The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The World of the Spirit or Devachan IV

[ 1 ] Esteemed attendees! It is my responsibility today to conclude the lectures on the so-called Devachan plan or, as we have to call it in German, the spiritual realm. If you read about Devachan or the Land of the Spiritual Entities in theosophical books, you will find the description that this realm of the spiritual world is a realm of contentment, a realm of bliss. You are told that Devachan is the “land of delights,” the “land of happiness.” Well, honored attendees, it is very easy to misunderstand such a description and to imagine something quite wrong under these words. We must be clear about the fact that very many people do not know what the happiness of the spiritual realm is, that the vast majority of people seek happiness and satisfaction in things that are no longer found in Devachan. Even what people usually imagine in religious concepts as paradise, as a land of happiness and bliss, is still so closely tied to ideas of immediate sensual reality, to ideas taken from our physical environment, that we must not apply these ideas to the land of spiritual beings. What people hope for in terms of paradisiacal joys, what they call paradise, based on sensual perceptions, they already find before entering devachan, they find it in the fifth realm of Kamaloka, in the fifth realm of the fire of purification, and they find it precisely for the purpose of stripping away this tendency towards sensual pleasures and sensual desires. What the Indian, for example, imagines as paradisiacal hunting grounds, where he can indulge all his hunting desires, he finds already in the fifth realm of Kamaloka. But man must be cleansed of precisely that before he can enter the spiritual world. On the other hand, many people say that if they hear that none of what they experience here on earth as sensual reality remains in the spiritual realm, then the spiritual realm is nothing more than an illusion, a kind of dream that we dream between two incarnations. Both require a correction. The ideas that a person takes from their directly experienced reality need to be guided to completely different and higher ideas. One can gain a corresponding idea of what is actually meant by the land of delights, the land of bliss, what is meant by that deep intimacy and spiritual satisfaction that we experience between two incarnations, if one listens to what students of the great masters already know from their experience in this life.

[ 2 ] Those who reach initiation in this life, experience something of this heavenly bliss, of this true spiritual satisfaction, through insight into the spiritual realm in this very life. You may ask: Is there or has there been something in our countries that is called initiation? Have there really been disciples in our Western culture who have been blessed with the highest vision that spiritual land has to offer? There has always been the possibility of receiving initiation in secret or occult schools. A current of occult wisdom came to Europe in the 14th century. This current, which is called the Rosicrucian current, was misunderstood by many; it must be misunderstood by all those who only get to know it from the outside. Only those who have been allowed to see through occult training should get to know it from the inside. When Christian Rosenkreutz brought the wisdom of the Orient to Europe, he founded schools in Europe where disciples were trained to reach the stages where vision in the Devachan, the vision of the higher secrets, became possible. Only those who have undergone training themselves know how to tell about it. All external research, everything that is written in books, cannot give you any information. Until 1875, the year of the founding of the Theosophical Society, these things were never spoken of at all, except in the most secret of teaching centers. It was only since 1875 that the Masters of Wisdom felt the duty to convey some of these deepest spiritual truths to mankind.

[ 3 ] Initiations still take place today. However, they can only take place within the spiritual realm, the region I have described to you. Today, every person to be initiated must come to the Devachan plane to see these higher secrets for themselves. This forces me to give at least a small idea of how the person who receives the initiation on the Devachan plane feels and how he is transformed. What I have described to you of those highest entities that come from completely different worlds, first to enjoy their embodiment in Devachan and then to descend into the lower regions, into the three worlds, these entities can be seen by those who come for initiation in this field. When a person has attained initiation, he begins to gain a completely new faith, a completely new vision. He has truly become a different person. And what is not present at all for many people living around him, of which they never have an inkling, he sees with the spiritual eye.

[ 4 ] Allow me to give you a brief summary of the creed that the initiate makes his own. You will recognize some of the phrases. All deeper truths have always come into the public domain and have been exoterically propagated in the public domain.

