The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture XV

[ 1 ] Everything that is taught in theosophy today was also included in the schools of the Rosicrucians in the 14th century. But the inner training of the Rosicrucian movement was strictly occult. In such occult training, very little attention is paid to language, to the way one expresses oneself. Within the world of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries lived a kind of simple people who were not known as particularly learned, nor did they occupy any special social position, but who passed on the occult tradition of the Rosicrucians. There were never very many of them. There were never more than seven true initiates at any one time; the others were secret students of various degrees. The Rosicrucians were the messengers of the White Lodge. In truth, the events of world significance originated with them. Everything important that happened during this period can ultimately be traced back to the Rosicrucian Lodge. Outwardly, it was entirely different people who made European history, but inwardly, they were the instruments of occult individualities. Even Rousseau and Voltaire were such instruments of occult individualities standing behind them. These occult individualities could not appear under their own names. The inspiration they gave to other people in the course of their mission could outwardly be very simple and inconspicuous. Sometimes a brief encounter with such a simple man was the occasion on which the tools of the occult individualities were given the right impulse. Occult powers also stood behind the important statesmen up to the French Revolution. Then they gradually withdrew, because human beings were to become masters of their own destiny. For the first time, human beings spoke as human beings in the speeches of the French Revolution.

[ 2 ] Inner life remained in the occult schools. The Rosicrucian schools taught what is now known as the elementary part of theosophy. The occult brotherhoods were the impetus for every important discovery; only then did events unfold in the outside world. Voltaire was a spirit driven in the most eminent sense by forward-striving brotherhoods, for he was essentially there to put people on their own feet. Others were in the service of retarding brotherhoods; Robespierre, for example, in his later life. Everything that appears prematurely evokes a counterpole on the physical plane... (gap in the text).

[ 3 ] The same teachings were taught in the schools of the Rosicrucians as are now taught through theosophy. Only, there was no mention of theosophy in the outside world. In the actual secret schools, language is only valued when one wants to teach the world. The secret student himself must learn to use the symbols, the signs. But in order to make themselves understood to the world, the initiates also have only the language that the environment uses. When the knowledge was still kept completely secret, there was a certain system of symbols, and anyone who wanted to be initiated had to learn the language of symbols. No importance was attached to linguistic expression. Even then, all the teachings were available, but sometimes the appropriate expressions were lacking. However, such expressions do exist for occult teaching in the Eastern method of teaching, which still originates from the most ancient Indians who received instruction from the ancient rishis. These Indian expressions have not yet been influenced by the materialistic age. The words coined by the Indians are still full of the magic of the sacredness of the original language. Nevertheless, Indian culture is something we in Europe cannot use for ourselves.

[ 4 ] What is right for the Indian people is not necessarily right for Europe. Initially, an influence from India was necessary because Europe itself had not developed enough expressions to introduce the teachings. There are still some things that we must describe using Indian words. But everything that appears in the occult teachings today was also present among the Rosicrucians in the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the modern era. Even then, people had the right expressions for the central things that matter. At that time, it was not possible to speak openly about reincarnation and karma; but these truths could be unconsciously incorporated into European culture. Paracelsus and other mystics did not speak of reincarnation. That was quite natural. They could not speak of it. But for everything related to the earthly life between birth and death, they had extremely apt expressions and terms in the West, but not for the state of being between two incarnations. One thing was emphasized at that time, namely that physical life is important for the development of the organs of the higher bodies. When we pursue science, when we develop intimate spiritual friendships, all of this is a development of forces that will one day function as spiritual organs.

[ 5 ] Three uniform concepts have always been used to summarize how the education of the physical plane should affect humans in their various bodies from the outside. These three concepts were called: wisdom, beauty, and power or strength.

[ 6 ] When students were taught in the more exoteric Rosicrucian schools, in the outer courtyard, they were told: You are to be workers of the future. Reincarnation was not mentioned. But human beings would continue to have an effect even if they were not reincarnated here in the physical world. What was to become organ-forming in the future was implanted in them. The students were told: Lead a life of wisdom, beauty, and power in your everyday life, and you will develop organs in your higher bodies that are for the future. — Among the Freemasons today, the JohannesMaurer still talk about how important wisdom, beauty, and power are, but they no longer know that this shapes the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego with their organs.

[ 7 ] When a Masonic master builder constructed a cathedral or a church in the Middle Ages, his name was of no importance. He remained hidden. For the same reason, the author of “Theologia deutsch” is not named. He calls himself “the Frankfurtian.” No learned researcher can find out his name. The endeavor of these people was to work externally on the physical plane and leave no traces of their names, but rather of their activities on the physical plane.

[ 8 ] Let us assume that someone provided the plan and the inspiration for the construction of a large cathedral. He knew that the forms of the cathedral would create an organ for the future within him. All such works will remain connected in their effects with the inner soul. As a rule, however, the outer works also remain long enough for the one who created them to find and recognize them again when he returns. Under the pulpit, one usually finds a small picture of the architect; this is how he recognizes himself. This is the bridge that is built from one incarnation to another.

[ 9 ] Through wisdom, the etheric body should be developed; through beauty, to which piety belonged, the astral body should be developed; and through power, the actual self should be developed. Man should become a self-denying imprint of the outer world. In ancient India, nothing was known of this. Brahmanism strove for the perfection of the inner self... (gap in the text).

