The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday's reflection took its starting point from the fact that in everyday human life such a change of states occurs in man that during the night, from the evening when he falls asleep until the morning when he wakes up, man has his physical body and his etheric or life body lying in bed, and that outside of the bed is what we call the astral body and ego. At the same time, however, we had to emphasize that what remains in the bed - physical body and etheric body - could not continue to exist if a divine-spiritual astral body and a divine-spiritual ego did not penetrate into it. In other words: The change in these states of human life in everyday life consists in the fact that in the evening, when a person falls asleep, he leaves his physical body and etheric body with his human ego and his human astral body, but instead divine-spiritual astral entities and divine-spiritual ego entities move into this physical body and etheric body. In the daily state it is then the case that the human being himself fills his physical body and etheric body with his astral body and his ego. That was the one thing we placed at the head of our considerations yesterday.

[ 2 ] The other, however, was what we gained through a comprehensive consideration of our entire human development through the earlier embodiments of our earth - Saturn, Sun, Moon. We also discussed details from this comprehensive observation. It has become apparent to us that, with regard to the progress of our earth planet, a split has occurred since the evolution of the moon, that certain entities, which needed lower, inferior substances, so to speak, for further development, split off with the old moon, and that higher entities of a more spiritual nature split off as an older form of solar evolution.

[ 3 ] We have then seen how both parts later reunited, how they passed together through a world devachan or pralaya and then came to earth evolution. This earth evolution again proceeded in such a way that a repetition of the splitting of the sun occurred, so that for a time we have earth plus moon as a coarser, denser body, and the sun with higher, more exalted beings as a special, finer body. We have seen that the earth, if it had remained connected with the lunar substance, would have become desolate, hardened, that all life on it would have died or, better said, mummified. At a certain time the moon had to be thrown out of the earth's development with that which it contains today. Thus a process of rejuvenation occurred, as it were, with that which was to develop as a human being. We have seen how the sublime entities that had made their progress on the sun could not have an effect on human substances and entities before the moon had split off, but that they could then have a rejuvenating effect on them again, so that the actual development of mankind was only possible from the time when the moon had separated itself from the earth. This separation of the moon means something tremendously important for the whole development, and we want to take a closer look at it today. For the time being, however, we only want to draw attention to the way in which the two starting points of our yesterday's observations join together, so to speak.

[ 4 ] We look at the human being as he stands before us during the day. There he is an entity consisting of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. Now we look at the human being during his night sleep, where he lies in bed according to his physical and etheric body. There the clairvoyant consciousness sees how higher beings move into the physical body and etheric body. Who are these beings? They are precisely the beings of whom we have been able to say that they generally have their scene on the sun. This is not an impossibility. Only he who imagines everything spiritual physically and wants to apply everything physical to the ideas of spiritual beings could say: How can solar beings, who live on the sun, move into a physical and etheric human body at night? - For beings who are at such a lofty height that they inhabit the sun, there are not the same spatial conditions as for those who are in the physical world. Such beings can inhabit the sun quite well and still send their powers into the physical body of the human being during the night. So we can say: During the day, man is awake, that is, he inhabits his physical body and etheric body. At night he sleeps, that is, he is outside his physical body and his etheric body. The gods or other extraterrestrial beings watch over man's physical body and etheric body during the night. Even if this is a semi-figurative expression, it is nevertheless quite accurate. So we know where the entities come from that have to enter our physical body and etheric body during the night. And so these two points come together for us. But we shall see in a moment that these entities not only have their significance in relation to night life, but that they also gradually gain significance in relation to day life. First, however, in order to realize the full significance of the moon's exit from the earth's evolution, we must consider a few other things. Today we also want to look at the other beings around us with regard to their mode of origin.

