The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. The Promise of the Spirit of Truth

[ 1 ] The truths of religious documents are drawn from the depths of wisdom. But many people come and say: You are giving us something complicated; we want the gospel to be simple and naive. The great truths must not be complicated. — In a way, these people are right, but it is not only simple thinking, but also wise thinking that must be able to find the highest truths. The standpoint from which we view these things cannot be high enough. In the future, we must increasingly abandon the standpoint of convenience in order to penetrate the deepest insights with true seriousness.

[ 2 ] Today we want to learn to understand the promise of the Spirit of Truth. These words refer to a secret initiation.

[ 3 ] “He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me,” says Christ. “To love” refers to the intimate relationship between teacher and student, which is esoteric. The deepest secrets of the soul are transmitted from person to person, in a very intimate way. The words of the Bible that we want to clarify today are as follows:

[ 4 ] “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms...”

[ 5 ] “If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever: the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

[ 6 ] “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. But whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, “Lord, what is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.“

[ 7 ] ‘Father’ is the name of the innermost power of the soul. It is to be revealed to the intimate disciples. Judas asks, ”Why do you want to reveal yourself to us, the intimate disciples, and not to the world?" With this, Judas directly expresses that something is to be revealed to the intimate disciples in the mystery.

[ 8 ] Jesus says, “We will make our home with the Father.” That was the most important thing in the outpouring of the Spirit, which began with the words, “Let your hearts be calm.” Christ goes to prepare the dwelling place for his intimate disciples: “In my Father's house are many mansions.”

[ 9 ] Let us clarify these words. Once a person has attained a certain level of consciousness, they can never lose it again. We must rid ourselves of any other idea. People so often revel in “merging with universal consciousness” and think that this is salvation. Such universal consciousness does not exist and never will. The ability to say “I” is something that human beings are now acquiring. And the more they say “I” and work from the I on the purification of their three lower bodies, the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, the more they develop their I and evolve into the future. In this way, human beings can consciously become selfless because they want to. One day, all human beings will have reached the summit of ego development. Nevertheless, they can selflessly grasp the spirit of community. We are sitting here together in this room, and the common spirit within it is like a point from which everything radiates together. But this common spirit can also voluntarily radiate from every heart and fill the room. Let us remember how the deity is reflected in the world. It has poured all its life into its reflection through the great sacrifice. Now let us imagine that we could also pour our lives into countless reflections, so that each individual reflection would say: I and my origin are one. — Thus, all human beings once emerged from the bosom of the deity as reflections of the deity. They are ultimately empty egos with transformed astral bodies, etheric bodies, and physical bodies, and they enter the spiritual world and say the deepest secret of their being: “I and the Father are one!” The animal-people of the Lemurian epoch could never become spiritual on their own; only by receiving the divine drops. At the end of their development, purified and refined, they can say: “I and the Father are one.”

[ 10 ] We look back to distant times. There was still a lot of volcanic activity on Earth in the Lemurian era. Very different beings lived then than today. At that time, human beings first received what they were to develop as their soul. If we go back even further, we see the soul nature above and the body nature below, still as one nature. Both were united in the common bosom of God. Then the physical current below was left to itself and developed into the animal-men of the Lemurian epoch. The upper part developed spiritually and mentally. The body below first had to be prepared to receive the soul from above.

[ 11 ] The spirit that reigned in the common origin of both, the souls and the bodies, is the Father Spirit, that is the Father.

[ 12 ] The spirit that reigned below in the physical realm when the spiritual realm went its separate way above is the Son Spirit, that is the Son.

[ 13 ] And the spirit that reigned above in the soul until it could descend into the physical is the Holy Spirit.

