India, there is a Vishnu festival in spring. For Brahmanism, the divine is divided into three aspects: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Brahma is rightly called the great architect of the world, who brings order and harmony to the world. Vishnu is described as a kind of savior, liberator, awakener of slumbering life, and Shiva is the one who blesses the slumbering life awakened by Vishnu and raises it to the heights to which it can be raised. A kind of festive season was dedicated to Vishnu. It was said that he fell asleep at the time of year when we celebrate Christmas and awoke at the time of Easter. Those who call themselves his servants celebrate this entire period in a meaningful way: they abstain from certain foods and drinks and from meat. In this way, they prepare themselves to understand what is happening when the Vishnu festival celebrates the resurrection, the awakening of all of nature. Christmas also ties in significantly with great natural phenomena, with the fact that the sun's power is getting weaker and weaker, that the days are getting shorter and shorter, and that from Christmas onwards the sun radiates greater warmth again, so that Christmas is a celebration of the reborn sun. This is how Christians also perceived the winter solstice festival. When Christianity sought to connect with ancient sacred events in the 6th and 7th centuries, the birth of Christ Jesus was moved to the day when the sun rose again in the sky. The spiritual significance of the world savior was linked to the physical sun and the awakening and resurrected life.
In spring, Easter, like all similar festivals, is also linked to a certain solar event, which is also expressed in external customs. In the first century of Christianity, the symbol of Christianity was represented by the cross, at the foot of which is a lamb. Lamb and ram mean the same thing. In spring, the sun appears in the constellation of Aries or the lamb, at the time when Christianity was preparing itself. The sun makes its way through the constellations of the zodiac, moving forward a little each year. Approximately six to seven hundred years before Christ Jesus, the sun moved into this constellation. The sun moves forward in this constellation for two thousand five hundred years; before that, it was in the constellation of Taurus. At that time, the peoples celebrated what they considered significant in connection with the development of humanity through Taurus, because at that time the sun was in the constellation of Taurus. When the sun entered the constellation of Aries or the Lamb, the ram also appeared as something significant in the legends and myths of the peoples. Jason brings the ram's skin from Colchis. Christ Jesus himself describes himself as the Lamb of God, and in the early days of Christianity he is symbolically depicted as the lamb at the foot of the cross. Thus, Easter can be associated with the constellation of Aries or the Lamb, and this festival can therefore be regarded as the festival of the Savior's resurrection, because the Savior brings everything to new life after it has died during the winter months.
This alone does not distinguish Christmas and Easter so clearly, because the sun regains its strength since its own festival of resurrection, Christmas. Something else must be expressed in Easter. In its deepest meaning, Easter will always be perceived as the festival of the greatest human mystery, not merely as a kind of festival of nature connected with the sun, but as something much more: it is hinted at in the Christian meaning of resurrection after death. And in the awakening of Vishnu, there is even more reference to awakening after death. The awakening of Vishnu coincides with the time when the sun begins its ascent again in winter, and Easter is a continuation of the rising power of the sun, which has already been rising since Christmas. We must look deep into the mysteries of human nature if we want to understand what feelings the initiates had when they wanted to express this in the Easter festival.
Human beings appear to us as dual beings, connecting soul-spiritual beings on the one hand with physical beings on the other. The physical being is a confluence of all other natural phenomena that surround human beings: they all appear as a beautiful extract in human nature, in which they seem to have flowed together. Paracelsus significantly presents human beings to us as a confluence of what is spread out in the world: nature appears to us like letters, and human beings form the word that is composed of these letters. — The greatest wisdom lies in their structure; physically, they are a temple of the soul. All the laws that we can observe in dead stone, in living plants, in animals filled with pleasure and pain, are brought together in human beings, where they are wisely fused into a unity. When we consider the miraculous structure of the human brain with its countless cells, which work together in such a way that everything that is the thoughts and feelings of the human being, everything that somehow permeates his soul, can be expressed, we recognize the all-pervading wisdom in the structure of his physical body. When we look out into the whole environment, we recognize crystallized wisdom. And when we penetrate all the laws of the environment with our knowledge and then look back at the human being, we see the whole of nature concentrated in him, we see him as a microcosm in the macrocosm. It was in this sense that Schiller said to Goethe: "You take the whole of nature together in order to gain insight into the individual; in the totality of its manifestations, you seek the explanatory reason for the individual. From simple organization, you ascend, step by step, to the more complex, in order to finally construct the most complex of all, the human being, genetically from the materials of the entire structure of nature."