[ 5 ] If we look back at Saturn once again, we can say: This Saturn consists only of human beings. There is as yet no animal kingdom, no plant kingdom and no mineral kingdom on it. The entire sphere of Saturn is composed only of the first human plants. Like a blackberry made up of individual berries, Saturn was made up of human beings. And what belonged to Saturn surrounded it and had an effect on Saturn from the surrounding area. Let us now ask ourselves: Where did that come from which gave the human being on the old Saturn the first structure of his physical body? In a certain sense we can say that it came from two sides. Higher spiritual beings first poured out their own substance. A great sacrifice was made on ancient Saturn, and the beings who performed this sacrifice are called the “thrones” in the sense of Christian esotericism. Human thinking and even human clairvoyance can hardly presume to look into that sublime development which the thrones had to undergo before they were able to sacrifice that which could form the first anlage for the human physical body. Let us try to understand a little what such a sacrifice means.

[ 6 ] If you look at the being you know best, man, today, you will say: Man as he is today demands certain things from the world and gives certain things to the world. Goethe summarized this very nicely in the words: “Human life flows in the metamorphosis between taking and giving.” Man must not only take physical nourishment from the outside world, his intellect must also draw its nourishment from the outside world. In this way he grows and receives what he needs for his own development. Through this, however, he also develops the ability to give in turn what he matures in ideas and feelings and finally in love. By taking something from the world and giving something else to his surroundings, his abilities become higher and higher. He becomes an intelligent and intellectual man, can develop concepts which he can sacrifice to the common life of mankind. Man develops feelings and sensations which are transformed into love, and when he offers these feelings and sensations to his fellow men, he enlivens his fellow beings. We need only call to mind how invigorating love can have an effect on fellow beings, how he who is truly able to pour out love on his fellow human beings can invigorate and comfort and uplift them through his love alone. Man has the gift of sacrifice. But no matter how much we acquire in terms of such sacrificial possibilities, it is little compared to that of the thrones. The development, however, consists in the fact that a being acquires more and more the ability to sacrifice until it is finally able to sacrifice, so to speak, its own substance and being, to feel it as the highest bliss to give what it has developed as matter and substance.

[ 7 ] There are such high beings who ascend to a higher level of existence by sacrificing their own substance. A materialistic mind will of course say again: If beings have come so far that they sacrifice their own substance, how can they ascend to a higher level? They are sacrificing themselves, there is nothing left of them! - This is what the materialistic mind says, for it cannot comprehend that there is a spiritual existence, that such a being is preserved when it gives up what it has gradually absorbed. The thrones on Saturn were at such a stage that they could pour out the substantiality which they had acquired during the previous evolution. Thus they themselves ascend to a higher stage of development. And what flowed out from the thrones, like what the spider puts out of itself to spin its web, was initially the basis for forming the physical human body. Then came another kind of entity - not as high up as the thrones - which we call the “spirits of personality”, or the “elemental forces”, “archai” in the sense of Christian esotericism. These spirits of personality worked through, as it were, what had flowed out from the thrones. And from the interaction of these two entities arose the first structure of the physical human body.

[ 8 ] During long periods of time this physical human body was worked out. Then came, as we mentioned yesterday, a world night or a world evachan, and the second embodiment of the earth, the solar stage, came into being. The humans came out again, and other spiritual beings were added: these were the “spirits of fire” or “archangels” in the sense of Christian esotericism, and the “spirits of wisdom” or “kyriotetes”. They now mostly had to deal with the further development of what reappeared as the physical human body. And now the Kyriotetes, the dominions or spirits of wisdom, could sacrifice their substantiality, and what we call the etheric body flowed into the physical body. Together with the spirits of personality, the fire spirits or archangels worked on it. Thus the human being was now developed into a being of plant value. We can say: On Saturn man was of the value of our mineral. Our minerals only have a physical body. On Saturn man also had only a physical body; therefore he was still in mineral existence. On the sun man was of the value of a plant; he had a physical and an etheric body.

[ 9 ] Now comes something that we must adopt as a particularly important concept if we want to understand the full development.

