The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. The Higher Development of Man

[ 1 ] In the schools of wisdom founded by Plato and Pythagoras, students were permitted to advance to the higher sources of knowledge only after studying mathematics. Only pure selflessness opened the door to eternal wisdom, and mathematics was the only science capable of educating students in this way, because it serves no purpose and no selfish gratification, teaching only the pure relationships and the pure laws of the basic forms.

[ 2 ] Human development is a descent from universal oneness into particularity and a gradual ascent, in conscious freedom, toward the realization of one’s connection with the All and a return to the universal. Therefore, from a mental perspective, the dead stone is a model of the higher for humanity. In it, the great connection is still preserved; in it, the law of causality alone operates; whatever sets it in motion, it imparts to the external world. It extends from the mental into the physical, for pure thought rests enclosed within it. Its life is merely form. Thus, the sun, which as the physical image of the Logos is at home in the mental realm, and the entire mineral kingdom are to be regarded as a great laboratory of physical and chemical forces.

[ 3 ] With the plant, which has its origin one level lower, in the astral realm, life begins—and with it, the process of separation. It draws nourishment from the outside into itself in order to grow; it seeks to expand and spread. This is the beginning of egoism. However, the plant can develop one level higher; it evolves from the astral realm through the physical realm up to the etheric sphere. The animal, which arises in the etheric sphere, already feels; it does not merely seek nourishment for its growth, but seeks to seize and appropriate from the external world whatever brings it pleasure. It experiences life as pleasure and suffering; it ascends and develops up to the astral realm.

[ 4 ] And man as such, who has his origin in the physical realm and, as a natural being, has reached the perception of the external world and perceives himself as an individual being, is at the deepest level of his egoism; yet he can rise in thought to the mental sphere, even though he can perceive only in the physical realm, for he lives with his brain and his visible body in the mineral kingdom. But he carries within himself all the elements of the universe; he has passed through all the kingdoms, and the forces of all rest within him as principles; he can consciously develop them from within himself. What we see is the physical body; it belongs to the mineral kingdom, but through prana, the life principle, it also lives in the etheric sphere of the plant world—it has its etheric body; and furthermore, it also lives through sensation in the astral world, in its astral body, and through rational imagination in the mental world, through the kama-manas principle. In the lower world, the human being possesses four bodies with their respective principles. But he is also connected to the higher world, since that is where he has his origin. He can develop his mental body and advance from the conception of the individual and the many to the idea of the type; he can develop the causal body and ascend to the higher world of the trinity Manas-Budhi-Atma. In the Budhi sphere, they will be able to form their thoughts from astral matter, create the Mayavi-rupa body, live and act from their causal soul, be creators themselves, and become one again with the whole.

[ 5 ] This higher trinity, to which human beings must evolve, is in truth deeply hidden within them; it lies at the foundation of their being, and they must liberate it step by step—“As above, so below.” The multiplicity we see is nothing other than the principle of unity, the Logos, which has dissolved and divided itself into multiplicity. Only in multiplicity can disharmony arise, because the many separate parts, which are all parts of the spirit, can come into conflict with one another. When this multiplicity unites again into a whole, our cosmos becomes a whole once more, and thus it becomes the Logos, harmony. “As above, so below!” — Atma, the highest principle in our cosmos, in our mineral kingdom—which includes the stars with their orbits and all celestial bodies and forces in nature—has at the same time penetrated deepest into matter; our physical organs are essentially animated and held together by Atma. Atma, as the highest principle, has its counterpart in the physical realm.

[ 6 ] The Budhi principle has penetrated only as far as the etheric and astral spheres, where it constitutes the essence of the plant and animal kingdoms—their etheric and astral bodies. When the human being, originally still connected to the divine genii and forming a whole with them, separated into an individual being in the astral sphere and attained an “I”-consciousness through imagination, Manas, the third principle, descended into the astral sphere: connected to Kama and enclosed within the human brain, it formed the human Kama-Manas body. Humanity has traversed all realms on the descending arc of its development. We carry Atma within us as a mineral cosmos; it is our physical body. Budhi, as a living, sentient cosmos, resides in our prana and kama bodies; and Manas, in its connection with Kama, forms our Kama-Manas body. It is the fourth principle in the lower world and simultaneously forms the transition to the higher mental world. It is the connecting bridge to it. Freed from all lower sheaths, Manas reunites with Budhi in selfless radiance into the Universal.

[ 7 ] Of all beings, man is the most deeply entrenched in egoism and a sense of separate existence. He has drawn everything into himself and carries within him the entire trinity of Atma-Budhi-Manas. In the mineral kingdom, Atma is spread out; it rests in its entirety within the rock, which is still in direct connection with the cosmos. In the plant and animal worlds, dualism is already present; Budhi penetrates the etheric and astral worlds, and the plant and animal worlds are built up from life and sensation. Manas, wisdom, hovers above them and brings about the wisdom expressed in nature, in the marvelous regularity of structure as well as in all the rational actions of animals. Man, however, draws Manas into himself. Wisdom can no longer act upon him from the outside. Connected to Kama, enclosed within his mental body, his wisdom is clouded. Man is a condensation of chemical-physical processes into an individual form, which take place within the mineral cosmos. Through his feelings, desires, and passions, man is also active in the astral world. Ceaselessly, he himself creates astral beings in that sphere, which have a truly living, material existence there, for the matter of the astral world consists of surging emotions such as envy, hatred, goodwill, anger, and so on. There, the beings created by human emotions lead their separate existence as elemental beings; there are also beings from other worlds who require the astral sphere for their development, and then the astral bodies of souls awaiting incarnation. Furthermore, [there are] the devas, who also come from other worlds and often seek to influence humans. There are the four Deva-Rajas, who form the physical bodies from the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth—according to the astral pattern that the Lipikas, the lords of karma, have formed from the mental substance of individuality.

