The Tension Between East and West
GA 83
4 June 1922, Vienna
4. Anthroposophy and Geography
We describe the features of the earth in accordance with the principles of physical geography. In the same way, the spiritual impulses at work on earth (and already briefly characterized in these lectures) can be described by a kind of spiritual geography—especially the interplay of Eastern and Western impulses in human life, with all their various differences. What I have to say today in this direction is bound to remain rather sketchy; but it is more important to find a specific point of view for looking at much that I have already outlined than to give a detailed description.
The relationship of East and West is often expressed symbolically by saying that light comes from the East. Looking at the East, Western man—the man of recent civilization in general—receives the impression of a dream-like spiritual life. Modern spiritual life is used to sharply delineated concepts, closely linked to external observation; in contrast, the notions of the Orient—shifting, fluctuating, less closely and less sharply linked to externals—show up as dream-like. Admittedly, from this dream-like spiritual life, embodied in the most splendid poems, the Vedas, there did of course then develop the clear-cut concepts of a comprehensive philosophy—Vedanta, for example. These concepts were not gained by examining external data, that is analytically, but emerged from an inwardly experienced and apprehended spiritual life.
When this dream-like spiritual life works on us, however, and we lovingly submit to it without at first noticing how much it differs from our own, it has a curious effect. Once we allow its various configurations to affect our soul, we cannot stop there. We cannot merely take over its concepts and ideas. In absorbing them, whether from the literature or the philosophy (including such forms of these as have survived in the East down to the present), we feel a spiritual need to go beyond these images, ideas and concepts. When an Oriental idea, such as that of man's relation to the secrets and the mysterious workings of nature and the world, affects us, it is often accompanied in our mind by something that symbolizes it for the Orient too: the flower of the lotus, as it folds its petals about what must remain mysteriously hidden. We may immerse ourselves lovingly in shifting concepts that are more fitted gently to touch external phenomena and surround them with a mist, than to perceive them in sharp contours, and we may enter their intertwining branches; and if we do, there will inevitably appear to us all the intertwining, branching vegetation of the East and, with it, all that the human hand, the human spirit and civilization have produced from stone and other materials in line with these flowing, branching concepts. We may say: in immersing itself in these concepts, our soul inevitably sees before it a nature similar in its life, diversity and imaginative working to the soul's experience of the concepts themselves.
There appears to be no objective reason for man to abandon this Oriental spiritual activity in favour of a “faithful observation of nature;” indeed, it seems to me rather that there is in the Oriental concepts themselves an incentive not merely to accept them, but to apply them to the outside world. Europeans may feel that such things cannot be applied to the outside world, because of their vagueness, their (to them) fantastic character. If so, we may ask: How, then, can we track, with sharply delineated concepts, the shapes of clouds, fluctuating and rapidly changing as they are? Yet track them we must, if we wish to observe nature's workings in immediate revelation, as they appear to the human senses and the human soul.
Why is this so? It seems to me that there can be only one reason: that in what reaches us from this Eastern spiritual activity, there survives an element from which it was once directly created.
At the time when the Oriental was developing the finest part of his philosophy of life (which has since come down to his descendants in a partially decadent condition), the East created everything with devoted love. Love lives in each of its ideas, concepts and images and in them we perceive love. The love seeks to flow out into objects. And it flows out according to its nature, and conjures up before our soul the symbols that the Oriental established, with an inner understanding of much that functions supersensibly, in seeking to establish what he perceived as the spiritual dement in things. Of course, this is not to assert that this configuration of spirit, if extended over all the earth, would be an unmixed blessing for the development of the world. But once it has appeared on earth, and exerted its influence over other regions, it must be considered objectively, especially at a time when we need to foster understanding between men.
Against it, we may set the particular outlook that has developed, certainly with no less justification, but in a quite different form, further West—and in this respect we ourselves belong in many ways to the West. Here, we find, it is regarded as an ideal to stand back from what the senses observe directly, what extends in space and time, and to test what nature offers, and what should lead us to the world's secret, for position, motion, dimensions and weight. What presents itself directly to the eye is dissected and placed under a microscope, and gives rise to notions that could only emerge under a microscope.
Let us imagine for a moment that we are in the laboratory: how heavily equipped we are with these concepts, so remote from direct observation! Look how we regard the light flooding through the world! How we regard it by means of abstract concepts! We need them, if we are to reach understanding. But how remote are the observations we record on light and colour from what we encounter in wood and meadow, cloud-shape and sun! We may say: what we formulate in our sharply delineated concepts—with the balance, the measuring-rod, the most varied counting devices—takes us into some of nature's shallows and solves some riddles, but it does not take us to direct observation of nature. It is all very well to say: direct your attention to sensory observation and then try to derive your philosophy of life from it. But this is not what happens at all! The scientific view of life we establish is far removed from what the senses observe.
What we ought to say is this: if we establish our knowledge by using the equipment of learning with which we have harvested perhaps the finest fruits of present-day natural science, we shall have to retune our soul before we can approach nature again. If as botanists we have used the microscope extensively and learnt about cell-life, and formed concepts in the atomistic manner of today, we shall have to retune our soul before we can recapture a love of the immediate world of plants as it grows and flowers. If we have formed a scientific concept of the structure of animal and man, again we shall have to retune if we want to move on to direct observation of the animal's shape and actions, and to enjoy the way it plays in the meadow or turns its melancholy or unmoving gaze upon us or looks at us confidingly. Equally, we shall have to retune our soul to share in what the eye can see when it looks at the human shape, tracing its planes with an artistic eye. The Oriental has no retuning to do. Since what he called his science was shot through with love, it led him out to immediate observation. And this was a direct echo of what he experienced in his soul.
These are differences of temper in the attitude to life of East and West. And these different tempers multifariously combine in the man of the region between. In what we experience scientifically, artistically and religiously, there flows much of the temper I have just been characterizing as the one that comes to us from the Orient. In other respects again, we are moved by something of the way of experiencing the world kindled by that scientific attitude which the West has developed—by youthful science and knowledge, so to speak, as against the old-established ones of the East. And in every soul in the civilization that lies between, these two currents flow together. In the last analysis, the life that surrounds us in Europe is a fusion—and one whose component currents we really need to understand.
The contact between the tempers of East and West in our present spiritual life can be characterized in another way.
From what I have just said of the East, one thing is clear about the Oriental. In growing into his spiritual life, he experiences it as immediate reality; he bears it with him in his soul as the reality self-evident to him. External nature, and indeed the entire external world right up to the constellations, seems to him an echo which is, however, fundamentally the same as what he bears within him. Yet he cannot regard as reality what strikes him as an echo, what seems to him a reflection, as he can regard as reality what he experiences directly in his soul. He is closely linked with what he experiences in the spiritual sphere and can say “It is,” because he feels its existence as if it were his own, and in this way understands its mode of being. When he looks out at the reflection of this existence, he knows that it is not reality in the same sense. If he did not illuminate it with the light that streams from within him, it would be dumb and dark. And in becoming more and more aware of this, he arrives at a temper of soul that says: truth and reality reside in what the soul experiences directly. What is reflected to it from without is illusion, maya, incomplete reality, becoming reality only when it is touched by what must first reveal itself through the human soul.
Thus we see how the East developed the view that the spiritual world is reality, and the outside world, that of the senses, is semblance, the great illusion, maya. It would, however, be wrong to believe on this account that, in the pre-Buddhist period for example, the Oriental averted his glance completely from the outside world. He accepts) it, even if in a higher sense he must admit that in what extends in space and time he is dealing not with complete reality but with an illusion, the great non-being, maya. But this in turn gives a particular temper to the life of the soul in the East: the soul feels a close link with the spiritual world and sees, in all that exists in the external world of the senses, a replica of the original shape of the world as it exists in the spirit. And in the end this grows into the view that one's own human sensuous substance is a replica of a human being whose true existence is in the spiritual world. And here I would say: the Oriental, quite consistently, regards the world as made up of replicas of a spiritual world, just as he regards himself as a replica of what he was before he descended into the physical and sensuous world. From his standpoint, the view of man and the view of nature are in complete harmony.
This harmony is possible; though no longer consonant with our views, it does indeed express a truth, if somewhat one-sidedly, as we can see once again if, with the research methods of spiritual science, which I have been describing in the last few days, we ourselves take a look at this Oriental mode of knowledge.
As I have shown, by awakening powers dormant in the soul we can attain a view of the spiritual world that yet suits modern man; we can look once more into a spiritual world; and find this spiritual world unfolding before our “mind's eye” just as the physical and sensuous world unfolds before our physical eye. When we develop this vision, however, the spiritual world does not remain a mere pantheistic and nebulous embodiment of universal spirituality; it becomes just as concrete in its individual forms as the world of the senses in those of the realms of nature. There will then follow a view of man that I should now like to characterize.
Let us start with something familiar to us at every moment in our lives: an experience of the outside world. We have entered into this external experience through our sensory perception and perhaps also through setting our will in motion in some activity. We live in conjunction with the data of the outside world. For us, this is an immediate experience. In the last analysis, human existence on earth is composed of such experiences. From them, we retain thought-images, which become our memories. We can look back on our experiences through bearing within us faded, shadowy and, in fact, mental images of them.
Let us be quite honest with ourselves and consider whether, at any moment in life, our consciousness contains very much more than memories of external, factual, sensory experiences. Of course, many a nebulous mystic believes that he can summon up eternal things from the depths of his soul. If he looked more closely and could really test the structures he summons from his soul, he would discover that as a rule they are no more than transformed external perceptions. Within man, memories are not only faithfully preserved; they are also transformed in many ways, and man then fails to recognize them. He thinks that he is acting as a mystic and summoning something from the depths of his soul, when he has only called up from his memory a transformed external experience. Of course, we need only think of mathematical truths to realize that all kinds of mental structures do establish themselves in the life of the soul. But as a rule it is not these structures that the mystic seeks.
However, anyone who simply wishes to accept the everyday life of the soul, as it appears in ordinary consciousness, must say: This life is made up of images that are the remains of our experiences gained-through perceptions, and of other experiences within the external sensuous world. When we look at our soul and at the spiritual element that permeates it, as we have it in physical life on earth, we can therefore say: outside is the physical world extending in space, the world that unfolds its causes and effects in time, the world, that is, of facts. Here within is the world of shadows in the soul; we do indeed experience it in general as something spiritual and vital, but its content we experience only as a replica of the world of facts and of the senses. Now, paradoxical as the outlook of today may find it, for the attitude that I have been expounding in the last few days, the reverse comes about: in empty consciousness, as a result of meditation, the spiritual in the world, the spiritual within natural phenomena, is really experienced; it is observed also as the soul-spiritual element in man himself, as he is before he descends into his physical existence from a spiritual world; the spiritual is observed concretely by the spirit-organ we have developed; the world about us becomes spiritual, just as to our senses it is sensuous and physical. And when all this happens, we begin to perceive—as if in recollection of the times when we lived as spiritual beings in purely spiritual worlds—how in its particulars our physical organism is a replica of the spiritual world that surrounds us. With physiology and anatomy we can observe our lungs, heart and other organs only as outer objects; but when we can see the spiritual world about us, then the lungs and heart as they really are within us will become for us a replica in the physical sphere of what is spiritually prefigured. Just as in our ordinary consciousness the world outside is physical, and our soul creates replicas as its experiences; so now we learn that there is a spiritual world outside and that the replicas of this spiritual world exist in our own organs. We come to know man's structure only in coming to know the spiritual world. What is usually called matter then ceases to have the significance it has assumed in recent civilization, just as spirit ceases to have the significance of something abstract that it has had in recent civilization. We can thus see that in our organic functioning there is in fact a replica of what we were before we descended into our earthly existence.
At this stage, we need no longer be frightened even by materialism, in so far as there is justification for it—and even materialism has done some good and brought us countless discoveries. We look at the human brain and the human nervous system in its physical operation. Of course, we agree that ordinary, everyday thinking is a function of these physical organs. We are entirely in agreement with what exact science must hold about these matters today. But on the other hand we know that the material forms operating within us are themselves simply a transformed reflection of the spiritual sphere. For this reason, the material is acceptable, and because, in transforming itself into mortal man, the spiritual has sought out the capacity of brain and nerves to achieve in a material replica what is spiritually prefigured.
Modern man can see this in his “mind's eye” by developing the powers of cognition of which I have been speaking in the last few days. Yet there is a dream-like anticipation of it, I would say, in the Oriental philosophy of life I have outlined. This philosophy has become old and senile, but certain of its features still work effectively in our heart and soul. In its instinctive clairvoyance, the ancient Orient sensed that the spiritual world is a reality with which it felt closely linked, and that nature, and the natural element in man himself, is a replica of the spiritual; it provides an external garment for the revelation of what is inwardly spiritual.
Yet it would be wrong to say that the Oriental did not observe nature. His organs were finely attuned to its observation. For him, however, from everything that he faithfully observed and lovingly honoured as a replica, something of the spirit shone. Nature revealed spirit to him, shone spirit upon him at every turn. And this spirit was his reality. What lay before him outside was maya.