[ 10 ] I always like to say in this case that there is such an event as occurs in our ordinary life to the concern and also to the annoyance of parents: namely, that children remain seated, do not reach the goal of a class and have to repeat - also exists in the cosmos. Certain entities fall short of the goal of a cosmic level. For example, certain spirits of personality who should have reached the goal on Saturn fell behind. They had not done all that would have been necessary to give man the value of the mineral and thus bring him to his perfection at this particular stage. Such entities then have to make up for what they failed to do before during the next stage. In what way could these spirits of personality, which had remained behind, work during the sun's existence? They could not create an entity like the human being on the sun should have been, an entity with a physical body and an etheric body. The fire spirits were necessary for this. They, these spirits of personality, could only create on the sun what they had created on Saturn: a physical structure of the value of the mineral. Thus, during the time of the sun, through their influence, beings arose who were one step lower. These beings now formed a lower kingdom compared to the human kingdom. These are the ancestors of our present-day animal kingdom. While our present human kingdom on the sun had already advanced to the level of plants, our present animal kingdom on the sun had the level of a mineral being, had only a physical body. Thus our animal kingdom was added to the human kingdom. So we ask ourselves: Which of all the beings that surround us has the oldest development behind it? Who is the firstborn of our creation? The human being! And the other beings have come into being because the forces of development connected with the human being have held back what could have become a human being at another stage and then allowed it to become a lower being at a later stage. If the spirits of personality that had remained behind had done the work on Saturn that they did on the sun, the animal kingdom would not have come into being.

[ 11 ] Similarly - I need only hint at this now - the following came into being during the moon: Man moved upwards by receiving the astral body through certain beings whom we call angels and through other higher spirits, through the “spirits of movement” - in Christian terminology: “Dynamis”. As a result, man became an animal-like being during his moon existence. Those beings, however, which had come into being as a second kingdom during the solar existence, now received for the most part the value of plants on the moon. These were the forerunners of our animals. Then came, again through spiritual beings who had remained behind in the manner indicated, those beings which today belong to our plant kingdom. On the sun there was still no plant kingdom, only the human and animal kingdoms. Only on the moon was the plant kingdom added. There was no mineral kingdom on the moon, as there is today with the land on which everything else stands. So the kingdoms developed gradually. The highest of the kingdoms, the human kingdom, developed first. The animal kingdom is something of an outcast from this human pond, something left behind. And what remained even further behind was the plant kingdom.

[ 12 ] When the old lunar evolution was complete, the earth evolution began. Of this earth evolution we have described how the sun and moon separated from the earth. During this time all the germs of the earlier kingdoms reappeared: the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and finally, when the moon was still united with its substance with the earth, the mineral kingdom. It was precisely through the addition of the mineral kingdom as the solid foundation that the hardening and desiccation that so desolated the earth took place. For the mineral kingdom that surrounds us today is nothing other than that which has been excreted from the higher kingdoms. I have already drawn your attention to the fact that you need only think once about what today's science recognizes. Then you will be able to imagine how the mineral kingdom has gradually been eliminated. Think of hard coal, a real mineral product, being extracted from the earth. What was coal a long, long time ago? It was trees that grew on the earth, plants that perished and became masses of stone, minerals. What you are now digging up as hard coal was once a mass of plants. So it is a product that was first excreted; originally there were plant creatures instead of coal. So you will also be able to imagine that everything else that forms the foundation and soil of our earth was excreted from higher realms. Just think how today certain mineral products are still excretions from animal beings, as the shells of snails, mussels and so on. Everything mineral was not there in the past; it was only excreted in the course of time. The mineral kingdom only came into being on earth, and it was formed because such entities were still present on earth and were still working in the same way as they had worked on Saturn. The mineral kingdom came into being through the activity of the spirits of personality: The mineral kingdom came into being through the activity of the spirits of personality, and such beings are active on all higher levels. But if the development had continued in this way, there would have been so many mineral impacts, so many hardenings and densifications, that the whole earth would have gradually become desolate.