[ 8 ] Human beings’ higher development depends on conscious concentration and meditation, which must be practiced daily and carried out according to specific rules. By detaching oneself daily, in the morning hours—even if only for five minutes—from all impressions of the external world and directing one’s entire concentration toward a revealed thought of eternity, one will gradually connect with the cosmos and participate in its rhythmic movement. Through this consistent daily withdrawal from the transient world of appearances, for the brief duration of his meditation, man gradually ascends to the arupa sphere. By thinking through a sentence that contains an eternal universal truth until it comes to life, man draws out its entire content and absorbs it into himself. Thought control and daily, rigorously practiced meditation must not serve one’s own education and expansion of the mind; it must be done with the awareness that through this we are helping and working toward the development of our cosmos. All our uncontrolled, “real” thinking ceaselessly disrupts this regular process. The person who wishes to develop their astral senses must [also] learn to master their emotions and awaken within themselves a sense of reverence for the wisdom of highly evolved beings; and they must cultivate a devotional surrender, with a proper appreciation of the distance from that higher wisdom. Every evening, the one who practices meditation should review the past day, looking back on mistakes without remorse or regret, solely to learn from them, to draw benefit from his experiences for the sake of improvement. Meditation must not be a compulsion; it must not separate one from one’s surroundings or alter one’s accustomed way of life; on the contrary, one should surrender oneself carefree to one’s true nature. One will learn more through reflection and review at the end of the day than by trying to force oneself to become a better person.

[ 9 ] If a person wishes to ascend to a higher level of development, where the first Logos flows into the second, they must become a chela and cultivate the qualities of a chela within themselves. They must gradually develop four main qualities within themselves:

[ 10 ] First: The power of discernment, the distinction between the enduring and the transitory; that is to say, human beings must learn to recognize, within the transitory—within what they perceive—the formative power that is enduring. All things perceived by our senses possess an inherent force striving toward crystallization, just as salt dissolved in warm water [forms crystals as the water cools]. Farmland is ground-up crystal; within the seed lies the power to become a plant and fruit; and the vertebrae are given the potential to develop into the skull. Thus, the lancelet, consisting solely of a spinal column, is a miniature image of the first living, sentient form in which the Logos manifested itself. The immense, primordial fish, consisting solely of a gelatinous mass, is the forefather who carried within his vertebrae the potential for the development of amphibians, fish, mammals, and humans. Thus, the physical human being is to be understood merely as a transient phenomenon, whose mineral substances change daily and whose sense organs will not remain as they are today, but will adapt to higher stages of human development and carry within themselves the power of transformation.

[ 11 ] The second quality that must be developed is an appreciation for the enduring. Knowledge becomes a feeling. We learn to value the enduring more highly than the transitory, ‘which loses its value in our estimation more and more.’ And so, through the development of the first two qualities, the aspiring Chela is naturally led to the third: the cultivation of certain spiritual faculties.

[ 12 ] a) Mind control.

[ 13 ] The chela must not allow himself to view things from only one perspective. We grasp a thought, hold it to be true, even though it is true only from that one aspect or point of view; later we must also consider it from the opposite point of view and set the reverse against every obverse. Only in this way do we learn to check one thought against another.

[ 14 ] b) Monitoring of actions.

[ 15 ] Human beings live and act within the material world and are situated in time. Given the vastness of the phenomenal world, they can grasp only a small part of it and are bound by their activities to a specific sphere of the transitory. Daily meditation serves the Chela to gather his thoughts and control his actions. In them, he will consider only that which is enduring and place value only on those actions through which he can helpfully serve the higher development of his fellow human beings. He will lead the abundance of the phenomenal world back to the highest unity.

[ 16 ] c) Tolerance.

[ 17 ] The chela will not allow himself to be ruled by feelings of attraction and repulsion. He will seek to understand everyone—criminals and saints alike—and although he experiences things emotionally, he will judge them intellectually. What is rightly recognized as evil from one point of view may be judged as necessary and logical from a higher perspective.

[ 18 ] d) Tolerance.

[ 19 ] Accept both good fortune and misfortune with equanimity; leave them to the forces beyond our control that may influence us. Do not let joy or pain push us off course. Remain free from all external influences and distractions, and stay true to your own path.

[ 20 ] e) Faith.

[ 21 ] The chela should have a free, open, and unbiased heart toward the higher spiritual realm. Even when he does not immediately recognize a higher truth, he should have faith until he can make it his own through knowledge. If he were to proceed according to the principle “Test everything and keep what is best,” he would apply his own judgment as a standard, place himself above the higher spiritual realm, and close himself off to its influence.

[ 22 ] f) Equilibrium.

[ 23 ] The final spiritual capacity would emerge as a result of all the others, manifesting as balance, a sense of direction, and spiritual equilibrium. The chela sets his own course.

[ 24 ] And so he must now develop the fourth quality within himself: the will to freedom, to the ideal. As long as we still live in the physical world, we cannot attain full freedom, but we can develop the will to freedom within ourselves, striving toward the ideal. We can free ourselves from external circumstances and no longer react to external stimuli, but instead make the law within us—that which is enduring—the guiding principle of our thoughts and actions; we can live not in the transient personality, but in our individuality, which is enduring and strives toward unity.