The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The World of the Spirit, or Devachan IV

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! It falls to me today to conclude the lectures on the so-called Devachan plane or, as we must call it in German, the Land of Spirits. When you read about Devachan or the Land of Spiritual Beings in theosophical books, you will find descriptions of this realm of the spirit world as a realm of contentment, a realm of bliss. You are told that Devachan is the “Land of Delights,” the “Land of Happiness.” Now, esteemed audience, it is very easy to misunderstand such a description and to imagine something entirely wrong behind these words. We must be clear that very many people do not know at all what the happiness of the Land of the Spirits is, that the vast majority of people seek happiness and contentment in things of which, however, nothing is to be found in Devachan. Even what people usually imagine in religious concepts as paradise, as a land of happiness and bliss, even that is still so closely tied to ideas of immediate sensory reality, to ideas drawn from our physical surroundings, that we must not apply these ideas to the realm of spiritual beings. What people hope for in terms of paradisiacal joys, what they, drawing on sensory ideas, call paradise—you will find this even before entering Devachan; you will find it in the fifth region of Kamaloka, in the fifth region of the purifying fire, specifically for the very purpose of shedding this inclination toward sensual pleasures and sensual desires. What, for example, the Native American imagines as paradisiacal hunting grounds, where he will be able to indulge all his hunting desires, he already finds in the fifth region of Kamaloka. But it is precisely from this that a person must be purified before they can enter the spiritual world. On the other hand, many say, when they hear that nothing of what they experience here on Earth as sensual reality remains in the spiritual realm, that the spiritual realm is nothing but an illusion, a kind of dream we dream between two incarnations. — Both of these views require correction. It is necessary to guide the concepts that people derive from their directly experienced reality toward entirely different and higher concepts. One can gain a corresponding conception of what is actually meant by the land of delights, the land of bliss, and what is meant by that deep intimacy and spiritual satisfaction we experience between two incarnations, if one listens to what the disciples of the great Masters, through their experience, already know how to recount in this very life.

[ 2 ] Those who attain initiation in this life experience within themselves, even in this life, through a glimpse into the spiritual realm, something of this heavenly bliss, of this true spiritual fulfillment. You will ask: Is there, or has there ever been, anything in our countries that is called initiation? Were there really, in our Western culture, disciples who became partakers of that highest vision which opens up the spiritual realm to us? — There has always been the possibility of receiving initiation in secret schools, in occult schools. A current of occult wisdom came to Europe in the 14th century. This current, known as the Rosicrucian movement, was misunderstood by many; it must be misunderstood by all those who come to know it only from the outside. Only those to whom insight has been granted through occult training should come to know it from within. When Christian Rosenkreutz brought the wisdom of the East to Europe, he founded schools in Europe where students were raised to the levels where vision in the Devachan and the vision of the higher mysteries became possible. Only those who have themselves undergone such training can speak of it. All external research, everything recorded in books, cannot provide you with any insight. Until the year 1875, the year of the founding of the Theosophical Society, these matters were never discussed at all, except in the most secret schools of teaching. It was only since 1875 that the Masters of Wisdom felt the duty to convey some of these deepest spiritual truths to humanity.

[ 3 ] Initiations still take place today. However, they can only occur within the spiritual realm, the realm I have described to you. Today, every initiate must come to the Devachan plane to witness these higher mysteries for themselves. This necessitates at least a brief description of how one feels and how one is transformed when receiving initiation on the Devachan plane. What I have described to you regarding those highest beings who come from entirely different worlds to first enjoy their incarnation in Devachan, and then descend into the lower regions, into the three worlds—to behold these beings is the capacity of one who comes to this realm for initiation. Once a person has attained initiation, they begin to gain a completely new faith, a completely new way of seeing. They have truly become a different person. And what is entirely absent for many people living in their surroundings—of which they have never the slightest inkling—they perceive with the spiritual eye.

[ 4 ] Let me give a brief outline of the creed that the initiate adopts as his own. This creed will seem familiar to you in some respects. Of all deeper truths, something has always come to public attention and been propagated exoterically in the public sphere.