[ 13 ] Now we come to an important point in the development of our earth. We imagine how the sun has already separated, and how the beings have gone out with the finest substances, which are now spiritual beings on the sun. We look at the earth, how it is becoming desolate, how its mineral impact is becoming denser and denser, but also how the forms on it, including the human forms, are becoming more and more arid. Even then, a certain change took place in the life states of human beings. I would like to illustrate what happened to human beings at that time with the development of plants.

[ 14 ] The plant sprouts from the inconspicuous seed in spring, develops into blossom and fruit and withers again in the fall. What delights the eye during the spring and summer disappears in the fall, and all that remains externally, physically, is something inconspicuous. But if you wanted to believe that nothing of the actual essence of the plant is present during the winter, or if you were to look for it in the physical seed alone, then you would understand the plant badly. As it is today, the plant does indeed consist of a physical body and an etheric body, but if you look at it clairvoyantly, it is also surrounded by an astral entity at the top, as if by a hem. And this astral entity is animated by a force that flows from the sun, from the spiritual of the sun, to the earth. For the clairvoyant consciousness, every blossom is surrounded as if by a cloud. This cloud breathes the life that is exchanged between the sun and the earth. During spring and summer, while the plants sprout and grow, something of the solar being approaches and surrounds the plants on the surface. When autumn comes, the astral being withdraws and unites with the solar life. We may say: That which is plant astrality seeks out its physical plant body on earth in spring and embodies itself, if not in it, at least in it. Then in autumn it returns to the sun, leaving behind only the germ. It leaves behind the germ, as it were, as a pledge, so that it can find its way back to its physical being.

[ 15 ] In the same way there was a kind of exchange between the physical human beings and the solar beings, even if the form of the human beings was still primitive and simple. And there were times when the sun spirits worked down in such a way that they enveloped the human bodies with astrality, just as today the plant astrality envelops the plants from spring to fall. We can therefore say for these times that the astral being of man was united in a certain relationship with the physical body on earth through certain epochs, that it then withdrew to the sun and came back again. Only the germ was left behind in that which was physical.

[ 16 ] But the earth hardened more and more. And then something emerged which is of great importance and which I would like to emphasize. Whereas earlier, when the sun had just left the earth, it was still possible for the astral entities that left the earth to reunite with the physical body when they returned after their separation, the ever-increasing influence of the moon hardened this body down there, which the descending entities wanted to occupy, to such an extent that they could no longer do anything with it. You have now described in more detail what I was able to describe to you more abstractly yesterday. I said: The solar forces lost the possibility of shaping the substances on earth. To put it more concretely, you could say that the substances dried up and the entities could no longer find suitable bodies. This also caused the earth to become desolate, and the human souls who wanted to descend again finally found that the bodies were no longer suitable for them. They had to leave them to themselves, and only the bodies with the strongest powers were able to survive this time of desolation. This desolation reached its highest peak when the moon was still inside the earth and was about to come out. The souls that still wanted to be human souls were no longer able to occupy these bodies. Only a few people still inhabited the earth at that time. This desolation looks like a gradual extinction on earth. And one describes the conditions quite exactly when one says: When the moon went out, there were only very few people left who had endured that what wanted to unite with the forms below really united.

[ 17 ] Now I must describe these circumstances in more detail. Let us go back once more to the time after the moon's evolution had come to an end, and the earth arose again out of the world-shot. There it did not arise like the old Saturn, but what developed out of it had in it the after-effects of all that had happened before. Not only physical matter was connected with it, but also all the entities that had worked there. That the thrones united with Saturn means that they remained connected with the whole development; and they came out again when the earth rose out of the darkness of the womb. In the same way, the spirits of personality, the spirits of movement and so on came out again, and also the human, animal and plant germs, for all these were within.