Even in Buddhism, which gained a far greater influence on Oriental life than we usually think—since it later assumed the most varied forms—we can see how the sense of inhabiting a spiritual world paled as man and world developed. The gaze was increasingly directed upon what was maya, and experience of the great illusion, the great non-being, maya, gradually became predominant. There thus arose an awareness of the need for redemption from what can be experienced within maya—experienced, that is, in the manner of Buddha, who regarded our direct experiences of this maya as a crowd of sorrows that flow in on man.
But it faded, this sense of inhabiting a spiritual world; and this is what justifies us in considering the early Oriental philosophy of life as something instinctive and even partial: if we do return to something like it, we must do so with complete self-possession and lucid consciousness. The impairment of human activity relative to the demands of the physical, external world must not occur a second time in the world's development. Man must never again escape into spiritual activity and so prevent himself from devoting his full strength to earthly tasks—which are what the Oriental perceives as maya, even if in deference to modern concepts he does not say so; whereas he perceives as reality what reveals itself within him. He has within him a light that is a direct reflection of the divine and spiritual elements in the world.
Against what I have thus described as the spiritual geography influencing our modern life, I should now like to set another illustration from the development of the human spirit and the world, but this time from the immediate present. Our civilization, which even in Europe is now of some antiquity, is subject to pressures from certain spheres, whence arise social longings and also social conflicts. Anyone who has moved in these spheres will have come across the phenomenon I am about to describe.
Although no one could properly accuse me of Socialist opinions, I was for some long time a teacher in Socialist circles. My intention was to do something for which in fact the time had not yet come (it is more than twenty years ago now): to propagate a spiritual life that could lead to theories that are in closer accord with reality than those derived from abstract or modified Marxism, which in many respects indeed are not realistic at all. There exists in these circles a basic attitude—something we can recognize as a first step, yet which is as deeply rooted in the soul as was the sense of maya at which the Oriental finally arrived. And in observing this attitude, we are profoundly struck by a word that expresses many unconscious feelings, unconscious ideas and concepts, unconscious longings too, a word that we hear again and again and must recognize as having characterized wide circles of humanity for centuries. Encompassing millions of people is a mood that this word expresses. The word is “ideology,” by which is meant “idealistic theorizing.” It derives from an attitude that the proletarian class in particular has absorbed into its education. The scientific method, with its increasing emphasis on matter, has given rise to the view that historical reality consists simply of economic struggles, economic patterns, class struggles, in short of the immediate material elements, externally sensuous and physical, in human life and history; and that therefore economic forces are the true reality.
This economic materialism, which is far more widespread than many upper-class people today believe, is a consequence of the general materialistic outlook. Nowadays, this is taken to be overcome even in science; yet it has a wide following particularly in the West.
And what is this “ideology?” It is law, morality, the realm of the beautiful, religious concepts, political theory, in short everything that makes up spiritual life. These things are not true reality, but bubbles and baubles arising from true reality, which resides in material struggles and patterns. “Ideology” is a way of indicating that what man experiences within himself—whether it is art or science or law or maxims of state or religious impulses—is maya, to use the Oriental term.
If we do not just take it at its face value, but can feel what millions of people are thinking, then the word “ideology” points to something that must inevitably assume the most formidable dimensions unless it can be set on the right course in good time. What the soul experiences and shapes within is not reality: true reality is only what exists externally in tangible facts.
Inside Western civilization, therefore, there has developed an outlook diametrically opposed to that which long ruled the Orient and still survives even today as a kind of antiquated trimming. There, true reality is what is experienced in the spirit, and maya what proceeds outside in physical actuality; here, maya or “ideology” (which is indeed a translation of the word “maya,” but applied to the spiritual sphere) is what is experienced in the spirit, and reality what is tangibly displayed, palpably there in the world.
In its development, the world aims at complete realization of its various potentialities. Just as the one extreme developed, in the Orient, so too the other was bound in its turn to take hold of humanity. To bring about a fruitful development of man and world, however, and to change the forces of decline into constructive ones, we must understand the significance of this mood, this “ideology.” It is recent and therefore a first step.
Let us look once more at what modern spiritual science can tell us. In the Orient, there was a dreamy, dark, instinctive knowledge that there exists a spiritual reality, with a sensory replica here in the physical realm. Because the soul's attention was devoted primarily to this spiritual reality, sensory reality came to be regarded as unreality, external appearance, maya. Yet this maya is important in more than one way. Although the world may be maya, our efforts, which are a reality for us, must still be applied to it in the first instance. But it is important also for the precept “Know thyself,” for a truly human attitude. Why? Well, it is true that we can now elevate ourselves to a life in the spiritual world, as I have described; that we can see by means of sharply delineated concepts and thus understand what appeared to the Orient like a dream. But the experience of such a world would never have created in human development the impulse to freedom.
When man feels closely linked to the spiritual world, he feels at the same time inwardly determined by and dependent on it. Therefore he and his consciousness had to move out of it and, for a passing phase of history (in which we now are), to turn to a world of mere fact. Confronted with this external actuality, the life of man's soul becomes an image of it. The spirit informing this life turns into abstract concepts and gradually becomes a mere image, to be recognized as a replica.
I have already suggested that, by having images within us, we can be free. Mirror-images do not determine our actions. If we wish to conform to mirror-images, which in themselves are powerless, the impulse to do so must come from us. The same is true of abstract concepts. And in making its appearance in pure thinking, our noblest feature, the moral and religious element, becomes for us an impulse of freedom. It is a most valuable component of human life. But in a period when man finds himself confronted with physical actuality, it makes its appearance in abstract thinking.
At the moment when the moral element, in the shape of moral intuition, makes its appearance in pure thinking, the task of the epoch is fulfilled. The epoch has developed from spirit-reality to the spirit as abstraction and (I would say, exaggerating a little) it now interprets everything spiritual as maya, as mere illusion, as “ideology.” We have a certain right to interpret as “ideology” everything that is a reflection of external natural existence. At the moment when the moral element, in the shape of intuition, enters this maya-thinking, this “ideology,” we reach the first stage at which we can recognize once more that we must awaken this “ideology,” which we experience as mere semblance, to inner life by energizing ourselves and allowing the life that is hidden within us to stream forth. The meaning of the world had to become “ideology” for humanity in order that man himself could infuse it with his own reality.
This was necessary for man's experience of freedom, which is something that has only been attained in the West and in recent civilization. It was necessary that man should first feel himself to be in a sphere of unreality when in contact with everything that is most valuable to him—his art, his science, his moral concepts, in short his entire spiritual life—and that everything transitory that shone on him should appear to be the only reality. For this reality, rightly contemplated, cannot in any way impair his freedom—the freedom that depends on his being himself a spiritual being who creates in physical and sensuous actuality only a replica of the spirit.
We see, therefore, that “ideology” represents in an extreme form an attitude that we really need in face of such concepts of nature as position, motion, dimensions and numbers. If nature were to provide us with anything other than concepts, it would never make us free. Only if we rise to concepts that will then appear as mere “ideology” to someone who is still stranded at the previous stage, can a new and spiritually real form of the higher world infuse these initially unreal concepts. This is the first step, from which must emerge for man a new form of the spiritual world. And when we encounter the exaggerated notion of “ideology,” those of us who are not bogged down in the immediate opinions of the day but can see beyond them to the world's development, must conclude: it was necessary for man to reach a stage of development at which, looking at only one side of the world and himself, he could speak of “ideology;” it is equally necessary now for him to attain the decision, conviction, power and courage to infuse into this “ideology” a spiritually perceived and experienced world. Otherwise, although perhaps it may be discussed philosophically, the “ideology” will remain merely “ideology.” And as we shall see in the second part of these lectures, which will be devoted to Anthroposophy and Sociology, in that case the forces of decline will quite definitely proliferate.
Before us, then, are two pictures: spiritual world as reality and world of the senses as maya—world of the senses as reality and spiritual world as maya. We need a philosophy of life that is capable of injecting the spiritual world, regarded as “ideology,” with spiritual intuition, spiritual imagination and inspiration, so that what today appears unutterably empty is filled once more with spiritual meaning. At the same time, it must be able to perceive that what the Orient regards as illusion and maya is a reality in the sense that it is a true and faithful replica, a transformation of the spiritual world, which was necessary for the development of humanity in freedom. If we are to reach an understanding of these two diametrically opposed world-pictures, we need a philosophy that can combine them and not just add them together mechanically, one that will develop through its own inner life, not from the one or the other, but in a spiritual progression from human substance itself.
And these world-pictures do ultimately affect everything that we experience spiritually. They certainly condition individual features of life and of human attitudes. As a Central European here in Central Europe, I would rather not give my own opinion on this particular point. I prefer to pass on the opinion expressed some years ago by an Englishman who compared Western and
Central Europe in relation to a certain aspect of spiritual life. This Englishman wanted to exemplify the way in which spiritual life has revealed itself in particular phenomena. He referred to the appearance, at the end of the fifties and beginning of the sixties of the last century, of Buckle's important work, The History of Civilization. Buckle, he noted, views history mainly—if not so exclusively as do the Marxists, for example—in terms of economic drives, so that ultimately spiritual life is taken to arise from the action and interaction of economic forces. We do not always have to condemn a view of this kind; we can take a positive attitude, and say: since man is in part an economic being, a historical consideration of human life from this standpoint also was needed at a certain stage in human development. The Englishman then refers to another book that was produced in Central Europe at the same time as Buckle wrote his History of Civilization—Jacob Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. The Englishman himself observes that a quite different spirit prevails here; Burckhardt describes how men feel, what their attitude to one another is, and how through the opinions they have of each other they enter into certain relationships, which in turn determine other events occurring among them. And the Englishman finally sums up—I am simply quoting his opinion here—by saying that Buckle describes man as he eats and drinks, whilst Burckhardt describes man as he thinks and feels.
And if I may now add something myself: if, as we have heard, the West looks at eternal actuality and derives spiritual life from it, and the Central European looks at what inhabits the realm of the soul, but the soul in its earthly existence, then one would have to add, thirdly, that Eastern man (and in many respects even the East European) describes man as he preaches and sacrifices.
And so we might say, supplementing the Englishman's verdict: in the West, man is described as he eats and drinks (I say this in no pejorative sense); in the Middle region, as he thinks and feels; in the East, as he preaches and sacrifices. In this preaching and sacrificing is operative what I have described as the attitude of the East. Similarly, in the view of history that has become generally familiar today and that is also reflected in the notion of “ideology,” there operates what I have described as the attitude of the West. But we also need to see how in the mode attributed to the Centre, where man is presented as he thinks and feels, the two currents meet. We are called upon today to understand this confluence correctly, by taking a first step that will gradually lead us onward to spirituality.
I will try to sum up in a single image the two attitudes I have sought to represent, in order to show where understanding is really needed between East and West. To do so, I should like to recall that, at a time when the physical and sensuous world, and human existence also, was already felt as maya in the East, he who is called the Buddha encountered in his wanderings the most varied manifestations of human suffering on earth. Among these manifestations was a corpse; death confronted the Buddha, and through contemplation of death he reached his conclusion: Life is Suffering.
This was the tenor of Oriental civilization six hundred years before the establishment of Christianity. Six hundred years later, Christianity was founded, and henceforward we have a significant symbol: the crucifix, the raised cross with the Redeemer, the human body on it. In the West, countless men look at this body, at the image of it; just as countless men, who have become disciples of Buddha, have looked at the body from which Buddha drew his teaching. The East acknowledged: Life is suffering, we long for redemption. Western men, in looking at the image of the dead body, however, did not simply say: Life is suffering! For them, the sight of death became a symbol of resurrection, resurrection of the spirit through inner human power. It became a symbol of the fact that suffering can be redeemed by overcoming the physical; that it is overcome, not by turning away from it in asceticism, but by keeping it in full view, not regarding it as maya, and overcoming it through work, activity, and the vigour of the will. Out of the introspective life of the East arose a contemplation of the dead body, with the conclusion: Life is suffering, man must be redeemed from life. Out of the life of the West, attempting always activity, there arose, at the sight of the body, the view: Life must develop power within itself, so that even the forces of death can be overcome, and human work can do its task in the development of the world.
The one philosophy is old and jaded. Yet it contains things of such great value that, even though we may treat it as senile, we still approach it as something venerable. We honour an old man without expecting him to profess the views of youth. What we encounter in the West, however, has the character of a first step. We have shown what the “ideology” in its attitude must become. It is young, it must develop youthful power in itself so that it may attain spiritual meaning in its own way, just as the Orient did.
In honouring the Orient for its spirituality, there is something we still need to be clear about: we must build up our own spirituality from the first step we have taken here in the West. We must so shape it, however, that we can achieve an understanding with any view that may exist on earth, especially old and venerable ones. This will be possible if, as Central and Western men, we come to understand that, although our philosophy of life has faults, they are the faults of youth.
If we do understand this, it is a summons to have the courage to be strong. If for all our respect, love and admiration for its spirituality, we take what we need from the East, not with passive receptivity, but with a busy activity rooted in what, today, is still perhaps unspiritual in the West, yet contains the germ of spirituality—if we add strength to respect, then we shall do the right thing for human development.