[ 5 ] The person who is initiated gains a higher perspective on what is happening here in our physical reality. They gain this higher perspective by placing themselves outside of this physical reality. After all, while we live in the sensory world, we are confined to our physical organization and can only see through our eyes, hear through our ears, and perceive through our other sensory organs. We are dependent on what our senses convey to us. This comes to an end through the higher training that the initiate receives. Before the initiate lies—I can only describe it this way—his own physical reality spread out in its entirety. He sees himself objectively beside himself, and just as we look at any other object in the environment of our sensory reality, so do we look at our own physical body when we are initiated. Our organism lies before us like our own corpse. But our astral body, our desires, instincts, our entire sensory life of impulses, also lies there before us, and we speak in the sense of the aforementioned Vedanta wisdom: “That is you.” We see ourselves completely objectively, with all our faults, with what we have achieved in life through our various incarnations. This is what is described to you as the passage through the gate of death, which every initiate must undergo. He then no longer perceives through the senses what he otherwise has around him in the sensory world; he looks out into the external world from the realm of the spirit, and not through the senses. But he also sees into the world of instincts, into the world of Kama, the passions, into the world where human drives reside, into that which brings people into conflict and strife, what delights them and what gives them pleasure in this physical reality; he sees into it just as a hiker standing on a high mountain looks out over a mountain landscape.

[ 6 ] And because he has risen above sensuality, because he is surrounded only by a world of pure spirit, he is able to perceive, on the other side, those beings that are of a spiritual nature, and he senses something of what is called divine wisdom. The divine being itself is the Father Spirit of all religions; no one can see him in his very own form. The Highest remains hidden, even from the opened spiritual eyes. But the initiate receives a conception of what creates and works in the world. He is led before the creative, divine powers. Then, for the first time, he utters the word out of conviction, from direct perception—the word that had previously been taught to him as a matter of faith: [“I am Brahman”]. When the initiate is now led through the narrow gate, where physical and astral life are objectively revealed to him, the words of the initiating priest resound: To those who already have, much will be given, and from those who do not yet have, even what they already have will be taken away. — This is the initiation saying that is spoken at the first gate of initiation. You will also find it in the Bible, as well as many sayings taken from Egyptian priestly wisdom. Those who have are those whose spirit has already awakened to feel and perceive spiritually. But those who come to this gate without faith or any sense of the spiritual will also have their desire for spiritual knowledge taken away. Woe to the one who comes to this place unworthily, who has pushed his way in out of curiosity; to him, another voice resounds, which again has a symbolic meaning.

[ 7 ] Human beings now come to understand what universal spirit is, what universal soul is. We humans reflect on sensory things, but the spirit that lives within us—which we experience as thoughts within ourselves and which forms the object of our reflection—is one and the same as the wisdom from which the world is built. We could not perceive the world with its laws if it were not built upon these spiritual laws. Theosophy teaches that what lives within man as spirit, as Manas, is of the same essence as that which lives in the great universe, as Mahat. The Manas of man draws wisdom from the Manas of the universe, from Mahat. Or should a person believe that the laws we see at work in the heavens, by which the stars move, have meaning only in his mind? The Mahat of the starry heavens is the element of intellect and reason out there in the great world, and what you experience of it is Manas, the element of intellect and reason in the small world.

[ 8 ] Now the World Spirit, the Universal Spirit, descends upon the initiate. The priest of initiation speaks the words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” — The person in question, now an initiate, knows what the World Spirit is. Then he can profess his faith in the creative World Spirit out of his own conviction and say: I believe in the divine Father Spirit, who created the spiritual, which is also called the heavenly, and the physical, the earthly. — The Christian creed states: I believe in God, the almighty Father, who created heaven and earth. — And then one thing has become clear to the human being: that he himself, in truth and reality, has taken his origin from the very same universal World Spirit that meets him here in the spiritual realm. He knows that he has descended into the depths of sensory-physical matter; but he also knows that he has descended from divine worlds and originates from the Spirit. He knows that he has received the spiritual being he carries within himself from the source of the divine Father Spirit itself, 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 immediate certainty. He begins to gain a new faith in humanity. Humanity becomes to 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 within man himself, as the Egyptian priestly wisdom expressed it—or in the Christ within man who has descended from the heavenly worlds. And then it becomes clear to him that before these times in the Earth’s development had arrived—these times in which we now live, these times in which people perceive through their senses, in which their sensory impulses prompt them to their actions— it becomes clear to him that before descending into this sensory sphere, human beings were in another, purely spiritual sphere.