[ 18 ] Our physical science puts forward hypotheses that are pure fantasies. Today, in the theory of the origin of the world, the theory is put forward that there was once a great world nebula that extended beyond Saturn. Such a world nebula of mere vapors or steam is a fantastic idea - it never existed. If one could only have seen what was going on with external physical eyes, then one could have perceived something like this; one would indeed have seen a huge nebulous mass. But there was something in this mass of mist that physical eyes could not have seen: all the entities that were connected with this development! The fact that everything was later structured and formed did not come about through a mere rotating movement, but through the needs of the entities that were connected with the whole. You will only gain a sensible view of these things when you have completely freed yourselves from what is today the scholastic view, what is inculcated in our children from the very beginning of school. The children are told that the old times had only childish views and ideas: Those poor old Indians believed in a Brahma who filled the whole universe! And such a person, like an ancient Persian, believed in Ormuzd, the good god, and the opposite Ahriman!

[ 19 ] And even the ancient Greeks with their whole host of deities, Zeus, Pallas Athena and so on! We know today that these are all entities invented by the popular imagination, by a child's imagination! And even the gods of the old Germans, Wotan, Thor, these are mythological figures, we have long since gone beyond that! We know today that such gods had nothing to do with the development of the world. In the beginning there was a great primeval nebula in the universe, which began to rotate. First it pushed a ball loose from its mass. Then it continued to rotate; over time a second ball was released, then a third ball, and so on. But these ideas are only the form of today's physical-copernican mythology. This will also be replaced by another mythology. The only difference between the earlier mythologies and this present-day form is that they are truer than the later ones, which have only separated out the abstract, only the completely external material. One must always bear this in mind, that it is quite convenient to make children believe how beautifully plausible such a world system is: You take a fat-like drop, cut a circular disk out of a sheet of card, stick it through in the direction of the equator, stick a needle through it from above and put it in the water; there it floats. Now you start to rotate the whole thing, “as the nebula once rotated”, they say. First a flattening forms, then a drop is released, a second drop, a third drop, and a large drop remains in the middle: a small world system has been created! And you can now make it quite plausible: Just as this happens on a small scale, it also happens on a large scale. Those who make such an observation forget only one thing, which can be quite nice to forget on other occasions: themselves. They forget that they themselves are spinning up there. The whole comparison would only be valid if such a brave professor were so bold as to say: As I stand there and turn the little needle, so there is a giant professor outside and makes sure that the whole thing rotates and the planets split off, as we did with the drop of fat in the small one. - In this case, that would still be possible.

[ 20 ] We know that no giant professor is turning the needle outside, but that there are entities of all degrees present, and that it is these spiritual entities that attract the corresponding matter to themselves. The beings who needed certain living conditions drew the matter to themselves when they went to the sun, took it and formed the scene through the power of their spiritual forces; and again other beings separated the earth substance from themselves. It is spirit that works down to the smallest material particle, down to the atom, if we want to call it that! And it is untrue to ascribe a mode of action to mere matter. Only then will one understand how it works in the smallest part of space, when one understands that spirit works into the largest part of space. And not spirit in general, of which one says, “it is just spirit in general in the material”, an “all-spirit” or a “primordial spirit”. Again, you could stir anything into it. That is not enough. We have to recognize the “spirits” in their concreteness, in their details and in their various life needs.

[ 21 ] And now I want to tell you something in addition to what we were able to touch on yesterday, to the fact that the sun separated from the earth plus the moon, and that the moon in turn separated from the earth. This is correct in the main relationship, but this picture must be supplemented.