[ 10 ] ... but right in the middle of our post-Atlantean cycle, religious teachers appeared who pointed to the renunciation of the self. Buddha already taught this. But this was cultivated even more in the West through Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. They sought the perfection of the self in the form that also exists in the outer world, not so much in the form that lives within, as was cultivated in India. In this sense, the Western occultist said to himself: Your self is not only within you, but in the world around you. The gods have lifted you out of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, but you create three kingdoms for yourself: the three kingdoms of wisdom, beauty, and power. These organize the higher human being.

[ 11 ] Humanity said to itself: I stand here as the culmination of a time in which the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms have surrendered themselves to me; for this reason, self-consciousness, the I, has emerged. And just as the I has been shaped by the others, it must now shape the realms of wisdom, beauty, and strength itself, in order to climb even higher through them to a complete transformation of our etheric, astral, and I bodies. These three realms are the realms of science, art, and inner strength, which means everything that the will lives out. In these three members, the medieval esotericist saw the means for the further development of the human being. The transformation of the world should not be left to blind chance, but the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms should be transformed according to these three aspects of wisdom, beauty, and strength. When the earth becomes astral again, everything will be transformed according to these three aspects. Thus, the Freemasons of the Middle Ages and all esotericists built and constructed according to these three aspects.

[ 12 ] In Indian esotericism, a distinction is made between twelve forces that draw human beings back into physical existence. The first of these forces is: Avidya = ignorance. Avidya is what draws us back into physical existence, for the simple reason that we have only fulfilled our mission on Earth when we have extracted all knowledge. We have not completed our earthly mission until we know everything that we are supposed to extract as knowledge from physical existence.

[ 13 ] After Avidya, the next thing that pulls us back is everything on Earth that we have created ourselves and therefore belongs to our organization. For example, if a bricklayer has built a cathedral here, it has become a part of himself. The two things then attract each other. What has an organizing tendency for the creator, the work of Leonardo da Vinci as well as the smallest work here, forms an organ in the human being, and that is why he comes back. All of this together, what the human being has done, is called samskara or organizing tendencies that build up the human being. That is what pulls him back second.

[ 14 ] Now comes the third. Before man entered into any incarnation, he knew nothing of an outside world. Self-consciousness only began with the first incarnation; before that, man was not self-conscious. He first had to perceive external things on the physical plane before he could develop self-consciousness. Just as much as what humans have done pulls them back to the physical plane, so too does their knowledge of things pull them back. Consciousness is a new force that binds them to what is here. This is the third thing that draws humans into a new life on earth. This third thing is called: Vijnana = consciousness.

[ 15 ] Up to this point, we have remained very intimate within the human soul. The fourth thing that now comes into play is what confronts consciousness from outside, what was there without the human being, but which he only became aware of through his consciousness. This was there without his previous existence, but only opens up after his consciousness has unlocked it. It is the separation between subject and object, or as the Sanskrit scholar says, the separation between name and form = Namarupa. This brings the human being to the external object. This draws him back as the fourth, for example, the memory of a being to which he has attached himself.

[ 16 ] The next thing is what we form as an idea of the external object; for example, the image of a dog is merely an idea, but for the painter it is the essence. It is everything that the mind makes of the thing: Shadayadana.

[ 17 ] Now it goes even further down into the earthly realm. The idea leads us to what we call contact with existence = Sparsha. Those who are attached to the object are on the level of Namarupa. Those who form images are on the level of Shadayadana. But those who distinguish between the sympathetic and the unsympathetic will prefer the beautiful to the ugly. This is called contact with existence = Sparsha.

[ 18 ] However, something else besides this contact with the outside world is what stirs within as an inner feeling. Now I myself spring into action, connecting my feelings with one thing or another. This is a new element. It draws people further in; it is called Vedana = feeling.

[ 19 ] Vedana in turn gives rise to something completely new, namely the thirst for existence. The forces that draw people back into existence awaken more and more within them. The higher forces compel more or less all people; they are not individual. Finally, however, there are very personal forces that draw people back into the earthly realm. This is the eighth: Trishna = thirst for existence.

[ 20 ] Even more subjective than the thirst for existence is something called Upadana = pleasure in existence. In Upadana, humans have something in common with animals, they just feel it a little more spiritually, and the task of humans is to spiritualize this coarse element of the soul.

[ 21 ] Then comes individual existence itself, the entire previous incarnation, if he has been there before: Bhava = individual existence, the power of the entire totality of the previous incarnation. The previous incarnation draws him into existence.

[ 22 ] With this, we have actually traced the stages of the Nidanas back to the stage of individual birth. The esotericist now distinguishes two more stages that go beyond the time of individual existence. He distinguishes a preliminary stage that pushed toward birth before the human being was ever incarnated. This is called: Jati = what pushed toward birth before birth.

[ 23 ] Being pushed toward birth is also connected with something else. In fact, at birth we are already given the seed of decay, the striving to get out of individual birth again. We are interested in our earthly existence decaying again and being freed, growing old and dying = Jaramarana. These are the twelve Nidanas, which act like ropes and pull us back into existence again and again. (Nidana means rope, noose.) There are three groups that belong together:

first group	second group	third group
Avidya	Shadayadana	Upadana
Samskara	Sparsha	Bhava
Vijnana	Vedana	Jati
Namarupa	Trishna	Jaramarana

[ 24 ] The soul has three members: the consciousness soul as the highest member, then the mind soul and the feeling soul. The first group of nidanas from avidya to namarupa clings to the consciousness soul; the second group clings to the mind soul, and the third from upadana to jaramarana clings to the feeling soul.

[ 25 ] Vijnana is characteristic of the consciousness soul; Shadayadana of the intellectual soul, and the latter four are connected with the feeling soul. These last four are present in animals as well as in humans.