[ 5 ] The person who is initiated gains a higher overview of what is happening here in our physical reality. He gains this higher overview by placing himself outside of this physical reality. While we live in the world of the senses, we are enclosed in the physical organization and can only see through our eyes, hear through our ears, and perceive through our other sense organs. We are dependent on what our senses convey to us. This is stopped by the higher training that the person to be initiated receives. Before the person to be initiated lies, I can only describe it, his own physical reality completely spread out. He sees himself objectively next to himself, and just as we look at any other object in the environment of our sensory reality, so we look at our own physical body when we are initiated. Our organism lies before us like our own corpse. But also our astral body, our desires, instincts, our whole sensual life of drives, lies before us, and we speak in the sense of the quoted Vedanta wisdom: “That is you”. We see ourselves completely objectively, with all our faults, with what we have achieved in life through the various incarnations. This is what is described to you as the passage through the gate of death, which every person to be initiated has to go through. He then no longer sees through the senses what he otherwise has around him in the sense world; he sees into the outer world from the spiritual plane, and not through the senses. But he also sees into the world of instincts, into the world of Kama, of passions, into the world where human drives are, into that which brings people into conflict and quarrel, what delights them and what gives them pleasure in this physical reality; there he sees into it as a pedestrian standing on a high mountain and looking into a mountain landscape.

[ 6 ] And because he has risen above sensuality, because he has only a world of pure spirit around him, that is why he sees on the other side those entities that are spiritual in nature, and he perceives something of what is called divine wisdom. The divine essence itself is the Father-Spirit of all religions; no one can see him in his very own form. The Highest remains unrevealed, even to the opened spiritual eyes. But the initiate receives an idea of what creates and works in the world. He is led before the creating, divine powers. Then, for the first time, he utters the word out of conviction, out of direct contemplation, the word that was previously taught to him as a belief: [“I am Brahman”]. When the person to be initiated is now led through the narrow gate, where the physical and astral life is objectively shown to him, the word of the initiating priest is heard: To those who have, much will be given, and from those who have not yet, even that which they have will be taken away. — This is the initiation saying that is heard at the first gate of initiation. You will also find it in the Bible, like many a saying taken from Egyptian priestly wisdom. Those who have, are those who have already awakened to spiritual feeling and perception. But those who come to this gate without faith and without spiritual perception will also be deprived of their desire for spiritual knowledge. Woe to him who comes unworthily to this place, who has pushed his way in with curiosity; to him another voice is heard, which again has a symbolic meaning.

[ 7 ] Man now experiences what universal spirit is, universal soul. We humans reflect on sensual things, but the spirit that lives in us, that we experience as thoughts within us, that forms the object of our reflection, is the same as the wisdom from which the world is built. We could not recognize the world with its laws if it were not built from these spiritual laws. Theosophy teaches that what lives in man as spirit, as manas, is essentially the same as what lives in the great universe, as Mahat. Man's manas draws wisdom from the manas of the universe, from Mahat. Or should a man believe that the laws we see operating in the heavens, by which the stars move, have meaning only in his mind? The Mahat of the starry sky is the element of intellect and reason out in the great world, and what you learn from it is manas, the element of intellect and reason of the small world.

[ 8 ] Now the All-Spirit, the Universal Spirit, descends upon the initiate. The initiation priest speaks the words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The person concerned, now an initiate, knows what the spirit of the world is. Then he can express his belief in the creative spirit of the world out of his own conviction and say: “I believe in the divine Father-Spirit, which has made the spiritual, which is also called the heavenly, and the physical, the earthly.” In the Christian creed it says: I believe in God, the almighty Father, who created heaven and earth. — And then one thing has become clear to man: that in truth and reality he himself has taken his origin from the same universal world spirit that confronts him here in the spiritual realm. He knows that he has descended into the depths of sensual-physical matter; but he also knows that he has descended from divine worlds and comes from the spirit. He knows that the spiritual essence he bears within him he has received from the very source of the divine Father-Spirit, that he is a ray from the sun of the divine Father-Spirit. He becomes aware of this as a real divine power, as something he experiences and of which he has direct certainty. He begins to gain a new faith in humanity. Humanity becomes for him the only begotten Son of God, the Son of whom he speaks in his creed: “I believe in the divine origin of humanity — in the God in man himself, as the Egyptian priestly wisdom expressed it — or in the Christ in man, who has descended from heavenly worlds. And then it becomes clear to him that before these times in the evolution of the earth had arrived, these times in which we now live, these times in which people perceive through their senses, in which their sensual urges cause them to act — it becomes clear to him that before man descended into this sphere of the senses, he was in another, in a purely spiritual sphere.