Through the wonderful structure of the human body, the human soul is able to focus its gaze on the environment. Through the senses, the spiritual human being looks at the world and gradually seeks to fathom the wisdom through which the world is constructed.
Let us consider a still quite undeveloped human being from this point of view: his body is the most rational thing imaginable; all divine reason has flowed together in the one human body. But within it dwells a truly childlike soul, which can hardly develop the first thoughts to understand that mysterious power that reigns in the heart, in the brain, in the blood. Very slowly, the human soul develops upward in order to gradually understand what has been at work in the human body. But this bears the mark of a long past. Man stands there as the crown of the rest of creation. Eons had to pass before the wisdom of the worlds was summarized in this human body.
But in the soul of the undeveloped human being, world wisdom is only just beginning to grow. It barely dreams of the great thought of the universal spirit that built up the human being. But what now still dwells dormant in the human being, the soul-spiritual, will be understood by the human being in the future. The world thought has been at work through countless years, it has been creatively at work in nature, ultimately forming the crown of all this creation, the human body. In this human body, world wisdom now slumbers, in order to recognize itself in the human soul, to form an eye in man, to grasp itself. World wisdom outside, world wisdom inside, creating in the present as in the past, creating into the future, which we can only guess at in its sublimity. The deepest human feelings are evoked when we look at the past and the future in this way.
When the soul begins to comprehend the wonder that has been built up by world wisdom, when it attains a calm clarity, a luminous knowledge of the heart, then the sun may appear to it as the most glorious symbol expressing this inner awakening, which opens the soul's access to the outer world through the gates of the senses. Human beings receive light because the sun illuminates things. What human beings see in the outer world is the reflected sunlight. The sun awakens in the soul the power to look at the outer world. The awakening sun soul in human beings, which begins to recognize the world thought in the seasons, sees its liberator in the rising sun.
When the sun begins its ascent again, when the days grow longer again, the soul looks to the sun and says: I owe you the opportunity to see the world idea spread out in my surroundings, which sleeps in me and in everyone else. And now the human being looks back on his former existence, on what preceded the tentative feeling of the world idea. The human being is much, much older than his senses. Spiritual research takes us back to the time when the human senses were only just beginning to develop. We come to the point in time when the senses were not yet the gates through which the soul could perceive its surroundings. Schopenhauer sensed this and characterized the turning point at which man attained sensory perception of the world. This is what he means when he says: This visible world only came into being when there was an eye to see the world. — The sun has the eye, light has formed light. In the past, when such external seeing did not yet exist, humans had an inner seeing. In the primeval times of human development, no external object stimulated humans to perceive, but mental images arose within them from within: the ancient seeing was a seeing in astral light. At that time, humans had a dull, dim clairvoyance.
In the Germanic world of gods, humans also saw the gods in dim, twilight, astral vision and drew their ideas of the gods from this. This dim clairvoyance descended into darkness and gradually disappeared completely. It was extinguished by the powerful light of the physical sun, which appeared in the sky and made the physical world visible to the senses. Thus, human astral vision receded. When humans look into the future, they realize that this astral vision must return at a higher level: what has now been extinguished due to physical vision will be revived so that humans can attain full, awake clairvoyance. In addition to daytime vision, there will be an even brighter, more luminous life for human beings in the light of the future. In addition to physical vision, there will also be vision in astral light.
The leaders of humanity are those spirits who, through a life of renunciation on earth, have been able to establish for themselves, even before death, the state known as passing through the gate of death. This includes those experiences that will later be shared by all of humanity when it has acquired astral vision, which will make the soul and spirit perceptible to it. The initiates always called this perception of the spiritual and soul around us awakening, resurrection, spiritual rebirth, which gives human beings the gifts of the spiritual senses in addition to the gifts of the physical senses. Those who feel the new astral vision awakening within themselves celebrate an inner Easter.
Thus we can understand that the spring festival always carries with it symbols that remind us of death and resurrection. The astral light in human beings is dead; it sleeps. But this light will be resurrected in human beings. Easter is a festival that points to the awakening of the astral light in the future.