[ 9 ] The student has now become acquainted with the spiritual realm, and knows that this realm was the realm in which humanity once existed as the firstborn son of God; he knows that humanity was born of virgin spiritual matter — Mary or Maja —, and he knows that the spiritual human being, Christ, descended into physical matter; he knows that this spiritual human being is contained within each of us and develops gradually through the various incarnations; he knows that this spiritual human being lives surrounded by physical corporeality, lives within the physical body. The things of the outer world act upon our body through the senses and form our eyes, our ears, and the other sense organs. Within this physical sensibility we live and allow the world to penetrate us. Through the sense organs we look out upon the outer world as through windows; we are enclosed within sensory matter and therefore limited by it.

[ 10 ] The Christ who enters into human beings is pure and spiritual; he is virgin spiritual matter. Now he has descended into condensed, sensual matter. Those who speak esoterically call this the water or the sea. For example, Genesis states: 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.” Human beings have drawn into this condensed matter, which has formed their organs. As a result, the active being in the spiritual realm has become a being that passively receives impressions from the outside through the sense organs: human beings have become passive, a Pöntos Pyletös. This distinguishes perception in the spiritual world from perception in the sensory world. When we wish to have an object before us in the spiritual world, we first have the thought, and the spirit forms this thought in the spiritual realm; that is to say, human beings find the images of all creation in the spiritual realm. In the sensory world, human beings receive passively; human beings have become passive. We have all become passive, as it were, suffering within the condensed matter. That was the original creed of the Egyptian priestly faith. This is the symbol that Christ descended to humanity, that he took on matter and became passively suffering within the condensed sea, within the Pöntos Pyletös. Over time, this was incorporated into Christianity, and because the term Pöntos Pyletös was thoroughly misunderstood, the ambiguous passage in the Christian creed arose, which reads: “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” which is nothing other than the aforementioned passage from the creed of the Egyptian priests. Man has become a sufferer; he is no longer active, but passive. This is the article of faith that signifies the so-called Incarnation in the occult Symbolum.

[ 11 ] Once the initiate has recognized what is said in these profound truths, he then looks around in objective, sensory reality until it becomes clear within himself that he can now descend into this sensuousness in order to work within sensory reality out of duty and in self-sacrificing devotion. When he has reached the point where he no longer seeks to satisfy his sensory urges, but uses them only to work within the sensory world, then he himself is an initiate; then he has been initiated; then he has the firm certainty that he can perceive the universal justice of the world. Previously, he lived confined within the sensory world, and the mystery of birth and death, the mystery of eternal becoming, was unclear to him. Now it is clear to him that he is eternal and transcendent of birth and death. He sees that which is changeable and, at the same time, the primal cosmic justice that we call karma in theosophical language. He has become a sage in cosmic justice; he can judge life and death, or, as the Egyptian initiates say, birth and death. And now he believes in the sublime communion of spirits liberated from the body. Only in the sensory world are we separated; in Devachan we are a communion of spirits liberated from the body. The Christian creed expresses this by saying: I believe in the communion of saints. - The Christian creed grew out of the esoteric creed of the Egyptian initiates and speaks a wholly esoteric language. It is translated partly from misunderstood symbols and partly from esoteric sayings that the initiates received as direct knowledge in the land of Devachan.