[ 14 ] In the Lemurian period, during the first incarnation of the soul, there was an outpouring of the spirit: “And God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

[ 15 ] That was the first outpouring of the spirit, an unconscious outpouring. At that time, human beings still lived in a dreamlike state for a long time. It was not until the second half of the Atlantean epoch that they acquired the abilities to calculate, think logically, and observe the outside world correctly in its relationships. Humans in the first half of the Atlantean epoch saw other humans as colored clouds. The cloud appeared reddish-brown if the person was unsympathetic, an enemy. A violet-reddish cloud announced a sympathetic being, a friend. Other things were also perceived in this way: if a golden-yellow cloud rose like a kind of mist between the astral and the physical, it was a sign that there was a useful metal here. A dull blue-red cloud with strange boundaries, as only a mineral can have, indicated an unusable metal. Gradually, humans became more and more isolated, limiting their feelings through their skin, and their external physical perception developed. Humans in the early Atlantean period perceived the world in the same way as fish or snails do today, but not in the same way as turtles or crocodiles. When humans began to breathe through their lungs, a new form of perception began. This was also connected with blood formation and the activity of the ego within.

[ 16 ] A remnant of the ego's effect on the blood is still present today when we turn pale with fear or blush with shame. This still shows the immediate activity of the ego. This is a remnant from a time when the ego had a powerful effect on the blood. Today, the inner power of the ego is expressed only in gestures, in blushing and turning pale. Today, people can gesticulate enthusiastically with their hands, but in those days, the impulse of the ego could cause the blood to form organs out of the body: this is how the fingers came into being, for example. At the end of the Atlantean epoch, the people of that time were already similar to those of today.

[ 17 ] In the past, blood ties were stronger than they are now. There was a much greater connection between blood relatives. The following example may be cited. Two writers of our time have portrayed farmers excellently in their works, but in very different ways. Anzengruber presents them sharply defined, almost chiseled figures. Rosegger, on the other hand, combines many individual traits to form a whole. He makes notes about his observations and then uses them. Rosegger wondered how Anzengruber could portray farmers at all, even though he had never lived among them or observed them. Anzengruber replied that he was able to portray farmers so well precisely because he did not know them: all his ancestors had been farmers, and so the nature of farmers was in his blood. From his blood, he described the characters of the farmers his ancestors had known.

[ 18 ] In earlier times, humanity comprised many small groups. When we read Tacitus' Germania, we find many small tribes listed that were related by blood, for whom blood ties meant something special. Among the patriarchs of the Old Testament, marriages always took place within the same tribe, so that the same blood flowed in their veins; the memory of the descendants reached back to their ancestors. The descendant remembers the ancestors as we remember our childhood. Nine hundred years after Adam, the descendants still remembered Adam's experiences. This explains the high ages given in the Bible. As long as one could remember, the self that spanned generations was called “Adam,” for example. A common self lives in the tribe and lives in the blood. That is why only blood can atone for blood that has been shed. And the whole tribe avenges the blood of a single tribesman through blood feuds.

[ 19 ] Gradually, the close relationship is increasingly replaced by more distant relationships. The tribes become international. The principle of pure humanity gains the upper hand.

[ 20 ] In the physical realm, in the love of relatives, which is held together by blood, the principle of sonship is at work. But the soul develops more and more individually, so that the blood rolls into ever wider circles, moving further and further away from the community of the tribe.

[ 21 ] All ancient states were built on the principle of blood kinship. The Ten Commandments of the Jews are tribal commandments. What adhered to the Jewish people did not yet adhere to all of humanity. Then the spirit of sonship appeared on earth in Christ, and his blood was shed. The blood that had previously created only close bonds was poured out. This resulted in the outflow of all close bonds into a brotherhood of all people. The narrowly defined sense of self, which cannot yet say, “Whoever does not forsake father, mother, wife, children, brother, and sister, and also his own life, cannot be my disciple,” such self-seeking must flow from the wounds of the Redeemer. In the flowing blood of Christ, the capacity for love was achieved, which overcomes blood brotherhood, tribe, and people. If we could have caught the drops of blood on the cross, we would have had, truly and in the fullest sense, the substance that transformed people so profoundly. The goal is for people to find a connection with all people, so that not only brothers and sisters can love each other, but that people can love other people. The physical blood that flowed from Christ's wounds is the embodiment of the principle of redemption; this blood is a significant symbol of redemption.