Anthroposophie und Weltentwickelung vom geographischen Standpunkt
Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden! Wie man die Verhältnisse der Erde schildern kann nach dem Prinzip einer physischen Geographie, so lassen sich wohl auch die in diesen Vorträgen schon mehr oder weniger charakterisierten geistigen Impulse, die über die Erde hin wirken, in einer Art geistiger Geographie schildern - insbesondere das Zusammenwirken der östlichen und westlichen Impulse des geistigen Lebens der Menschheit mit all ihren verschiedenen Differenzierungen. Was in dieser Absicht heute gesagt werden soll‚, kann allerdings nur ganz skizzenhaft geschehen; aber es handelt sich auch mehr darum, einen besonderen Gesichtspunkt für mancherlei zu finden, was hier schon charakterisiert worden ist, als um eine ganz eingehende Schilderung.
Wenn nach dem Osten geschaut wird — von dessen Verhältnis zum Westen so häufig das symbolische Wort gebraucht wird, das Licht komme aus dem Osten —, dann erhält der westliche Mensch, der Mensch der neueren Zivilisation überhaupt, doch den Eindruck eines traumhaften Geisteslebens. Gegenüber der Gewöhnung des modernen Geisteslebens an scharfumrissene, scharfkonturierte Begriffe, an Begriffe, die sich eng anlehnen an das, was äußerliche Beobachtung werden kann, nehmen sich die vielfach beweglichen, fluktuierenden, nicht so unmittelbar an Äußerliches in scharfen Konturen sich anlehnenden Vorstellungen des Ostens traumhaft aus. Wobei man allerdings sagen muß, daß aus diesem traumhaften Geistesleben, das sich ja in den herrlichsten Dichtungen, in den Veden, ausgelebt hat, wiederum die scharfen Begriffe einer umfassenden Philosophie, etwa der Vedantaphilosophie, sich entwickelt haben; Begriffe, die nicht gewonnen sind durch Vergleich äußerer Tatsachen, durch Analyse; Begriffe, die, ich möchte sagen, herausgeboren sind aus dem innerlich erlebten, innerlich ergriffenen Geistesleben.
Wenn dieses traumhafte Geistesleben aber auf uns wirkt, wenn wir uns mit einer gewissen inneren Liebe diesem Geistesleben hingeben und zunächst nicht darauf achten, wie sehr es von dem unsrigen verschieden ist, dann bekommen wir doch einen eigentümlichen Eindruck. Man kann nämlich bei diesem Geistesleben, wenn man es, ich möchte sagen, in seinen verschiedenen Konfigurationen in der Breite auf seine Seele wirken läßt, nicht stehenbleiben. Man kann nicht Vorstellungen, Ideen, die man da empfängt, einfach aufnehmen. Indem man solche Vorstellungen, solche Ideen empfängt, sei es aus der Dichtung, sei es aus der Philosophie des Ostens, auch aus den Gestaltungen dieser Dichtung, dieser Philosophie, die sich als altgewordene im Orient bis heute erhalten haben, dann bekommt man ein inneres geistiges Bedürfnis, über diese Bilder, über diese Ideen, über diese Vorstellungen hinauszugehen; und es taucht vor dem Seelenblick dann etwas auf. Wir können oftmals gar nicht anders, wenn solch eine orientalische Idee auftaucht von dem Verhältnis, wie sich der Mensch nähert dem Geheimnis und dem geheimnisvollen Schaffen der Natur und der Welt, wir können nicht anders, wenn wir dieses Bild auf uns wirken lassen, als vor uns im Geiste das erwachsen zu lassen, was auch dem Orient Symbolum ist für einen solchen Begriff: die Lotusblume, wie sie ihre Blätter herumschlingt um das, was geheimnisvoll verborgen sein soll. Und wenn wir uns mit einiger Liebe hineinversenken in die vielfach beweglichen Begriffe, in die Begriffe, welche mehr geeignet sind, die äußeren Dinge zart zu berühren und wie mit einem Nebelhauch zu umgeben, als sie in scharfen Konturen zu fassen, können wir nicht anders, wenn wir uns in die Verzweigungen dieser Begriffe, in dieses sich Verschlingende hineinversetzen, als vor unserer Seele auftauchen zu sehen die ganze sich verschlingende, verästelnde Vegetation des Orients und auch alles das, was dann die menschliche Hand, der menschliche Geist und die Kultur aus Steinen und anderen Arbeitsprodukten hervorgebracht hat im Sinne dieser verfließenden, sich verzweigenden Begriffe. Man darf sagen: die Seele kann gar nicht anders, wenn sie sich in diese Vorstellungen, in diese Begriffe vertieft, als vor sich eine Natur aufgehen zu sehen, die in ihrem Leben, in ihrer ganzen Mannigfaltigkeit, in ihrem phantasievollen Wirken dem ähnlich ist, was von der Seele in den Begriffen, in den Vorstellungen dieses orientalischen Geistesschaffens erlebt wird.
Mir scheint kein äußerer Anlaß vorhanden zu sein, von diesem Geistesschaffen zu einer «getreulichen Naturbeobachtung» überzugehen, sondern es scheint mir, daß in den orientalischen Vorstellungen und Begriffen selber die Impulse liegen dafür, sie nicht einfach hinzunehmen, sondern sie anzuwenden auf die äußere Welt. Und wenn vielleicht die Europäer das Gefühl haben: das läßt sich nicht alles auf die äußere Welt anwenden - eben wegen seiner Verschwommenheit, wegen seines ihnen oftmals phantastisch erscheinenden Charakters —, dann darf man fragen: Ja, wie soll man denn mit scharfkonturierten Begriffen den fluktuierenden, in den mannigfaltigsten Formen schnell wechselnd erscheinenden Wolkengebilden folgen? Solchen Gebilden aber muß man auch folgen in bezug auf das Schaffen der Natur, wenn man dieses Schaffen im unmittelbaren Offenbaren, wie es sich hinstellt vor die menschlichen Sinne und die menschliche Seele, beobachten will.
Warum ist dies so? Mir scheint, es kann keinen anderen Grund dafür geben als den, daß einfach in dem, was da von diesem östlichen Geistesschaffen zu uns herübertönt, ein Element lebt, aus dem es einstmals unmittelbar geschaffen wurde.
In der Zeit, als der Orientale gerade das Großartigste seiner Weltanschauung ausbildete, das sich dann auf die Nachkommen vielfach in dekadentem Zustand übertragen hat, schuf der Osten alles mit hingebender Liebe. In jeder seiner Ideen, in jedem seiner Begriffe und seiner Bilder lebt die Liebe, und die Liebe verspüren wir in diesen Ideen, in diesen Begriffen und Bildern. Die Liebe will. ausfließen in die Objekte. Und sie fließt naturgemäßerweise aus und zaubert das vor unser Seelenauge hin, was der Orientale auch an Symbolen hinstellte — mit innigem Verständnis von manchem, was übersinnlich wirkt —, wenn er hinstellen wollte, was er als Geistiges in den Dingen empfand. Selbstverständlich soll damit nicht behauptet werden, daß eine solche Geisteskonfiguration, etwa über die ganze Erde ausgebreitet, der Weltentwickelung zum vollen Segen gereichen könne. Aber da sie einmal an einem Fleck der Erde aufgetaucht ist und vielfach ihre Wirkung ausgegossen hat über andere Gebiete des Erdenlebens, so muß sie eben gerade in einem Zeitalter, wo Verständigung unter den Menschen herbeigeführt werden soll, unbefangen ins Auge gefaßt werden.
Stellen wir dagegen dasjenige, was ganz gewiß nicht mit minderer Berechtigung, aber in ganz anderer Gestalt, mehr nach dem Westen hin - und wir leben auch in dieser Beziehung durchaus vielfach in diesem Westen drinnen — als eine besondere Anschauung sich entwickelt hat. Da sehen wir, wie als ein Ideal betrachtet wird und betrachtet werden muß, daß man sich gerade zurückzieht vor dem, was unmittelbar die Sinne beobachten, was ausgebreitet da draußen im Raum und in der Zeit liegt, und daß man das, was die Natur darbietet, was zum Weltgeheimnis führen soll, nach räumlicher Lage, nach Bewegung, nach Maß und Gewicht prüft, daß man das, was sich unmittelbar dem Auge darstellt, zerschneidet, unter das Mikroskop nimmt und dann sich Vorstellungen bildet, die sich eben nur unter dem Mikroskop ergeben können.
Versetzen wir uns nur einmal recht in unsere Laboratorien: wie wir dann ausgerüstet sind mit diesen Begriffen, die im Grunde genommen ganz abseits von der unmittelbaren Beobachtung gewonnen werden. Wie betrachten wir heute das durch die Welt flutende Licht! Wie betrachten wir es mit abgezogenen Begriffen! Sie müssen ja sein, sonst würden wir nicht zum Verständnis kommen. Aber wie weit ist das entfernt, was wir in unserem geistigen Schaffen von dem Licht und den Farben vielfach verzeichnet finden, von dem, was uns entgegentritt in Wald und Wiese, in Wolkengebilden, bei der Sonne. Wir können sagen, das, was wir ausbilden in unseren scharfkonturierten Begriffen mit der Waage, mit dem Maßstab, mit den verschiedensten Arten von Zählapparaten und so weiter, was uns in gewisse Untiefen des Naturdaseins hineinführt und manches Rätsel löst, das bringt uns zunächst nicht an die unmittelbare Naturbeobachtung heran. Man kann gut sagen, der Mensch wende seine Aufmerksamkeit der Sinnesbeobachtung zu und versuche dann, aus der Sinnesbeobachtung seine Weltanschauung zu gewinnen. Das ist ja im Grunde genommen gar nicht der Fall. Weit entfernt ist das, was wir als wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung begründen, von dem, was die Sinne beobachten.
Wir müssen eigentlich sagen: Wenn wir, mit dem Rüstzeug unserer Wissenschaft - mit dem wir vielleicht gerade die schönsten Früchte unserer gegenwärtigen Naturwissenschaft gewonnen haben — ausgestattet, unsere Erkenntnis begründen, dann müssen wir, wenn wir wiederum an die Natur herankommen wollen, erst etwas in unserer Seele umschalten. Sind wir Botaniker, haben wir viel mikroskopiert, haben wir das Leben der Zellen kennengelernt, haben wir uns Vorstellungen gemacht aus der atomisierenden Art von heute, dann müssen wir in der Seele etwas umschalten, um wiederum Liebe zu haben zu der unmittelbaten blühenden und grünenden Pflanzenwelt. Wir müssen, wenn wir uns eine naturwissenschaftliche Vorstellung gemacht haben vom Bau des Tieres und des Menschen, etwas in uns wiederum umschalten, wenn wir vordringen wollen zur unmittelbaren Beobachtung der tierischen Gestalt und Tätigkeit, wenn wir uns freuen sollen, wie sich das Tier auf der Wiese tummelt, oder wenn es uns seinen melancholischen oder stieren Blick zuwendet oder uns zutraulich anschaut. Ebenso müssen wir etwas in unserer Seele umschalten, wenn wir uns hineinversetzen wollen in das, was das Auge schauen kann, indem es den Blick richtet auf die menschliche Gestalt, die Flächengestaltung verfolgt mit künstlerischem Blick und so weiter. Der Orientale braucht nicht umzuschalten. Das was er seine Wissenschaft nannte, führte ihn, indem er es von Liebe durchseelt erlebte, hinaus zu der unmittelbaren Anschauung. Die war ganz unmittelbar das Echo dessen, was er in der Seele erlebte.
Das sind Stimmungsunterschiede in der Welt- und Lebensauffassung in Ost und West. Und diese Stimmungsunterschiede wirken in dem Menschen der Mitte in der mannigfaltigsten Weise zusammen. Denn in dem, was wir in unserer Seele wissenschaftlich, künstlerisch, religiös erleben, da flutet vieles von jener Stimmung, die ich eben ein wenig zu charakterisieren versuchte als die aus dem Orient herüberwehende. In anderer Beziehung waltet aber in uns wiederum etwas von dem Welterleben, das entzündet ist von jener Wissenschaftlichkeit, die der Westen ausgebildet hat, die, ich möchte sagen, eine junge Wissenschaftlichkeit und Erkenntnis ist gegenüber der altgewordenen des Ostens. Und in jeder Seele der mittleren Zivilisation fluten diese beiden Strömungen zusammen. Im Grunde genommen ist das Leben, das uns gerade in Europa umgibt, ein Zusammenfluten, ein solches Zusammenfluten, daß wir heute gar sehr nötig haben, mit vollem Verständnis hineinzuschauen in das, was da zusammenflutet.
Man kann noch in anderer Weise charakterisieren, wie die Stimmungen des Ostens und des Westens einander in unserem gegenwärtigen Geistesleben berühren.