[ 12 ] By now, this discussion should have made it somewhat clearer to you what is meant by the land of delight and bliss. It is the delight of boundlessness, of eternal activity, of eternal action. Why is it that everything which oppresses us in the physical world can no longer oppress us in Devachan? Devachan is not a land of bliss because we are granted there the delights that human beings crave and desire in their sensory world, but because it is free from physicality, free from what craves sensory pleasures, and free from what limits us; and because it enables us to act back upon what would otherwise act upon us from the outside. What limits us in the sensory world is removed; what can cause us pain is no longer there. For what gives rise to pain? It arises when impressions are made upon our astral body or our physical body. We have shed these bodies when we are in Devachan; the basis for the pains and feelings of displeasure that we experience in the physical world has been removed. Because no one can be selfish anymore, no one can demand selfish pleasures either; because no one has an astral body anymore, one is free from everything that can oppress one’s own personality. That is why Devachan is recognized as the “land of delight,” the “land of bliss.”

[ 13 ] I have said that it is precisely in the third region of Devachan that every pain, every sigh of a creature becomes apparent to us, that we can perceive all the pain and suffering that takes place here on Earth, as well as the passions and desires that unfold. But we perceive it in the same way we perceive objects here in the sensory world—a perception that is not so intense or so harsh as to cause us pain. Nor is it like when we touch an object that is very hot and burn ourselves—in short, we perceive without experiencing selfish pain or personal pleasure. We look upon the totality of all pain, of all suffering, and we stand above it as spiritual beings and feel that we have a part to play in alleviating or lessening this pain. It makes no difference to us whether this pain or this pleasure belongs to us or to others. Our personality has been shed; the pains are no longer personal. The cause from which personal suffering could arise for us has ceased to exist. Because, being disembodied, we are, as it were, free from everything that could oppress us, this is why Devachan is called the land of bliss; this is why the bliss in Devachan must be described as something that cannot be compared to anything that takes place here in sensory reality. Only those who, as initiates, have already gained experience here in this physical-sensory embodiment and have received knowledge and wisdom of this Devachan know what these “delights” of Devachan mean.

[ 14 ] Everything we are told about the land of Devachan comes from the experiences, direct observations, and insights of those initiates who have learned to be actively engaged within spiritual existence. They have also learned that it would be the greatest illusion to speak of life in Devachan between two incarnations as an illusion. It is precisely the illusion that we regard life in Devachan as an illusion, as a dream. And in fact: all real life originates from Devachan. And only because the task of earthly existence is to bring human beings down in their spiritual activity into the earthly world must the Christ appear in human beings in a physical incarnation. That is why, according to the saying of Plato, the great Greek philosopher, the world soul is laid across the universe in the shape of a cross and stretched out over the earthly world body. That is what Plato said. It is a symbol whose deepest meaning is known to the initiate.

[ 15 ] Just as an instrument or tool needs a master craftsman, so our physical existence needs the spiritual world, so that the spiritual world may be the architect of the physical body. Just as, for example, a hammer could never have come into being without the influence of spiritual thought and could never be used by a being who possessed only physical powers and was incapable of thought, so too could human beings not fulfill their task if they did not repeatedly ascend into the realm of the spirit and there repeatedly draw upon the powers necessary to act within sensory reality. He ascends to that realm where he receives knowledge of pure spirituality, where he learns how spiritual forces work without becoming passive within the senses, where he learns to freely spread his wings and act. Then he can once again become incarnate, suffering within the constricted matter of earthly existence, in the Pöntos Pyletös. From incarnation to incarnation, the human being wanders; time and again he enters the Pöntos Pyletös; time and again the spirit is crucified in matter.

[ 16 ] A theosophist can never be materialistic—not even in the slightest degree—nor view the physical world as the entirety of existence. And especially when he is in a position to make his own observations in the realm of the spirit, he will come to realize that asceticism would be contrary to reality. The task that man, as a spiritual being, has to fulfill becomes clear to us in the realm of the spirit. The earthly world in which we live is the abode assigned to us during our present evolution. And what we bring from the spiritual realm, we should apply for the benefit of this earthly world. So that we may work on this earth, we are repeatedly entrusted with new tasks from the spiritual realm between two incarnations. Esteemed attendees, we have now traversed the realms of the three worlds. There are three worlds in which human beings live: the earthly world, the soul world or astral world, and the spiritual world or Devachan. Here in this life, human beings live in all three worlds. Every physical human being also contains a soul being and a spiritual being. Human beings, however, are conscious only within the physical realm, yet the astral and spiritual human beings are equally active within them; the soul and the spirit are also at work in every human being. Human consciousness awakens between two incarnations in Kamaloka, in the realm of the soul; then the human being becomes seeing; between two incarnations—depending on the stage of development, depending on what they bring with them from this earthly incarnation—they are awakened in Devachan, the realm of the spirit, only to return once more to the astral world, to clothe themselves in astral matter, and to be incarnated again in physical reality. This is the path, the pilgrimage of the human spirit.