Vishnu's state of sleep begins around Christmas time, when the astral light sank into slumber and the physical light awoke. When human beings reach the point of renouncing the personal, the astral light awakens again within them, and they can celebrate Easter, allowing Vishnu to awaken again in their souls.
In cosmic spiritual knowledge, Easter is linked not only to the awakening of the sun, but also to the blossoming of the plant world in spring. Just as the seed must sink into the earth and rot in order to awaken anew, so the astral light must slumber in the human body in order to be resurrected. The symbol of Easter is the seed that sacrifices itself in order to bring forth a new plant. It is the sacrifice of one phase of nature in order to bring forth a new one. Sacrifice and becoming — this is what Easter is all about. Richard Wagner felt this idea beautifully and profoundly. He was at Lake Zurich in 1857 in the Villa Wesendonk, looking out at nature awakening. With this image in his mind, he thought of the world savior who had died and risen again, Christ Jesus, and of Parzival, who seeks the most sacred in the soul.
All the leaders of humanity who knew how the higher spiritual life of human beings awakens from their lower nature understood the idea of Easter. That is why Dante also depicted his awakening on Good Friday in his “Divina Comedia.” This becomes clear to us right at the beginning of the poem. In the thirty-fifth year of his life, Dante had this great vision, which he describes. He allows it to take place in the middle of his life. The normal human life spans seventy years, and thirty-five is the middle. He calculates thirty-five years for the development of physical experience, in which the human being still absorbs new physical experiences. Then the human being is ready for the spiritual to join the physical experience. He is then ready to perceive the spiritual world. When the growing, developing forces of the physical are all united, then the moment begins when the spiritual is brought to life. That is why Dante has this vision arise at Easter.The original growth of the sun's power is celebrated at Christmas. Easter is linked to the middle of the growing power of the sun. At the midpoint of spring, at the point of Easter, we stand where Dante believed himself to be at the midpoint of human life when he felt spiritual life awakening within him. Easter is rightly placed at the midpoint of the sun's ascent, corresponding to the moment when the dormant astral light is reawakened in human beings. The power of the sun awakens the dormant seed, the seed resting in the earth. The seed has become a symbol of what takes place in human nature when what occultists call the astral light awakens in human beings. It is born within the human being. Easter is the festival of resurrection within the human being. The idea of the redeeming Christ has been linked to the cosmic idea.
A kind of contradiction has been felt between what Christians see in Easter and the spiritual scientific idea of karma. There seems to be a contradiction between this idea of karma and that of redemption through the Son of Man. Those who do not understand much about the basic view of spiritual science see such a contradiction between redemption through Christ Jesus and the idea of karma. They say: The idea of a redeeming God contradicts self-redemption through karma. — They do not understand either the Easter idea of redemption or the idea of the justice of karma in the right sense. It would not be right for someone to see another person suffering and say to them: You have caused this suffering yourself — and therefore not want to help them because karma must take its course. That is a misunderstanding of karma. On the contrary, karma says: Help those who suffer, for you are there to help. You improve the account of the karma of necessity by helping your fellow human beings. In doing so, you give them the opportunity to bear their karma. You then appear as the redeemer from suffering. — In this way, instead of helping an individual, you can help a whole group of people. By helping them, you become part of their karma. When a powerful individuality such as Christ Jesus comes to the aid of all humanity, it is his sacrificial death that has an effect on the karma of all humanity. He was able to help bear the karma of all humanity, and we can be certain that the redemption through Christ Jesus has been incorporated into the karma of humanity.
It is precisely the idea of resurrection and redemption that will be understood through Spiritual Science. A Christianity of the future will unite karma and redemption. Because cause and effect are connected in spiritual life, this great act of sacrifice must also have its effect in human life. Spiritual Science also deepens this festive idea. The idea that seems to be written in the starry world, which we believe we can read in the starry world, this idea of Easter, is deepened by spiritual knowledge. But we also see the depth of the Easter idea in the rise of the spirit in the future, which will take place in human beings. Now, in the middle of their lives, people live in disharmonious, confusing conditions. But they also know that just as the world emerged from chaos, so harmony will one day emerge from their inner selves, which are still chaotic. Just as the planets move regularly around the sun, so the inner savior of humanity will arise, who will represent unity and harmony in the face of all disharmony. Easter should remind everyone of the resurrection of the spirit from the current darkened nature of humanity.