Aus dem eben für den Osten Geschilderten geht für den Orientalen eines hervor. Indem er sich in sein Geistesleben einlebt, erlebt er dieses Geistesleben als unmittelbare Realität, er trägt es unmittelbar in seiner Seele als die ihm selbstverständliche Wirklichkeit. Dann erscheint ihm die äußere Natur, überhaupt die ganze äußere Welt bis zu den Sternengebilden hinauf, wie ein Echo, das aber im Grunde genommen dasselbe ist wie das, was er in seinem Innern trägt. Allein was ihm da wie ein Echo entgegentönt, was ihm wie ein Widerschein vorkommt, das kann er nicht in demselben Sinn als Wirklichkeit ansprechen, wie er das, was er unmittelbar in seinem Seelischen erlebt, als Wirklichkeit ansprechen kann. Was er im Seelischen erlebt, mit dem ist er verbunden, zu dem sagt er: es Zs£, weil er dessen Sein wie sein eigenes Sein empfindet, weil er daher weiß, welche Art des Seins ihm zukommt. Schaut er hinaus, wo ihm der Widerschein dieses Seienden entgegenleuchtet, dann weiß er in seiner Art: Das hat nicht in demselben Sinn Realität, das ist nicht in demselben Sinn Wirklichkeit. Würde ich es nicht durchleuchten mit dem Licht, das aus meinem eigenen Innern strömt, so wäre es stumm und dunkel. Und indem er dies immer mehr und mehr empfindet, kommt er zu der Seelenstimmung, die da sagt: Wahrheit, Wirklichkeit, sie lebt in dem, was die Seele unmittelbar erfährt. Was ihr da draußen als Widerschein entgegenleuchtet, das ist eben der Schein, das ist die Maja, das ist keine volle Wirklichkeit, das wird erst Wirklichkeit, wenn es von dem berührt wird, was sich durch das eigene menschliche Seeleninnere erst offenbaren muß.
So sehen wir denn, wie da im Osten die Anschauung sich heranbildet, daß die geistige Welt die Wirklichkeit ist, daß die äußere Welt, die äußere sinnliche Welt, die scheinende Welt ist, die große Täuschung, die Maja. Man darf deshalb aber nicht glauben, daß der Orientale etwa seinen Blick —- so in der vorbuddhistischen Zeit durchaus abwendet von dieser äußeren Welt. Er nimmt sie hin, wenn er auch in einem höheren Sinn sich eben in seiner Art gestehen muß, er habe es in dem, was ausgebreitet in Raum und Zeit liegt, nicht mit der vollen Wirklichkeit, sondern mit einem Schein zu tun, mit dem großen Nichtsein, mit der Maja. Das aber gießt wiederum eine besondere Stimmung aus über das Seelenleben des Orients, die Stimmung, durch die sich die Seele verbunden fühlt mit einer geistigen Welt und durch die sie dazu kommt, in all dem, was da lebt in der äußeren Sinneswelt, gewissermaßen ein Abbild zu sehen der wahren Urgestalt der Welt, die im Geiste vorhanden ist. Das aber dehnt sich zuletzt zu der Anschauung aus, daß auch die eigene menschliche Sinneswesenheit ein Abbild ist eines Menschenwesens, das in der geistigen Welt urständet. Und da möchte man sagen: In einer durchaus einheitlichen Weise schaut der Orientale die äußere Welt an als Welt von Abbildern einer geistigen Welt, ebenso wie er sich selbst als Abbild dessen ansieht, was er war, bevor er heruntergestiegen ist in die physisch-sinnliche Welt. Beide, Menschenanschauung und Naturanschauung, stehen von seinem Gesichtspunkt aus durchaus im Einklang.
Wie aber dieser Einklang möglich ist, wie er zwar nicht mehr unseren Anschauungen angemessen ist, wie er aber doch, wenn auch in einer gewissen einseitigen Weise, eine Wahrheit zum Ausdruck bringt, das kann sich uns wiederum zeigen, wenn wir mit den Methoden geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschung, die ich in diesen Tagen hier geschildert habe, selber an die Betrachtung dieser orientalischen Erkenntnisstimmung herantreten.
Ich habe ja auseinandergesetzt, wie man durch das Erwecken in der Seele schlummernder Kräfte zu einer Anschauung der geistigen Welt auch in einem Sinne kommen kann, der dem heutigen, dem modernen Menschen angemessen ist, wie man da wiederum hineinschauen kann in eine geistige Welt, wie sich eine geistige Welt für den Menschen, für sein Geistesauge ebenso auszubreiten beginnt, wie sich für das Sinnesauge die physisch-sinnliche Welt ausbreitet. Bildet man aber diese Anschauung weiter aus, dann bleibt die geistige Welt nicht etwa bloß das pantheistische, nebulose Gebilde eines allgemein Geistigen, sondern dann wird die geistige Welt in den einzelnen Gebilden so konkret, wie die sinnliche Welt in den einzelnen Gebilden der Naturreiche konkret ist. Dann aber ergibt sich eine Anschauung über den Menschen, die ich heute zunächst vergleichsweise charakterisieren will.
Nehmen wir einmal die Tatsache, die sich für uns in jedem Augenblick unseres Lebens ergibt: daß wir eine äußere Erfahrung, ein äußeres Erlebnis haben. Wir stehen zunächst in dieser äußeren Erfahrung, diesem äußeren Erlebnis drinnen, wir stehen mit unserer Sinneswahrnehmung drinnen, wir erleben es vielleicht auch, indem wir unseren Willen in Bewegung bringen, indem wir uns betätigen. Wir leben uns mit den Tatsachen der Außenwelt zusammen. Das ist für uns ein unmittelbar gegenwärtiges Erlebnis. Aus solchen Erlebnissen setzt sich im Grunde genommen das menschliche Erdendasein zusammen. Wir behalten von solchen Erlebnissen die Gedankenbilder, die dann unsere Erinnerungen sind. Wir blicken auf unsere Erlebnisse zurück, indem wir die abgeblaßten, die schattenhaften, eben die gedankenhaften Bilder der Erlebnisse in uns tragen.
Man sei in dieser Beziehung nur ganz ehrlich mit sich selber und frage einmal das gegenwärtige Bewußtsein, ob inhaltlich in ihm in irgendeinem Lebensaugenblicke viel mehr darinnen ist als die Erinnerungen an äußere tatsächliche Sinneserlebnisse. Gewiß, mancher nebulose Mystiker vermeint, daß er aus den Tiefen seiner Seele allerlei Ewiges heraufhole. Wenn er genauer zusehen würde, wenn er in der Lage wäre, diese Seelengebilde, die er da heraufholt, wirklich zu prüfen, würde er finden, daß sie in der Regel nichts weiter sind als umgebildete äußere Wahrnehmungen. Im Innern des Menschen werden die Erinnerungen nicht nur treulich bewahrt, sie werden vielfach umgestaltet, und dann erkennt sie der Mensch nicht wieder, er glaubt als Mystiker irgend etwas aus den Tiefen seiner Seele hervorzuholen, während er nur ein umgestaltetes äußeres Erlebnis aus der Erinnerung heraufgeholt hat.
Gewiß, wir brauchen uns nur an die mathematischen Wahrheiten zu erinnern, so werden wir wissen, daß sich allerlei innere Strukturen hineinleben in das, was Seelenleben ist. Allein diese inneren Strukturen sucht in der Regel der Mystiker nicht. Derjenige aber, der das alltägliche Seelenleben unbefangen hinnehmen will, wie es sich im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein darstellt, muß sagen: Dieses Seelenleben ist die Summe von Bildern, die die Reste sind unserer Erlebnisse, die zustande gekommen ‘ sind durch Wahrnehmungen, und anderer Erlebnisse innerhalb der äußeren sinnlichen Tatsachenwelt; so daß wir, wenn wir auf unser Seelisches hinblicken und auch auf das dieses Seelische durchdringende Geistige, wie wir es zunächst im physischen Erdenleben haben, dann sagen können: Da draußen ist die physische Welt im Raume ausgebreitet, die Welt, die in der Zeit ihre Ursachen und Wirkungen entfaltet, die Welt der Tatsachen also. Hier drinnen ist die Welt der Seelenschatten, die wir zwar im ganzen als ein Seelisch-Lebendiges erleben, ihrem Inhalte nach aber eben durchaus nur als Abbild einer Tatsachenwelt, einer Sinneswelt. Nun, so paradox es für heutige Anschauung noch vielfach klingt: für die Anschauung, die ich in diesen Tagen hier entwickelt habe, stellt sich auch das Umgekehrte ein. Wenn Geistiges in der Welt wirklich erlebt wird, Geistiges innerhalb der Naturerscheinungen, wie es sich dem leeren Bewußtsein aus der Meditation heraus ergibt, wenn Geistiges beobachtet wird als das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen selber, wie er ist, bevor er heruntergestiegen ist in sein leibliches Dasein aus einer geistigen Welt, wenn so das konkrete Geistige wirklich durch das erschlossene Geistesorgan beobachtet wird, wenn die Welt um uns herum ebenso zu einer geistigen wird, wie sie für unsere Sinne eine sinnliche, eine physische ist, dann beginnen wir auch, wie in einer Erinnerung an die Zeiten, wo wir als geistig-seelische Wesen in den rein geistig-seelischen Welten gelebt haben, unsere physische Organisation zu erschauen: wie sie in ihren Einzelheiten ein Abbild dessen ist, was als geistige Welt um uns herum ist. Wir können ja mit Physiologie und Anatomie unsere Lunge, unser Herz, unsere übrigen Organe nur als Außendinge betrachten; dann aber, wenn wir in der Lage sind, die geistige Umwelt um uns herum zu schauen, dann wird uns das, was nun tatsächlich in unserem Innern ist als Lunge, als Herz, zum im Physischen bestehenden Abbild desjenigen, was geistig vorgebildet ist. So wie in unserem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein die Welt draußen physisch ist und unser Seelisches sich die Abbilder schafft und sie als Erlebnisse hat, so erfahren wir, daß da draußen eine geistige Welt ist und daß die Abbilder dieser geistigen Welt in unseren eigenen Organen vorhanden sind. Wir lernen jetzt den Menschen erst in seiner Gliederung kennen, wenn wir die geistige Welt kennenlernen. Und dann hört auch das, was man gewöhnlich Stoff nennt, auf, dieselbe Bedeutung zu haben, die es angenommen hat in der neueren Zivilisation, ebenso wie der Geist aufhört, die Bedeutung des Abstrakten zu haben, desjenigen, was er eben innerhalb der neueren Zivilisation geworden ist. Dann sehen wir, wie in der Tat in dem, was in uns organisch arbeitet, ein Abbild dessen vorhanden ist, was wir waren, bevor wir zum Erdendasein heruntergestiegen sind.
Und jetzt tritt das ein, daß uns sogar der Materialismus, insofern er berechtigt ist - und auch er hat ja sein Gutes gebracht, hat uns unzählige Erkenntnisse gebracht —, nicht mehr erschreckt. Wir schauen hin auf das menschliche Gehirn, auf das menschliche Nervensystem in seiner physischen Arbeit. Wir gestehen uns zwar, daß das gewöhnliche, alltägliche Denken eine Funktion dieser physischen Organe ist. Wir sind durchaus im Einklang mit dem, was eine strenge Wissenschaft heute in bezug auf diese Dinge behaupten muß. Aber wir wissen auf der anderen Seite, daß das, was da in materiellen Formen in uns arbeitet, eben das umgewandelte Nachbild von Geistigem ist. Es darf materiell sein, weil das Materielle eine Umwandlung des Geistigen ist, weil das Geistige sich, indem es sich in den Erdenmenschen verwandelt hat, die materielle Fähigkeit des Gehirns, der Nerven gesucht hat, um im materiellen Abbild das zu vollziehen, was geistig vorgebildet ist.
Das tritt vor das geistige Auge des modernen Menschen durch die Entwickelung jener Erkenntniskräfte, von denen ich in diesen Tagen gesprochen habe. Aber ich möchte sagen, eben ein traumhaftes Vorbild davon ist vorhanden in jener orientalischen Weltanschauung, die ich in ein paar Strichen skizzieren konnte, die heute alt und greisenhaft geworden ist, die aber noch immer mit gewissen Eigentümlichkeiten in unsere Herzens- und Seelenbildung hereinwirkt. Geahnt hat dieser alte Orient in seiner instinktiven Hellsichtigkeit, daß die geistige Welt eine Realität ist, mit der er sich verbunden fühlte, und daß die Natur mit dem, was am Menschen selber Natur ist, ein Abbild des Geistigen ist, daß durch sie als äußerer Schein das zur Offenbarung kommt, was innerlich geistig ist.
Man sage nur nicht, daß der Orientale nicht die Natur beobachtet habe. Er hat feine Organe für die Naturbeobachtung gehabt. Aber ihm leuchtete aus all dem, was er als Abbild treulich beobachtete, in Liebe verehrte, eben ein Geistiges entgegen. Natur enthüllte für ihn Geist, strahlte ihm überall Geist entgegen. Und diesen Geist nannte er seine Wirklichkeit. Das aber, was sich äußerlich ausbreitete, das war ihm Maja.