[ 22 ] Human beings should rediscover the spirit in its full extent. They once had it, but only dimly, nebulously. Then it took on the form in which human beings view the world today. But today, people see only this world, only one side. This view cuts people off from spiritual life as if by a veil. Now, through the individual consciousness that made them into I's, they are to be brought back to world consciousness. That is why Christ's blood was sprinkled from the narrow trunk into the wide world. The cross was able to do this. From the cross, the blood flowed out to all of humanity. But at the same time, the cross also developed the ego in an ever closer, ever more individual way. Christianity brought us all of this.

[ 23 ] But when people are left to their own devices, without tribal connections and with increased ego consciousness, selfishness must rise higher. Christ Jesus foresaw this. He saw the coming of materialism, and he set Christianity up as a bulwark against it.

[ 24 ] In ancient times, everything was based on blood brotherhood. This is clearly shown by ancestor worship. Many legends were connected with the figure of an ancestral hero, for example Theseus or Cadmus. This principle prevailed in law and commandment. But then external institutions became decisive for coexistence. However, this only developed with the spread of Christianity. What does man find today in internationality? A principle that is more powerful than the power of the state. The great powers that rule the world today are international. They are called: money, transport, industry, and so on. None of this has anything to do with the old blood brotherhood. The flip side of this development is materialism. The selfish mind dwells in the machine. How differently the Greeks depicted their god in Zeus, remembering that the father principle underlies everything. Where do we find anything divine in our public life? Machines, railroads, and so on, all serve selfishness. This will play a special role in the future. In the war of all against all, it will increase to the extreme.

[ 25 ] Even though Christ created the bond of unity for all people, a second act must be added to the act of the Redeemer. In people who feel drawn to Christ, there live the feelings that lead from person to person. His act is the great act of connection that can bring the spirit and the physical back together. Today, people still control the physical in the service of selfishness. They should one day use it in the service of the spirit. The spirit must unite with the Son so that both may be united in the Father!

[ 26 ] Christ says: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Everyone should say: I am like the branch on the vine; Christ is my vine. Then Christ will overcome selfishness in the organisms of humanity. The Father Spirit, the spirit of common origin, must enter into the individual egos, then the ego will work according to the Father principle; then each ego will build its own house, and yet they will all be united through the Christ principle. “In my Father's house are many mansions,” says Christ. This refers to the mansions that the egos build for themselves. But Christ must prepare the place, the dwelling place. For this, however, the Spirit must come that unites people: that is the Spirit of Truth.

[ 27 ] Theosophy should teach people to understand what they have in common; it should bring higher wisdom, the Spirit of Truth. People have different opinions as long as they do not yet have the highest knowledge. The Gnostics called mysticism “mathesis,” because in mathematics no one can say that they disagree with others. No two scholars can ever disagree on a mathematical theorem. Human desires are irrelevant here. When it comes to great wisdom, we must free ourselves from our desires. Only those who want to study the Spirit of Truth, completely without their own desires, are ready to receive it. The highest knowledge unites people; there is no thinking or imagining. The Spirit of Truth must shine upon people. Then, no matter how scattered they may be in their different homes, the Spirit of Truth will unite them. In order for the house that the ego builds to fit into the spiritual realm, the common spirit of truth must rule the egos. Christ promises the spirit of truth to his disciples at Pentecost. There the disciples speak in different tongues, and all nations learn to understand one another. Even if egoism continues to grow, every ego will have the spirit of community if it participates in the spirit of truth. Those who strive for this must live in the spirit of the Gospel of John. That is true theosophy. Just as all plants bend toward the sun, just as they all grow toward it, wherever their dwelling place may be, so will all egos turn toward the sun of the spirit, toward the spiritual light of truth!