[ 17 ] The human being originates from the spiritual realm. It was originally virgin matter from which the human being, while still living in the pure spiritual realm, formed a body for itself. Our present earthly existence was preceded long ago by another life on our Earth. At that time, human beings were still pure spirits; only spiritual reality existed. Then humanity first descended into astral existence, not yet reaching physical reality. At that time, humanity was still the Adam Kadmon, that “pure” being in whom the physical world of instincts had not yet emerged.

[ 18 ] Then came what is so wonderfully symbolized in Genesis, where it says: Jehovah formed man from a lump of earth and breathed into him the breath of life. — The spirit took on sensually dense matter and, with it, the entire existence of physical-sensual reality. Until then, humanity had existed in a kind of subconscious state. The waking consciousness we possess today—this intellect through which we weigh things and orient ourselves in the physical world—only came into being with humanity’s descent into the sensory world; along with the lower sensory reality, humanity received reason. This, in turn, is symbolically represented in Genesis as the serpent; it bestows earthly reason upon humanity.

[ 19 ] The lowest point in human development is that at which birth and death occur, where the immortal part of the human being must always pass through the gate of death. This will be superseded in the next epoch; then, as in the preceding epoch, human beings will be merely astral beings; and then the final epoch will come, when human beings will have only a spiritual existence.

[ 20 ] Thus, contemplation of the Devachan teaches us how everything in the world, on both a grand and a small scale, is in a state of development; how all existence arises from the spirit, passes through sensory reality, and then ascends once more to the spiritual realm. Contemplation of this higher, spiritual realm shows us that what we call death, what we call passing away, is nothing more than a temporary, almost illusory state of a world epoch, that it is not something that can be permanent. The conviction, the clarity, the knowledge that humanity has come from higher realms and that it will return to higher realms—this is what gives us the strength so that, as we progress in Theosophy, we can gradually come to feel everything that an initiate of early Christianity—Paul—felt and expressed in the words: “Death, where is your sting?”

[ 21 ] On the other hand, however, one should never despise earthly existence. Just as the bee carries honey into the hive, so must we draw honey from the earthly world and carry it up into the spiritual world. However, we can only find our way if we know what the fundamental forces of our existence are. For this reason, I have given the lectures on the Devachan realm. Only one thing could move me to give these lectures, which I know can easily be misunderstood: a sentence written by the author of the theosophical primer *Light on the Path*:

[ 22 ] And once you have recognized the truth, you must not keep it to yourself. — Whoever has recognized the truth must not keep it to themselves. And whoever feels called to speak it must speak it, no matter how it is received. Once we have heard it, the call from the spiritual world is higher than anything else. This call awakens within us a consciousness that is entirely different from any consciousness we know from our sensory existence. And then, from the perspective of the spiritual realm, we can make a saying of Solomon our motto:

Therefore I sought understanding, and it was given to me;
I called upon the Most High, and wisdom came to my spirit.
I value truth above all that lives in the
world of the senses around me.

[ 23 ] The wise man values wisdom more highly than all the material riches that surround him. That is why he strives to proclaim this wisdom. This is meant to serve as a justification for what has moved me to speak about this subtle realm of existence, even though I know how these things can be misunderstood and how difficult it is to speak about them in reasonably comprehensible language. But if we have felt this call, then, in the spirit of Solomonic wisdom, let us give voice to it in these words:

Therefore I wished, and it was given me;
I called, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
I preferred it to kingdoms and thrones,
and counted riches as nothing in comparison with it.