Man sieht aber schon am Buddhismus, der ja einen viel größeren Einfluss auf das orientalische Leben gewonnen hat, als man gewöhnlich glaubt, denn er hat die mannigfaltigsten Formen im späteren Leben angenommen, wie das unmittelbare Drinnenstehen in der geistigen Welt im Verlaufe der weiteren Menschheits- und Erdenentwickelung abgedämpft worden ist, wie gewissermaßen der Blick immer weiter und weiter auf die Maja gerichtet worden ist und wie die Empfindung von der großen Täuschung, von dem großen Nichtsein, von der Maja nach und nach die Hauptsache wurde, wie daraus die Stimmung des Erlösungsbedürfnisses von dem, was innerhalb dieser Maja erlebt werden kann, entstand, erlebt insbesondere im Sinne des Buddha, der ja die unmittelbaren Erlebnisse dieser Maja ansah wie eine Summe von Leiden, die auf den Menschen einströmen.
Diese Abdämpfung aber des Drinnenstehens in der geistigen Welt rechtfertigt für uns, wenn wir wiederum zur modernen Geist-Erkenntnis kommen, die altorientalische Weltanschauung als etwas Instinktives, auch Einseitiges zu betrachten, zu dem wir aber mit voller Besonnenheit, mit hellem Bewußtsein wieder kommen müssen. Denn es darf nicht ein zweites Mal in der Weltentwickelung geschehen, daß eine Lähmung eintritt der menschlichen Aktivität gegenüber den Forderungen der irdischen Außenwelt. Der Mensch darf nicht ein zweites Mal eine Flucht in das Geistesleben so anstellen, daß ihn seine Flucht hindert, mit voller Kraft einzugreifen in die Erdenaufgabe, in alles das, was der Orientale vielfach sogar, wenn er es auch aus seiner Konzession an moderne Begriffe heraus nicht so nennt, als die Maja empfindet, während er als die Wirklichkeit das empfindet, was sich in seinem Innern offenbart. Da ist ihm das Licht darinnen, das ihm unmittelbarer Widerglanz des GöttlichGeistigen in der Welt ist.
Nun, dem, was ich da geschildert habe als geistig-geographisch hereinflutend in unser modernes Leben, möchte ich ein anderes Bild gegenüberstellen, ein Bild, das ebenso der menschlichen Geistesentwickelung, der Weltentwickelung entnommen ist, das aber unserer unmittelbaren Gegenwart angehört. Wer sich viel herumbewegt hat in den Sphären, aus denen heute so vieles aufsteigt in unsere auch für Europa in gewisser Beziehung altgewordene Zivilisation, in den Sphären, aus denen Sehnsüchte in sozialer Beziehung, auch soziale Kämpfe aufsteigen, der wird etwas gefunden haben, was ich in der folgenden Art charakterisieren will.
Ich war lange Zeit, ohne daß man mich deshalb, weil das unwahr wäre, sozialistischer Gesinnung anklagen dürfte, Lehrer in sozialistischen Kreisen. Ich war es gerade, um innerhalb dieser Kreise — die Zeit dafür war dazumal noch nicht da, es ist über zwanzig Jahre her - ein Geistesleben zu verbreiten, das zu wirklichkeitsgemäßeren Gestaltungen führen könnte, als diejenigen sind, die aus abstraktem Marxismus oder aus modifiziertem Marxismus und so weiter angestrebt werden und die eben doch in vieler Beziehung unwirklichkeitsgemäß sind. Aber wenn man in diesen Kreisen etwas beobachtet, was als eine Grundstimmung da vorhanden ist — was man erkennen kann als einen Anfang, der aber so tief sitzt in den Seelen, wie die orientalische Majastimmung als ein Ende im Osten drüben in den Seelen sitzt —, dann fällt einem ein Wort schwer auf die Seele, ein Wort, das vieles von unbewußten Empfindungen, unbewußten Ideen und Begriffen, unbewußten Sehnsüchten auch ausdrückt, ein Wort, das man immer wieder und wiederum hören kann, das man seit Jahrzehnten als das Charakteristische empfinden muß innerhalb weiter Kreise der Menschheit. Über Millionen von Menschen ausgebreitet findet sich eine Stimmung, die durch dieses Wort ausgedrückt wird: es ist das Wort Ideologie. Dies Wort hat sich herausgebildet aus jener Anschauung, die gerade die proletarische Klasse in ihre Bildung aufgenommen hat. Da hat sich aus der sich immer mehr und mehr vermaterialisierenden Wissenschaftlichkeit die Anschauung herausgebildet, daß eigentlich die geschichtliche Wirklichkeit nur in Wirtschaftskämpfen, in Wirtschaftsgestaltungen bestehe, in Klassenkämpfen, kurz, in dem, was das unmittelbare äußerlich sinnlich-physisch Materielle am Menschenleben, am geschichtlichen Leben ist, daß also die wirtschaftlichen Kräfte das eigentlich Reale, das Wirkliche sind.
Dieser wirtschaftliche Materialismus, der eine viel größere Ausbreitung hat, als viele Menschen der höheren Klassen heute noch meinen, ist in gewissem Sinne ein Ergebnis der allgemeinen materialistischen Anschauung, die heute sogar wissenschaftlich überwunden geglaubt wird, die aber dennoch gerade in den Stimmungen und Gesinnungen der Seelen des Abendlandes die weitesten Kreise zieht.
Und Ideologie, was heißt das? Das heißt: das Rechtsleben, die Sittlichkeit, das, was im Schönen liegt, die religiösen Begriffe, die Staatsbegriffe, kurz, alles was geistiges Leben ist, das ist keine wahre Wirklichkeit, das ist ein aus der wahren Wirklichkeit, die in den materiellen Kämpfen und Gestaltungen liegt, aufsteigender Schaum und Schein. Ideologie, das soll bezeichnen, daß das, was der Mensch in seinem Innern erlebt, sei es Kunst, sei es Wissenschaft, sei es Recht, seien es Staatsmaximen, seien es religiöse Impulse, eine Maja ist, wenn ich mich jetzt des orientalischen Ausdrucks bedienen darf.
Mit dem Wort Ideologie wird etwas bezeichnet, wenn man es nicht äußerlich, abstrakt nimmt, wenn man empfinden kann, was Millionen von Menschen denken, was die furchtbarsten Dimensionen annehmen muß, wenn es nicht rechtzeitig in ein gutes Fahrwasser hineingebracht wird. Was die Seele innerlich erlebt und gestaltet, ist keine Wirklichkeit, wahre Wirklichkeit ist nur das, was äußerlich in sinnenfälligen Tatsachen lebt!
Und so hat sich innerhalb der abendländischen, der westlichen Zivilisation genau die polarisch entgegengesetzte Stimmung gegenüber derjenigen herausgebildet, die den Orient lange Zeit beherrscht hat und die heute eben greisenhaft, mehr als äußerer Aufputz noch vorhanden ist. Dort: wahre Wirklichkeit, was im Geist erlebt wird — Maja, was äußerlich in physischer Tatsächlichkeit vor sich geht; hier: Maja, Ideologie, was eigentlich die Übersetzung des Wortes Maja, aber jetzt für das geistige Gebiet ist, was im Geist erlebt wird — Wirklichkeit, was sinnenfällig ausgebreitet, als sinnenfällige Tatsächlichkeit in der Welt vorhanden ist.
Die Welt strebt in ihrer Entwickelung nach voller Ausgestaltung ihrer einzelnen Möglichkeiten. Wie die eine Einseitigkeit sich im Orient ausgebildet hat, so mußte die andere Einseitigkeit auch einmal die Menschheit ergreifen. Aber man muß sich, wenn man Entwickelung der Menschheit, wenn man Weltentwickelung in einem fruchtbaren Sinn, in einem solchen Sinn schaffen will, daß wir wiederum aus den Niedergangskräften zu Aufgangskräften kommen, man muß sich nur einmal vor die Seele stellen, was diese Stimmung in der Ideologie eigentlich bedeuten kann. Sie ist Jung, sie ist also ein Anfang.
Wenden wir uns wiederum an das, was uns gerade die moderne geisteswissenschaftliche Anschauung sagen kann, dann werden wir finden: im Orient war instinktiv, dunkel, träumerisch die Erkenntnis vorhanden, daß es eine geistige Wirklichkeit gibt, daß hier im Physischen das Sinnenabbild vorhanden ist von dieser geistigen Wirklichkeit. Weil man vorzugsweise die Aufmerksamkeit der Seele auf die geistige Wirklichkeit richtete, wurde die sinnliche Wirklichkeit eben zur Unwirklichkeit, zum äußeren Schein, zur Maja. Aber diese Maja hat nicht nur für unser äußeres Arbeiten ihre Bedeutung - die Welt mag Maja sein, unsere Arbeit müssen wir ja doch als eine Wirklichkeit für uns Menschen zunächst an diese Maja wenden -, sie hat auch eine Bedeutung für das «Erkenne dich selbst», für eine wahrhaft menschliche Anschauung. Warum? Nun, wir können uns allerdings hinauferheben zu einem Leben in der geistigen Welt, wie ich es geschildert habe, können mit scharfkonturierten Begriffen erschauen und dadurch verstehen, was dem Orient traumhaft erschien. Aber niemals hätten wir innerhalb der Menschheitsentwickelung in dem Erleben einer solchen Welt zu dem Impuls der Freiheit kommen können.
Der Mensch mußte sich aus der geistigen Welt, mit der er sich innerlich verbunden fühlt, aber zu gleicher Zeit von ihr innerlich bestimmt und abhängig, mit seinem Bewußtsein herausentwickeln und sich für eine vorübergehende Epoche geschichtlicher Entwickelung, in der wir ganz drinnenstehen, einer Welt der bloßen Tatsächlichkeit zuwenden. Wenn der Mensch dieser äußeren Tatsächlichkeit gegenübersteht, wird sein Seelenleben zum Bild dieser Tatsächlichkeit. Das, was als Geist dieses Seelenleben durchzieht, das wird zu abstrakten Begriffen, das wird allmählich zu etwas, was bloßes Bild sein muß, was erkannt werden muß in seiner Abbildlichkeit.
Ich habe es schon angedeutet: wenn wir Bilder in uns tragen, können wir frei sein. Spiegelbilder bestimmen uns nicht. Wenn wir uns nach Spiegelbildern richten wollen, die in sich kraftlos sind, so müssen wir uns selbst die Impulse geben. So ist es auch mit dem, was in uns zu abstrakten Begriffen wird. Und indem in uns im reinen Denken das Edelste auftritt, was wir in uns tragen, das Moralisch-Religiöse, wird es für uns zu einem Impuls der Freiheit. Es ist ein wertvollster Inhalt für das menschliche Leben. Aber es tritt in der Epoche, wo der Mensch sich unmittelbar in seiner Anschauung der physischen Tatsächlichkeit gegenübergestellt findet, im abstrakten Denken auf.
Und in dem Moment, wo das Moralische als moralische Intuition im reinen Denken auftritt, da ist die Aufgabe der Epoche erfüllt, die sich aus dem GeistigRealen herausentwickelt hat zu dem Geist des Abstrakten und die, ich möchte sagen, radikalisierend diese Seelenstimmung, nun alles Geistige als eine Maja, als einen bloßen Schein, als Ideologie auffaßt. Wir haben ein gewisses Recht, das alles als eine Ideologie aufzufassen, was Spiegelbild des äußeren natürlichen Daseins ist. In dem Augenblick, wo das Moralische als moralische Intuition seinen Einschlag übt in dieses Majadenken, in diese Ideologie, da ist die erste Stufe erreicht, wo wir wiederum erkennen: diese Ideologie, die in uns erlebt wird als bloßes Bilddasein, muß, indem wir uns selbst energisieren, indem wir inneres Leben, das in uns verborgen ist, hervorsprießen lassen, zu innerlichem Leben erweckt werden. Der Weltinhalt mußte erst für die Menschheit Ideologie werden, damit der Mensch seine Realität in diesen Weltinhalt hineingießen konnte.
Das war notwendig zum Freiheitserlebnis der Menschheit, das ja doch erst ein Erlebnis des Westens, der neueren Zivilisation ist. Das war notwendig in der Weise, daß sich der Mensch zunächst mit all dem, was ihm das Wertvollste ist, mit seiner Kunst, seiner Wissenschaft, seinen Moralbegriffen, kurz, mit all dem, was sein geistiges Leben ist, wie in einem Unrealen erfühlte und daß ihm alles das, was ihm entgegenleuchtet als ein Vergängliches, als die einzige Wirklichkeit erscheint, weil diese Wirklichkeit, wenn sie richtig durchschaut wird, seine Freiheit gar nicht beeinträchtigen kann, insofern er ja doch ein geistiges Wesen ist, das sich in der physisch-sinnlichen Tatsächlichkeit nur ein Abbild des Geistes selbst erschafft.