[ 9 ] The disciple has now come to know the spiritual land, and he knows that this land was the land where man was in his time as the only begotten Son of God, he knows that man is born of virgin spiritual matter – Mary or Maya – and he knows that the spiritual man Christ descended into sensual matter, he knows that this spiritual man is contained in each of us and develops little by little through the various incarnations, he knows that this spiritual man lives surrounded by sensual corporeality, lives in the physical body. The things of the outer world impinge sensually upon our body and build up our eyes, our ears and the other sense organs. Within this bodily sensuality we live and let the world penetrate into us. Through the sense organs we look as through windows upon the outer world; we are enclosed in sensual matter and therefore limited by it.

[ 10 ] Pure and spiritual is the Christ who enters into people; he is virgin spirit-matter. Now he has descended into the contracted, sensual matter. Those who speak esoterically call this the water or the sea. Thus it says, for example, in Genesis: “The Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” This means that the spirit hovers over matter. In Greek, this matter is also called “Pöntos Pyletös”, literally contracted sea. Man has moved into this contracted matter, which has formed his organs. Thus, the active being in the spiritual realm has become a being that passively receives impressions from outside through the sense organs: Man has become passive, a Pöntos Pyletös. This is the difference between beholding in the spiritual world and beholding in the world of the senses. If we want to have an object before us in the spiritual world, we first have the thought, and the spirit forms this thought in the spiritual world, that is, man finds the images for all creation in the spiritual world. In the sensual world, man perceives passively, having become passive. We have all become passive, as it were suffering in the contracted matter. That was the original confession of the Egyptian priesthood. This is the symbol that the Christ has descended to mankind, that he has taken on matter and become passively suffering in the contracted sea, in the Pöntos Pyletös. In the course of time this was transformed into Christianity, and because the word Pöntos Pyletös was thoroughly misunderstood, the misleading passage in the Christian creed arose, which reads: “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” which is nothing other than the quoted passage from the creed of the Egyptian priests. Man has become suffering; he is no longer active, but passive. This is the article of faith which in the Occult Symbol signifies the so-called Incarnation.

[ 11 ] When the person to be initiated has realized what is meant by these profound truths, he then searches in the objective, sensory reality until he has become clear within himself that he can now descend into this sensuality in order to work out of duty and in devoted self-sacrifice within the sensual reality. When he has reached the point where he no longer seeks to satisfy the sensual drives, but uses them only to work within the sensual world, then he is an initiate, then he is initiated, then he has the firm certainty that he can see through the general cosmic justice. He used to live locked in the sensual world, and the riddle of birth and death, the riddle of eternal becoming, was unclear to him. Now it is clear to him that he is eternal and above birth and death. He sees that which is changeable and at the same time the eternal cosmic justice, which in theosophical language we call karma. He has become a sage in the justice of the cosmos, he can judge between life and death, or, as it is said by the Egyptian initiates, between birth and death. And now he believes in the exalted community of spirits freed from the body. We are only separated in the sensual world; in Devachan we are a community of spirits freed from the body. The Christian creed expresses this when it says: “I believe in the communion of saints.” The Christian Creed grew out of the esoteric confession of the Egyptian adepts, which speaks a very esoteric language. It is partly translated from misunderstood symbols, partly from esoteric sayings, which the candidates for initiation received as direct knowledge in the land of Devachan.