So können wir fühlen, wie in dem, was als Ideologie auftritt, radikalisiert eine Stimmung da ist, die wir eigentlich haben müssen gegenüber den Begriffen über die Natur, die in Lageverhältnissen, in Bewegung, in Maß und Zahl lebt. Würde die Natur uns etwas anderes überliefern als Begriffe, sie würde uns niemals zu freien Menschen werden lassen. Nur dadurch, daß wir uns zu Begriffen aufschwingen, die dann dem, der zunächst auf dieser Stufe befangen bleibt, nur wie Ideologie erscheinen, kann sich in diese zunächst unrealen Begriffe eine neue real-geistige Form der höheren Welt ergießen. Das ist der Anfang, aus dem sich eine neue Form der geistigen Welt für den Menschen herausgebärten muß. Und wenn uns einseitig das Erlebnis der Ideologie entgegentritt, so muß derjenige, der heute nicht befangen bleibt in den unmittelbaren Tagesanschauungen, sondern der hinzuschauen vermag auf Weltentwickelung, sich sagen: Da es notwendig war, daß der Mensch zu einer solchen Stufe der Entwickelung kommen konnte, wo er, einseitig die Welt und sich anschauend, von Ideologie reden kann, so muß er wiederum zu der Meinung, zu der Überzeugung, zu der Kraft, zu dem Mut kommen, in diese Ideologie hineinzugießen eine geistig geschaute, geistig erlebte Welt. Sonst bleibt, wenn es auch vielleicht philosophisch abdiskutiert wird, die Ideologie eben Ideologie. Und die Niedergangskräfte werden sich - wir werden es im zweiten Teil dieser Vorträge sehen, die über «Anthroposophie und Soziologie» handeln werden - in einem sehr wirklichen Sinn ausbilden.
So stehen zwei Bilder vor uns: die Geisteswelt als Wirklichkeit und die Sinnenwelt als Maja, die Sinnenwelt als Wirklichkeit und die Geisteswelt als Maja. Einzig und allein eine Welt- und Lebensanschauung, die in die ideologisch geschaute Geisteswelt geistige Intuition, geistige Imagination und Inspiration hineinzutragen vermag, so daß das, was heute unsäglich leer erscheint, wiederum erfüllt wird mit geistigem Inhalt, und die zu gleicher Zeit einzusehen vermag, in welchem Sinne doch eine Realität ist, was das Morgenland als einen Schein, als eine Maja empfindet, eine Realität in dem Sinne, daß es ja ein wahres, treues Abbild ist, eine Umwandlung der geistigen Welt, die notwendig war zur Entwickelung der Menschheit in der Freiheit, einzig und allein eine solche Welt- und Lebensauffassung, die so nach diesen beiden Bildern hinblickt, daß sie sie gewissermaßen ineinanderzuschieben vermag, die nicht nur eine trockene, äußere Summe herstellt, sondern die sich durch eigenes inneres Leben weder aus dem einen noch dem anderen, sondern aus der unmittelbaren menschlichen Wesenheit im geistigen Aufschwung herausentwickelt, kann Verständigung für das bringen, was uns als zwei einander so polarisch entgegengesetzte Welttableaus entgegentritt.
Und diese Welttableaus spielen im Grunde genommen in alles das hinein, was wir geistig durchleben. Es ist durchaus so, daß in die Einzelheiten des Lebens, die Einzelheiten der menschlichen Anschauungen diese Stimmungen hineinspielen. Ich möchte es vermeiden, hier als Mitteleuropäer in Mitteleuropa gerade über diesen Punkt ein eigenes Urteil abzugeben. Ich möchte das Urteil mitteilen, das vor einigen Jahren ein Engländer ausgesprochen hat, der West- und Mitteleuropa in bezug auf eine gewisse Seite des geistigen Lebens verglich. Dieser Engländer wollte charakterisieren, wie das geistige Leben in einzelnen Erscheinungen sich präsentiert hat. Er wies darauf hin, wie Ende der fünfziger und Anfang der sechziger Jahre das bedeutsame Werk von Buckle erschienen ist, «Die Geschichte der Zivilisation», und wie dieser Buckle das geschichtliche Leben zum großen Teil aus wirtschaftlichen Impulsen heraus betrachtet, noch nicht so radikal wie zum Beispiel die Marxisten, aber doch aus solchen Impulsen heraus, so daß im Grunde genommen das geistige Leben aufsteigt aus den wirtschaftlichen Kräften in ihrem Zusammen- und Auseinanderwirken. Man muß ja nicht durchaus Kritik an so etwas anlegen, man kann sich zu so etwas positiv verhalten; man kann sagen: Es ist eben einmal, da der Mensch auch ein wirtschaftliches Wesen ist, notwendig geworden in der Menschheitsentwickelung, das Menschenleben geschichtlich auch in diesem Lichte zu sehen. Dann aber weist dieser Engländer hin auf ein anderes Werk, das in Mitteleuropa zu derselben Zeit entstanden ist, als Buckle seine Geschichte der Zivilisation geschrieben hat, das Werk «Die Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien» von Jacob Burckhardt. Der Engländer weist selber darauf hin, wie da ein ganz anderer Geist drinnen waltet; denn Jacob Burckhardt schildert, wie die Menschen fühlen, wie sie gegeneinander gesinnt sind, wie sie durch die Anschauungen, die sie voneinander haben, in gewisse Verhältnisse kommen, wodurch wieder die anderen unter ihnen sich abspielenden Ereignisse bestimmt werden. Und der Engländer faßt dann sein Urteil so zusammen, daß er sagt — ich urteile nicht selbst, ich führe das Urteil des Engländers an —: Buckle schildert den Menschen, wie er ißt und trinkt, Burckhardt schildert den Menschen, wie er denkt und fühlt.
Und jetzt möchte ich etwas hinzu sagen: Wenn wir gehört haben, wie der Westen die äußere Tatsächlichkeit ins Auge faßt und das geistige Leben als Ergebnis daraus entspringen läßt, wie der Mitteleuropäer das, was lebt innerhalb des Seelischen, aber als Seelisches im irdischen Dasein, ins Auge faßt, so wäre als drittes hinzuzufügen: der östliche Mensch, in vieler Beziehung schon der europäisch östliche Mensch, schildert den Menschen, wie er predigt und opfert.
Und so könnten wir sagen, das Urteil des Engländers ergänzend: Im Westen wird der Mensch geschildert, wie er ißt und trinkt — ich sage das nicht in abfälligem Sinne; in der mittleren Welt, wie er denkt und fühlt; in der östlichen, wie er predigt und opfert. Da spielt hinein, in das Predigen und Opfern, was ich als östliche Stimmung mir zu schildern erlaubte. Da spielt hinein, in die Geschichtsbetrachtung, die heute den weitesten Kreisen geläufig geworden ist, die sich auch widerspiegelt in der Empfindung der Ideologie, was ich als westliche Stimmung geschildert habe. Aber wir müssen auch schauen, wie in dem, was in der Mitte geschildert wird, wo der Mensch dargestellt wird, wie er denkt und fühlt, wie da die beiden Strömungen zusammenfließen, wie man heute veranlaßt ist, dieses Zusammenströmen in der richtigen Weise zu verstehen, aus einem Anfang heraus, der sich hinaufarbeiten muß zur Geistigkeit.
Und in ein Bild möchte ich zusammenfassen, was ich als zwei Stimmungen habe darstellen wollen, um zu zeigen, was sich eigentlich verständigen muß zwischen Osten und Westen. Ich möchte das zusammenfassen in einem weiteren Bild, indem ich darauf hinweise, wie in der Zeit, wo schon im Morgenlande die physisch-sinnliche Welt, aber auch das menschliche Leben als Maja empfunden worden ist, wie da derjenige, der der Buddha genannt worden ist, auf seinen Wanderungen die verschiedensten Offenbarungen menschlichen Erdenleids fand, wie unter diesen Offenbarungen auch ein Leichnam ist, wie dem Buddha der Tod gegenübertritt und wie er aus dieser Anschauung des menschlichen Todes zu seiner Folgerung kommt: Leben ist Leiden.
Das ist die Art und Weise, wie sich orientalische Kultur abspielt sechshundert Jahre vor der Begründung des Christentums. Sechshundert Jahre später wird das Christentum begründet und ein bedeutsames Symbolum steht danach da: das des Kruzifixus, das erhobene Kreuz mit dem Erlöser, mit dem toten Menschenkörper darauf. Und unzählige Menschen schauen zu dem Leichnam, zu dem Bild des Leichnams hin im Westen, wie unzählige Menschen, die Anhänger Buddhas geworden sind, nach dem Leichnam hinschauten, von dem Buddha seine Lehre genommen hat. Wie der Osten bekannte: Das Leben ist Leid, wir sehnen uns nach Erlösung — so schauten die westlichen Menschen das Bild des Leichnams, sie aber sprachen nicht aus dem Anblick dieses Leichnams heraus bloß die Worte: Das Leben ist Leid! - Nein, der Anblick des Todes wurde ihnen das Symbolum für eine Auferstehung, für eine Auferstehung des Geistes aus innerer Menschenkraft, das Symbolum dafür, daß das Leid gerade dadurch erlöst werden kann, daß das Physische überwunden wird und daß es nicht etwa überwunden wird in dem Sinne, daß man sich asketisch von ihm abwendet, sondern indem man es voll im Auge behält, gerade nicht als Maja ansieht, aber es überwindet durch Arbeit, durch Tätigkeit, durch die Regsamkeit des Willens. Aus dem beschaulichen Leben des Orients heraus ist entsprungen die Anschauung des Leichnams mit der Folgerung: Leben ist Leid; der Mensch muß erlöst werden von dem Leben. Aus dem nach Tätigkeit hinstrebenden Leben des Abendlandes ist aus dem Anblick des Leichnams hervorgesproßt: Leben muß Kraft in sich entwickeln, damit auch die Kräfte des Todes überwunden werden können und die menschliche Arbeit in der Weltentwickelung ihre Aufgabe verrichten kann.
Die eine Weltanschauung ist alt und greisenhaft. Aber sie trägt so Großes in sich, daß, wenn man sie auch als greisenhaft anspricht, man vor ihr steht als vor etwas Altehrwürdigem. Den Greis verehrt man. Aber man mutet ihm nicht zu, daß er sich zu den Anschauungen der Jugend bekenne. Das aber, was uns im Westen entgegentritt, trägt den Charakter des Anfangs. Wir zeigten, was werden muß aus dem, was als Ideologie in der Stimmung auftritt. Das ist jung, das ist das, was jugendliche Kraft in sich entwickeln muß, damit es auf seine Art zum Geiste gelangt, wie auf seine selbstverständliche Art der Orient zum Geiste gelangt ist.
Verehren wir den Orient wegen seiner Geistigkeit, so müssen wir uns dennoch klar darüber sein: wir müssen unsere eigene Geistigkeit aus unserem abendländischen Anfang heraus bilden. Wir müssen sie aber so gestalten, daß wir uns über die ganze Erde hin mit jeglicher Anschauung, die vorhanden ist, insbesondere mit altehrwürdigen Anschauungen, verständigen können. Das wird der Fall sein können, wenn wir als mittlere und westliche Menschen uns bewußt werden, was es bedeutet: unsere Welt- und Lebensanschauung hat Mängel, aber es sind Mängel der Jugend.
Verstehen wir das, so ist es eine Aufforderung, den Mut zu haben zur Kraft. Stellen wir dem, was wir vom Osten haben müssen, der Ehrfurcht, der Liebe, der Bewunderung vor seiner Geistigkeit, stellen wir dem nicht ein passives Empfangen gegenüber, sondern ein emsiges Arbeiten aus dem, was heute vielleicht noch ungeistig ist im Westen, was aber den Keim der Geistigkeit in sich trägt, stellen wir zu der Ehrfurcht die Kraft hin, dann werden wir das Richtige tun für die Menschheitsentwickelung.
Anthroposophy and World Development from a Geographical Point of View
Ladies and gentlemen! Just as the conditions on Earth can be described according to the principles of physical geography, so too can the spiritual impulses that influence the Earth, which have already been more or less characterized in these lectures, be described in a kind of spiritual geography—in particular, the interaction of the Eastern and Western impulses of the spiritual life of humanity with all its various differentiations. What is to be said today with this intention can, of course, only be done in a very sketchy way; but it is more a matter of finding a special point of view for many things that have already been characterized here than of giving a very detailed description.
When we look to the East—whose relationship to the West is so often symbolized by the saying that light comes from the East—Westerners, indeed people of modern civilization in general, get the impression of a dreamlike spiritual life. Compared to the modern spiritual life, which is accustomed to sharply defined, sharply contoured concepts, concepts that are closely based on what can be observed externally, the often mobile, fluctuating ideas of the East, which are not so directly based on external observations with sharp contours, seem dreamlike. It must be said, however, that from this dreamlike spiritual life, which found expression in the most magnificent poetry, in the Vedas, the sharp concepts of a comprehensive philosophy, such as Vedanta philosophy, developed; concepts that were not gained through comparison of external facts, through analysis; concepts that, I would say, were born out of an inner experience, an inner spiritual life.
But when this dreamlike spiritual life affects us, when we surrender ourselves to it with a certain inner love and do not initially pay attention to how different it is from our own, we get a peculiar impression. For when we allow this spiritual life, in its various configurations, to have a broad effect on our soul, we cannot remain static. We cannot simply absorb the images and ideas that we receive. By receiving such concepts, such ideas, whether from poetry or from Eastern philosophy, or even from the forms of this poetry and philosophy, which have survived in the Orient to this day, one develops an inner spiritual need to go beyond these images, these ideas, these concepts; and then something appears before the soul's eye. When such an Eastern idea emerges about the relationship between human beings and the mystery and mysterious workings of nature and the world, we often cannot help but let this image work on us and allow what is also a symbol in the East for such a concept to grow before our spiritual eyes: the lotus flower, as it spreads its leaves around us. we cannot help, when we allow this image to work on us, but to let grow before us in our minds what is also the symbol in the Orient for such a concept: the lotus flower, as it wraps its petals around that which is to remain mysteriously hidden. And when we immerse ourselves with some love in the multifaceted concepts, in the concepts that are more suited to delicately touching external things and surrounding them with a misty haze than to grasping them in sharp contours, we cannot help but see before our soul the whole intertwining, branching vegetation of the Orient and also everything that the human hand, the human spirit, and culture have produced from stones and other products of labor in the sense of these flowing, branching concepts. It can be said that when the soul delves into these ideas, into these concepts, it cannot help but see before it a nature that, in its life, in all its diversity, in its imaginative activity, resembles what is experienced by the soul in the concepts, in the ideas of this Oriental intellectual creation.
There seems to me to be no external reason to move from this spiritual creation to a “faithful observation of nature”; rather, it seems to me that the Oriental ideas and concepts themselves provide the impetus not simply to accept them, but to apply them to the external world. And if Europeans perhaps have the feeling that not all of this can be applied to the external world—precisely because of its vagueness, because of its character, which often seems fantastical to them—then one may ask: Yes, how can one follow the fluctuating cloud formations, which appear in the most diverse forms and change rapidly, with sharply contoured concepts? But such formations must also be followed in relation to the workings of nature if one wants to observe these workings in their immediate manifestation, as they present themselves to the human senses and the human soul.
Why is this so? It seems to me that there can be no other reason for this than that there is simply an element alive in what echoes over to us from this Eastern spiritual creation, from which it was once directly created.
At the time when the Orientals were developing the most magnificent aspects of their worldview, which was then passed on to their descendants in a largely decadent state, the East created everything with devoted love. Love lives in each of its ideas, in each of its concepts and images, and we feel this love in these ideas, concepts, and images. Love wants to flow into objects. And it naturally flows out and conjures up before our mind's eye what the Oriental also presented in symbols — with a deep understanding of many things that seem supernatural — when he wanted to present what he perceived as spiritual in things. Of course, this is not to say that such a spiritual configuration, spread across the entire earth, could be a blessing for world development. But since it has appeared in one part of the world and has often spread its influence to other areas of earthly life, it must be viewed impartially, especially in an age when understanding among people is to be brought about.
Let us contrast this with what has developed as a special view, certainly with no less justification, but in a completely different form, more towards the West — and in this respect we also live in many ways within this West. Here we see how it is considered, and must be considered, ideal to withdraw from what the senses directly observe, what lies spread out there in space and time, and that one examines what nature presents, what is supposed to lead to the mystery of the world, according to spatial location, movement, measure, and weight, that one cuts up what is immediately visible to the eye, places it under the microscope, and then forms ideas that can only arise under the microscope.
Let us just imagine ourselves in our laboratories: how we are then equipped with these concepts, which are basically gained quite apart from direct observation. How we view the light flooding through the world today! How we view it with abstract concepts! They must exist, otherwise we would not be able to understand. But how far removed is what we find recorded in our intellectual work about light and colors from what we encounter in forests and meadows, in cloud formations, in the sun. We can say that what we develop in our sharply contoured concepts with scales, with measuring sticks, with various types of counting devices and so on, which leads us into certain depths of natural existence and solves many a mystery, does not initially bring us closer to the immediate observation of nature. One could well say that human beings turn their attention to sensory observation and then try to derive their worldview from sensory observation. But that is not actually the case. What we establish as a scientific worldview is far removed from what the senses observe.
We must actually say: when we base our knowledge on the tools of our science – with which we may have gained the most beautiful fruits of our current natural science – then we must first switch something in our soul if we want to approach nature again. If we are botanists, if we have spent a lot of time looking through microscopes, if we have learned about the life of cells, if we have formed ideas based on today's atomizing approach, then we must switch something in our souls in order to once again feel love for the immediately visible flowering and green plant world. If we have formed a scientific idea of the structure of animals and humans, we must switch something in ourselves again if we want to advance to the direct observation of animal form and activity, if we are to rejoice in how the animal frolics in the meadow, or when it turns its melancholic or dull gaze toward us or looks at us trustingly. Likewise, we must switch something in our soul if we want to put ourselves in the place of what the eye can see when it focuses on the human form, follows the design of surfaces with an artistic eye, and so on. The Oriental does not need to switch gears. What he called his science led him, as he experienced it imbued with love, to immediate perception. This was quite directly the echo of what he experienced in his soul.
These are differences in mood in the worldview and outlook on life in the East and West. And these differences in mood interact in the most diverse ways in the person in the middle. For in what we experience in our soul scientifically, artistically, and religiously, much of that mood flows in which I have just tried to characterize a little as coming from the Orient. In another respect, however, something of the world experience that has been ignited by the scientific approach developed in the West prevails in us, which, I would say, is a young scientific approach and knowledge compared to the old one of the East. And in every soul of the middle civilization, these two currents flow together. Basically, the life that surrounds us in Europe today is a confluence, a confluence that we very much need to look into with full understanding.
There is another way to characterize how the moods of the East and West touch each other in our present spiritual life.
From what has just been described for the East, one thing emerges for the Oriental. As he becomes accustomed to his spiritual life, he experiences this spiritual life as an immediate reality; he carries it directly in his soul as a reality that is self-evident to him. Then external nature, indeed the whole external world up to the constellations, appears to him like an echo, but one that is basically the same as what he carries within himself. However, what echoes back to him, what appears to him as a reflection, he cannot address as reality in the same sense as he can address what he experiences directly in his soul as reality. He is connected to what he experiences in his soul, and he says to it: it is, because he feels its being as his own being, because he therefore knows what kind of being it is. When he looks out, where the reflection of this being shines back at him, he knows in his own way: this does not have reality in the same sense, it is not reality in the same sense. If I did not illuminate it with the light that streams from within myself, it would be silent and dark. And as he feels this more and more, he comes to the soul mood that says: Truth, reality, it lives in what the soul experiences directly. What shines back at you out there as a reflection is just an illusion, it's Maya, it's not full reality, it only becomes reality when it's touched by what has to be revealed through your own human soul.
So we see how the view develops in the East that the spiritual world is reality, that the outer world, the outer sensory world, is the illusory world, the great deception, the Maya. However, one should not believe that Orientals turn their gaze away from this outer world, as was certainly the case in pre-Buddhist times. They accept it, even though in a higher sense they must admit that what lies spread out in space and time is not full reality, but an illusion, the great non-existence, Maya. This, in turn, casts a special mood over the spiritual life of the Orient, a mood through which the soul feels connected to a spiritual world and through which it comes to see, in all that lives in the outer sensory world, a kind of reflection of the true archetype of the world that exists in the spirit. This ultimately expands into the view that one's own human sensory being is also an image of a human being that originated in the spiritual world. And here one might say: in a thoroughly consistent manner, the Oriental views the outer world as a world of images of a spiritual world, just as he views himself as an image of what he was before he descended into the physical-sensory world. From his point of view, both his view of humanity and his view of nature are in complete harmony.
But how this harmony is possible, how it is no longer appropriate to our views, yet how it nevertheless expresses a truth, albeit in a somewhat one-sided way, can be revealed to us when we approach this Oriental attitude of knowledge ourselves using the methods of spiritual scientific research that I have described here in recent days.
I have explained how, by awakening the powers slumbering in the soul, one can arrive at a view of the spiritual world that is appropriate to modern man, how one can look into a spiritual world, how a spiritual world begins to unfold for man, for his spiritual eye, just as the physical . But if we develop this view further, then the spiritual world does not remain merely the pantheistic, nebulous construct of a general spirituality, but then the spiritual world becomes as concrete in its individual forms as the sensory world is concrete in the individual forms of the natural kingdoms. But then a view of the human being emerges, which I would like to characterize comparatively today.
Let us take the fact that arises for us at every moment of our lives: that we have an external experience, an external event. We are initially inside this external experience, this external event; we are inside it with our sensory perception; we may also experience it by setting our will in motion, by taking action. We live together with the facts of the outside world. For us, this is an immediately present experience. Human existence on earth is basically composed of such experiences. We retain the mental images of such experiences, which then become our memories. We look back on our experiences by carrying within us the faded, shadowy, mental images of those experiences.
In this regard, one should be completely honest with oneself and ask one's present consciousness whether, in terms of content, there is much more in it at any moment in life than the memories of external, actual sensory experiences. Certainly, some nebulous mystics believe that they are bringing up all kinds of eternal things from the depths of their souls. If they were to look more closely, if they were able to really examine these soul formations that they are bringing up, they would find that, as a rule, they are nothing more than transformed external perceptions. Inside human beings, memories are not only faithfully preserved, they are often transformed, and then people do not recognize them again. As mystics, they believe they are bringing forth something from the depths of their souls, when in fact they have only brought forth a transformed external experience from their memories.
Certainly, we need only remember mathematical truths to know that all kinds of inner structures are embedded in what constitutes soul life. But mystics do not usually seek these inner structures. Those who want to accept everyday soul life impartially, as it appears in ordinary consciousness, must say: this soul life is the sum of images that are the remnants of our experiences, which have come about through perceptions and other experiences within the external world of sensory facts; so that when we look at our soul life and also at the spiritual that permeates this soul life, as we initially have it in physical earthly life, we can say: Out there, the physical world is spread out in space, the world that unfolds its causes and effects in time, the world of facts, that is. In here is the world of soul shadows, which we experience as a whole as something soul-like and alive, but in terms of its content, it is only an image of a world of facts, a world of the senses. Now, as paradoxical as it may still sound to today's view, for the view that I have developed here in recent days, the opposite is also true. When the spiritual is truly experienced in the world, the spiritual within natural phenomena, as it emerges from empty consciousness through meditation, when the spiritual is observed as the spiritual-soul aspect of the human being himself, as he is before he descended into his physical existence from a spiritual world, when the concrete spiritual is truly observed through the developed spiritual organ, when the world around us becomes just as spiritual as it is sensory and physical to our senses, then we also begin to perceive our physical organization as if in a memory of the times when we lived as spiritual-soul beings in purely spiritual-soul worlds: how it is in its details a reflection of what is around us as the spiritual world. With physiology and anatomy, we can only view our lungs, our heart, and our other organs as external things; but when we are able to see the spiritual environment around us, then what is actually inside us as lungs and heart becomes the physical image of what is spiritually preformed. Just as in our ordinary consciousness the world outside is physical and our soul creates images of it and experiences them, so we learn that there is a spiritual world out there and that the images of this spiritual world are present in our own organs. We now get to know the human being in his structure when we get to know the spiritual world. And then what is usually called matter ceases to have the same meaning that it has assumed in modern civilization, just as the spirit ceases to have the meaning of the abstract, of what it has become within modern civilization. Then we see how, in fact, what works organically within us is a reflection of what we were before we descended to earthly existence.
And now it happens that even materialism, insofar as it is justified — and it too has brought us good things, countless insights — no longer frightens us. We look at the human brain, at the human nervous system in its physical work. We admit that ordinary, everyday thinking is a function of these physical organs. We are in complete agreement with what rigorous science must assert today in relation to these things. But on the other hand, we know that what works within us in material forms is precisely the transformed afterimage of the spiritual. It may be material because the material is a transformation of the spiritual, because the spiritual, having transformed itself into the earthly human being, has sought the material capacity of the brain and the nerves in order to accomplish in material form what has been preformed spiritually.
This comes before the spiritual eye of modern man through the development of those powers of cognition of which I have spoken in recent days. But I would like to say that a dreamlike model of this exists in that Oriental worldview, which I was able to sketch in a few strokes, which has now become old and decrepit, but which still influences the formation of our hearts and souls with certain peculiarities. In its instinctive clairvoyance, this ancient Orient sensed that the spiritual world is a reality with which it felt connected, and that nature, with what is natural in human beings themselves, is a reflection of the spiritual, that through it, as an outer appearance, what is inwardly spiritual is revealed.
Let it not be said that the Oriental did not observe nature. He had fine organs for observing nature. But from all that he faithfully observed as a reflection, revered with love, a spiritual being shone forth to him. Nature revealed spirit to them, radiated spirit to them everywhere. And they called this spirit their reality. But what spread outwards was maya to them.
However, one can already see from Buddhism, which has had a much greater influence on Oriental life than is commonly believed, because it has taken on the most diverse forms in later life, how the immediate presence in the spiritual world has been dampened in the course of the further development of humanity and the earth, how, in a sense, the gaze has been directed further and further toward Maya, and how the feeling of the great deception, of the great non-existence, of Maya, gradually became the main thing, how from this arose the mood of the need for salvation from what can be experienced within this Maya, experienced in particular in the sense of the Buddha, who regarded the immediate experiences of this Maya as a sum of sufferings that flow into human beings.