[ 12 ] From this discussion, you will now have a somewhat clearer idea of what is meant by the land of delight and bliss. It is the delight of infinity, of eternal activity, of eternal work. Why can none of the things that oppress us in the physical world oppress us in Devachan? Devachan is a land of bliss not because we experience delights there that man desires and craves in his sensual world, but because we are free from the material, free from what craves for sensual desires, but also free from what limits us, and because it makes it possible for us to react to what would otherwise affect us from the outside. What limits us in the sensual world is removed, what can cause us pain is no longer there. For what causes pain? Because impressions are made on our astral body or on our physical body. We have discarded these bodies when we are in Devachan; the reason for the pain and the feelings of discomfort that we experience in the physical world has ceased to exist. Because no one can be selfish anymore, no one can demand selfish pleasures; because no one has an astral body anymore, one is free from anything that can oppress one's own personality. That is why devachan is known as the “land of bliss,” the “land of happiness.”

[ 13 ] I said that in the third region of Devachan, all pain and sighing of the creature is revealed to us, that we can perceive all the pain and suffering that takes place here on earth, all the passions and desires. But we perceive it as we perceive the objects here in the sensual world – a perception that is not so strong and not so glaring that it causes us pain. It is also not like touching an object that has a high temperature, so that we burn ourselves – in short, we perceive without feeling selfish pain or personal pleasure. We see the totality of all pain and suffering, and as spiritual beings we feel that we have to help alleviate or reduce this pain. It makes no difference to us whether this pain or pleasure belongs to us or to others. Our personality has been stripped away; the pains are no longer personal. The cause for personal suffering to arise for us has ceased to exist. Because we are disembodied and thus free from everything that could oppress us, devachan is called the land of bliss. The bliss in devachan must therefore be described as being incomparable to anything that happens here in the sensual reality. Only he knows what these “delights” of Devachan mean who, as an initiate, has already had experiences here in this physical-sensual embodiment and has received knowledge and wisdom of this Devachan.

[ 14 ] Everything we are told about the realm of Devachan comes from the experiences and direct observations and insights of such initiates who have learned to be actively engaged in spiritual existence themselves. They have also learned that it would be the greatest illusion to speak of the life in Devachan between two embodiments as an illusion. It is precisely the illusion that we regard the life in Devachan as an illusion, as a dream. And in fact, all real life comes from Devachan. And only because the task of earthly existence is to lead people in their spiritual activity down to the earthly world, the Christ must appear in man, in sensual embodiment. That is why, according to the saying of Plato, the great Greek philosopher, the soul of the world is laid out in the shape of a cross through the universe and stretched over the earthly body of the world. That is what Plato said. It is a symbol that the initiate knows in its deepest meaning.

[ 15 ] Just as the instrument needs the tool, the workman, so our physical existence needs the spiritual world, so that the spiritual world can be the architect of the physical body. Just as a hammer would never have been invented without the influence of spiritual reflection, nor could it ever have been used by a being that had only physical powers and was incapable of reflection, so too could man not fulfill his task if he did not repeatedly ascend into the spiritual realm and draw strength from there to work in the material world. He ascends to the land where he receives knowledge of pure spirituality, where he learns how spiritual forces work without them becoming passive within the senses, where he learns to freely unfold his wings and work. Then he can in turn become embodied again, suffering in the contracted matter of earthly existence, in the Pöntos Pyletös. From incarnation to incarnation, man wanders; again and again he moves into the Pöntos Pyletös; again and again the spirit is crucified in matter.

[ 16 ] The theosophist can never be materialistic – not even to the slightest degree – and see the whole of existence in the physical world. And especially when he is able to make his own observations in the spiritual realm, he will come to the realization that asceticism would be hostile to reality. What kind of task man has as a spiritual being becomes clear to us in the spiritual realm. The earthly world in which we live is our assigned place of residence during our present evolution. And what we bring from the spiritual realm, we should use to benefit this earthly world. So that we can work on this earth, we are provided with new assignments from the spiritual realm again and again between two incarnations. Dear audience, we have now covered the three worlds. Man lives in three worlds: the material world, the world of soul or astral world and the spiritual world or Devachan. In this existence man lives in all three worlds. Every material human being also contains a soul and a spirit. However, man is only conscious within the sensual, but the astral and spiritual man also work in him; the soul and the spirit are also effective in every human being. Man's consciousness awakens between two incarnations in Kamaloka, in the soul's country; then man becomes enlightened, he is awakened between two incarnations – according to the level of development, according to what he brings with him from this earthly incarnation — in Devachan, in the spiritual realm, in order to return to the astral world, to clothe itself with astral matter and to be incarnated again in the physical reality. That is the path, the pilgrimage of the human spirit.