However, this attenuation of standing within the spiritual world justifies us, when we come to modern spiritual knowledge, to regard the ancient Oriental worldview as something instinctive, even one-sided, but to which we must return with full prudence and clear consciousness. For it must not happen a second time in the development of the world that human activity becomes paralyzed in the face of the demands of the earthly outer world. Humanity must not flee into spiritual life a second time in such a way that its flight prevents it from intervening with full force in the task of the earth, in everything that the Oriental often perceives as Maya, even if he does not call it that out of his concession to modern concepts, while he perceives as reality what is revealed within him. Therein lies the light that is for them the immediate reflection of the divine spirit in the world.
Now, I would like to contrast what I have described as spiritually and geographically flooding into our modern life with another image, an image that is also taken from human spiritual development, from world development, but which belongs to our immediate present. Anyone who has moved around a lot in the spheres from which so much arises today in our civilization, which in a certain sense has grown old, even for Europe, in the spheres from which social aspirations and social struggles arise, will have found something that I would like to characterize in the following way.
For a long time, without anyone being able to accuse me of socialist sympathies because that would be untrue, I was a teacher in socialist circles. I did so precisely in order to spread within these circles—the time was not yet ripe for this, it was over twenty years ago—a spiritual life that could lead to more realistic forms than those sought by abstract Marxism or modified Marxism and so on, which are in many respects unrealistic. But when one observes something in these circles that is present as a basic mood — something that can be recognized as a beginning, but which is as deeply rooted in the soul as the Oriental mood of majesty is rooted in the soul in the East — then a word strikes one's soul, a word that expresses much of unconscious feelings, unconscious ideas and concepts, unconscious longings, a word that one can hear again and again, that one must have felt for decades as characteristic within wide circles of humanity. Spread across millions of people, there is a mood that is expressed by this word: it is the word ideology. This word has developed from the view that the proletarian class in particular has incorporated into its education. From the increasingly materialistic scientific approach, the view has developed that historical reality actually consists only of economic struggles, economic structures, class struggles—in short, of what is immediately external, sensual, physical, and material in human life, in historical life—that economic forces are therefore what is actually real, what is real.
This economic materialism, which is much more widespread than many people of the higher classes still believe today, is in a sense a result of the general materialistic view that is now even considered scientifically outdated, but which nevertheless continues to have the widest influence on the moods and attitudes of the souls of the Western world.
And ideology, what does that mean? It means that legal life, morality, beauty, religious concepts, concepts of the state—in short, everything that is spiritual life—is not true reality, but rather a froth and illusion rising from the true reality that lies in material struggles and creations. Ideology is meant to signify that what human beings experience within themselves, be it art, science, law, state maxims, or religious impulses, is a maya, if I may use the Eastern expression.
The word ideology refers to something when it is not taken externally, abstractly, when one can feel what millions of people think, which must take on the most terrible dimensions if it is not brought into good waters in time. What the soul experiences and shapes internally is not reality; true reality is only that which lives externally in facts that can be perceived by the senses!
And so, within Western civilization, a mood has developed that is diametrically opposed to the one that has long dominated the East and which today is more of an external decoration than anything else. There: true reality is what is experienced in the spirit — Maya is what happens externally in physical reality; here: Maya is ideology, which is actually the translation of the word Maya, but now applies to the spiritual realm, what is experienced in the spirit — reality is what is sensually spread out, what exists in the world as sensually perceptible reality.
In its development, the world strives for the full realization of its individual possibilities. Just as one one-sidedness developed in the Orient, so the other one-sidedness had to take hold of humanity at some point. But if we want to create human development, if we want to create world development in a fruitful sense, in such a sense that we can turn the forces of decline into forces of ascent, we must first consider what this mood in ideology actually means. It is young, so it is a beginning.
If we turn again to what modern spiritual science can tell us, we will find that in the East there was an instinctive, obscure, dreamlike awareness that there is a spiritual reality, that here in the physical world there is a sensory image of this spiritual reality. Because people preferred to direct the attention of the soul to spiritual reality, sensory reality became unreality, outward appearance, Maya. But this maya is not only significant for our external work – the world may be maya, but we must nevertheless turn our work as a reality for us humans to this maya first – it also has significance for “know thyself,” for a truly human view. Why? Well, we can certainly rise to a life in the spiritual world, as I have described, we can see with sharply defined concepts and thereby understand what appeared dreamlike to the Orient. But within the development of humanity, we could never have arrived at the impulse of freedom through the experience of such a world.
Human beings had to develop their consciousness out of the spiritual world, with which they feel inwardly connected, but at the same time inwardly determined and dependent on it, and turn to a world of mere reality for a temporary epoch of historical development in which we are completely immersed. When human beings face this external reality, their soul life becomes an image of this reality. What pervades this soul life as spirit becomes abstract concepts, gradually becoming something that must be a mere image, something that must be recognized in its representational nature.
I have already hinted at this: when we carry images within us, we can be free. Mirror images do not determine us. If we want to orient ourselves toward mirror images, which are powerless in themselves, we must give ourselves the impulses. The same is true of what becomes abstract concepts within us. And when the noblest thing we carry within us, the moral-religious, appears in us in pure thinking, it becomes an impulse of freedom for us. It is the most valuable content for human life. But it appears in abstract thinking in the epoch when human beings find themselves directly confronted with physical reality in their perception.
And at the moment when morality appears as moral intuition in pure thinking, the task of the epoch that has developed from the spiritual-real to the spirit of the abstract is fulfilled, and which, I would say, radicalizes this mood of the soul, now perceiving everything spiritual as a maya, as a mere illusion, as ideology. We have a certain right to regard everything that is a reflection of external natural existence as ideology. The moment morality, as moral intuition, makes its impact on this Maya thinking, on this ideology, the first stage is reached where we recognize once again: this ideology, which is experienced within us as mere image existence, must be awakened to inner life by energizing ourselves, by allowing the inner life that is hidden within us to spring forth. The content of the world first had to become ideology for humanity so that human beings could pour their reality into this content of the world.
This was necessary for humanity's experience of freedom, which is, after all, an experience of the West, of modern civilization. This was necessary in the sense that human beings first felt that everything that was most valuable to them, their art, their science, their moral concepts, in short, everything that constitutes their spiritual life, was unreal, and that everything that shone out at them as transitory appeared to them as the only reality, because this reality, when properly understood, cannot impair his freedom at all, insofar as he is, after all, a spiritual being who creates in physical and sensory reality only an image of the spirit itself.
Thus, we can feel how, in what appears as ideology, there is a radicalized mood that we must actually have toward the concepts of nature that live in circumstances, in motion, in measure and number. If nature were to convey anything other than concepts to us, it would never allow us to become free human beings. Only by rising to concepts that initially appear to those who remain stuck at this stage as mere ideology can a new real-spiritual form of the higher world pour into these initially unreal concepts. This is the beginning from which a new form of the spiritual world must emerge for human beings. And when we are confronted with the one-sided experience of ideology, those who today are not stuck in immediate daily views, but are able to look at world development, must say to themselves: Since it was necessary for human beings to reach a stage of development where they could speak of ideology while viewing the world and themselves one-sidedly, they must in turn arrive at the opinion, the conviction, the strength, and the courage to pour into this ideology a world that is spiritually seen and spiritually experienced. Otherwise, even if it is discussed philosophically, ideology remains just ideology. And the forces of decline will develop in a very real sense, as we shall see in the second part of these lectures, which will deal with “Anthroposophy and Sociology.”
So we have two images before us: the spiritual world as reality and the sensory world as Maya, or the sensory world as reality and the spiritual world as Maya. Only a worldview and outlook on life that is capable of bringing spiritual intuition, spiritual imagination, and inspiration into the ideologically perceived spiritual world can fill what today seems unspeakably empty with spiritual content, and at the same time is able to see in what sense what the Orient perceives as an illusion, as Maya, is a reality, a reality in the sense that it is indeed a true, faithful reflection, a transformation of the spiritual world that was necessary for the development of humanity in freedom. Only a worldview and outlook on life that looks at these two images in such a way that it is able to push them together, so to speak, that it does not merely produce a dry, external sum, but develops through its own inner life, not from one or the other, but from the immediate human essence in spiritual uplift, can bring understanding for what confronts us as two world tableaux that are so polar opposites.
And these world views basically play into everything we experience spiritually. It is certainly true that these moods play into the details of life, the details of human views. As a Central European living in Central Europe, I would like to avoid giving my own opinion on this point. I would like to share the opinion expressed a few years ago by an Englishman who compared Western and Central Europe in terms of a certain aspect of intellectual life. This Englishman wanted to characterize how intellectual life presented itself in individual manifestations. He pointed out how, at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, Buckle's significant work, “The History of Civilization,” and how Buckle viewed historical life largely from the perspective of economic impulses, not as radically as the Marxists, for example, but nevertheless from such impulses, so that, basically, spiritual life arises from the economic forces in their interaction and interplay. One does not necessarily have to criticize such a view; one can take a positive attitude toward it and say that, since human beings are also economic beings, it has become necessary in the development of humanity to view human life historically in this light as well. But then this Englishman points to another work that was written in Central Europe at the same time as Buckle wrote his History of Civilization, the work “The History of the Renaissance in Italy” by Jacob Burckhardt. The Englishman himself points out how a completely different spirit prevails in this work, for Jacob Burckhardt describes how people feel, how they relate to one another, how the views they have of one another lead to certain relationships, which in turn determine the other events taking place among them. And the Englishman then summarizes his judgment by saying—I am not judging myself, I am quoting the Englishman's judgment—Buckle describes people as they eat and drink, Burckhardt describes people as they think and feel.
And now I would like to add something: When we have heard how the West views external reality and allows spiritual life to spring from it as a result, how the Central European views what lives within the soul, but as soul life in earthly existence, then a third thing should be added: the Eastern man, in many respects already the European Eastern man, describes man as he preaches and sacrifices.
And so we could say, supplementing the Englishman's judgment: In the West, man is described as he eats and drinks — I do not say this in a derogatory sense; in the Middle World, as he thinks and feels; in the Eastern world, as preaching and sacrificing. What I have described as the Eastern mood plays into this preaching and sacrificing. What I have described as the Western mood plays into the view of history that has become familiar to the widest circles today and is also reflected in the feeling of ideology. But we must also look at how, in what is described in the middle, where man is portrayed as he thinks and feels, how the two currents flow together, how one is led today to understand this confluence in the right way, starting from a beginning that must work its way up to spirituality.
And I would like to summarize in an image what I have tried to describe as two moods, in order to show what actually needs to be understood between East and West. I would like to summarize this in another image by pointing out how, at a time when the physical-sensory world was already perceived as Maya in the East, but also human life was perceived as Maya, how the one who was called the Buddha found the most diverse revelations of human earthly suffering on his wanderings, how among these revelations there is also a corpse, how death confronts the Buddha, and how he comes to his conclusion from this view of human death: Life is suffering.
This is how Oriental culture unfolded six hundred years before the founding of Christianity. Six hundred years later, Christianity was founded and a significant symbol emerged: that of the crucifix, the raised cross with the Savior, with the dead human body on it. And countless people look at the corpse, at the image of the corpse in the West, just as countless people who have become followers of Buddha looked at the corpse from which Buddha took his teachings. As the East professed: Life is suffering, we long for salvation — so Western people looked at the image of the corpse, but they did not merely utter the words: Life is suffering! No, the sight of death became for them the symbol of a resurrection, of a resurrection of the spirit from inner human strength, the symbol that suffering can be redeemed precisely by overcoming the physical, and that it is not overcome in the sense of ascetically turning away from it, but by keeping it fully in view, precisely not seeing it as maya, but overcoming it through work, through activity, through the liveliness of the will. From the contemplative life of the Orient arose the view of the corpse with the conclusion: life is suffering; man must be redeemed from life. From the activity-oriented life of the West, the sight of the corpse has given rise to the view that life must develop strength within itself so that the forces of death can be overcome and human work can fulfill its task in the development of the world.
One worldview is old and decrepit. But it carries such greatness within it that, even if one addresses it as decrepit, one stands before it as before something venerable. One reveres the old man. But one does not expect him to profess the views of youth. What we encounter in the West, however, has the character of a beginning. We showed what must become of what appears as ideology in the mood. That is young; that is what youthful power must develop within itself in order to attain the spirit in its own way, just as the Orient has attained the spirit in its own natural way.
If we revere the Orient for its spirituality, we must nevertheless be clear about one thing: we must develop our own spirituality from our Western beginnings. But we must shape it in such a way that we can communicate across the whole earth with every view that exists, especially with time-honored views. This will be possible when we, as people of the Middle and West, become aware of what it means: our worldview and outlook on life have shortcomings, but these are the shortcomings of youth.
If we understand this, it is a call to have the courage to be strong. Let us not respond to what we must receive from the East—reverence, love, admiration for its spirituality—with passive acceptance, but with diligent work based on what may still be unspiritual in the West today, but which carries within it the seed of spirituality. Let us add strength to our reverence, and then we will be doing the right thing for the development of humanity.