[ 17 ] The human being comes from the spiritual realm. It was originally virgin matter from which man, when he still lived in the pure spiritual realm, formed a body for himself. Long ago, another life on our earth preceded this earthly state of ours. Then men were still pure spirits, then only spiritual reality existed. Then man descended first into the astral existence, not yet to the physical reality. He was then still the Adam Kadmon, that “pure” entity in which the physical world of instincts did not yet exist.

[ 18 ] Then came that which is so wonderfully and symbolically expressed in Genesis: “Jehovah formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life.” The spirit met with sense-proof matter and with that, at the same time, the whole existence of physical and sense reality. Until then, man had been in a kind of subconscious state. The waking consciousness that we have today, this mind through which we consider things and with which we orient ourselves in the physical world, only came to man with the descent into the sensual world; at the same time as the lower sensual reality, man received reason. This is again symbolically represented in Genesis as the snake; it bestows the earthly mind on humanity.

[ 19 ] The lowest point in human development is that where birth and death take place, where the immortal part of man must always pass through the gate of death. This will be replaced in the next epoch, when man, similar to the preceding epoch, will only be an astral being; and then the last epoch will come, when man will only have a spiritual existence.

[ 20 ] Thus, the contemplation of Devachan teaches us, like everything in the world, on a large and small scale, that everything is in a state of development, that all existence comes from the spirit, passes through the sensual reality, and then ascends to the spiritual again. Contemplation of this higher, spiritual realm shows us that what we call death, what we call decay, is nothing more than a temporary, almost illusory state of an epoch of the world, that it is not something that can last. The conviction, the clarity, the knowledge that man has come from higher realms and that he will go to higher realms again, that is what gives us the strength to gradually, as we progress in theosophy, feel everything that an initiate of early Christianity – Paul – felt and expressed with the words: “Death, where is thy sting?”

[ 21 ] On the other hand, we should never disdain our earthly existence. Just as the bee carries honey into the beehive, so we have to suck the honey out of the earthly world and carry it up into the spiritual world. But we can only find our way if we know what the basic forces of our existence are. For this reason I have given the lectures on the Devachan region. There was only one thing that could have induced me to give these lectures, and I know that they can easily be misunderstood. The author of the theosophical textbook “Light on the Path” wrote:

[ 22 ] And once you have recognized the truth, you must not keep it to yourself. — Anyone who has recognized the truth must not keep it to themselves. And anyone who feels called to speak it must speak it, regardless of how it is received. Higher than everything else is the call from the spiritual world, once we have heard it. This call awakens in us a consciousness that is completely different from all consciousness that we know from our sensual existence. And then, from the perspective of the spiritual realm, we can make a saying of Solomon our motto:

Therefore I begged for insight, and it was given to me.
I called upon the Most High, and wisdom was given to my spirit.
I value truth more than anything that
lives in the sensual world around me.

[ 23 ] The wise man values wisdom more than all the sensual realms around him. That is why he tries to proclaim this wisdom. This is to justify what has moved me to speak about this subtle area of existence, although I know how these things can be misunderstood and how difficult it is to talk about them in a reasonably understandable language. But if we have felt this call, then, in the spirit of Solomon's wisdom, let us express it in the words:

Propter hoc optavi et datus est mihi sensus
et invocavi et venit in me spiritus sapientiae
et praeposui illam regnis et sedibus et divitias nihil esse duxi
in comparatione illius.