[ 22 ] Before the sun could separate, it was already necessary for certain entities to separate particular locations. That which they separated off figures today as the outer planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. So we can say that Saturn, Jupiter and so on were also in the general matter where the Sun and Moon were, and certain entities first separated out with these world bodies. These were beings who had such needs for life as could be satisfied by a life on these planets, then the sun separated with the highest beings, and the earth plus moon remained. This developed further until the moon was thrown out in the manner described. But not all the beings that had gone with the sun were able to take part in the solar evolution. If we may speak figuratively - it is difficult to find words for this in prosaic language; therefore it is sometimes necessary to speak comparatively - then we can say: When the sun split off, certain beings believed that they could bear to take part in the sun's journey. In reality, only the highest beings could, the others had to split off later. And because these entities created special places for themselves, Venus and Mercury came into being. Thus we see the separation of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars before the separation of the sun from the earth. Afterwards, Venus and Mercury split off from the Sun, and then the Moon separated from the Earth.

[ 23 ] This is how we have visualized this development in our minds. We have understood the development of our solar system in such a way that we have the different entities on the various world bodies. When we have placed this before our soul, then we can now also give ourselves the answer to the question: What happened to those spiritual astral beings who wanted to descend as human beings and found hardened bodies below which they could not occupy?

[ 24 ] Not all of them were able to unite with the sun spirits, nor were they mature enough to do so. So the following happened: Those beings who had to leave the bodies on earth withdrew for a while to Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. While the earth below becomes desolate, while it only produces bodies that are incapable of receiving human soul-beings, we have the fact that the souls go up into these planetary worlds to wait there until the time has come when they again find human bodies for themselves.

[ 25 ] Only very few, only the strongest human bodies were able to take souls into themselves in order to carry life over the lunar crisis. The other souls went up to the other world bodies. And then the moon was ejected from the earth. This allowed the solar forces to work on the human forms again. The human form received a new impulse and became soft and pliable and plastic again; and into these plastic human bodies those souls could move in again who had been waiting for Saturn, Jupiter and so on. While these souls had to leave the earth earlier, they now gradually returned after the moon's exit and populated the human bodies that were newly created through the refreshment. Thus after the exit from the moon we have a time when new and new bodies come forth. We only have a very small number of people after the lunar crisis. People have always had descendants. But the souls, when they came down, could not use the forms and let them wither away. The human race gradually died out. But when the revival came again, the descendants of those human beings who had survived the lunar crisis were again able to absorb the souls of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. The earth was gradually populated with souls. And now you can understand what a significant, deeply incisive event this exit of the moon was. Everything actually changed as a result of the moon's exit.

[ 26 ] Let's take another look at the development before the moon's exit. We have to address man as the first-born of our creation. He already came into being during Saturn. Then the animal kingdom was added on the sun, the plant kingdom on the moon, and the mineral kingdom was added on the earth. But now, after the moon's exit, things are different. If the moon had not left, everything on earth would have died. First the people, then the animals, finally the plants. The earth would have been mummified. The earth was saved from this by the moon's exit. Everything came back to life and was refreshed. How did this revival happen?

[ 27 ] What was the deepest kingdom, the mineral kingdom, needed the least. The plant kingdom had probably dried up in a certain way, but it was also able to revive quickly. The animal kingdom was also able to develop gradually in a certain respect. The human forms were the latest to come into their own, in order to absorb the souls that flowed to them from the highest regions of the world. Thus the whole development is reversed after the exit from the moon. Whereas previously the human kingdom came into being first, then the animal kingdom, then the plant kingdom and finally the mineral kingdom, it is now the mineral kingdom that is most capable of bringing the revitalizing forces to bear. Then comes the plant kingdom and develops upwards to the highest forms, then the animal kingdom, and only finally can the human kingdom develop upwards to the highest forms. After the exit of the moon the whole sense of development is reversed. And the beings that have, so to speak, been able to wait the longest to unite with their spiritual to the physical are those who, in the highest sense of the word, have ascended into a more spiritual sphere after the exit from the moon. Those who had come to the end of their spiritual development earlier have remained behind on a less perfect level. After the exit from the moon, those who have remained behind appear earlier. You will easily understand why,

[ 28 ] Consider any human soul or any spiritual being that did not want to embody itself earlier because of the hardening. This could have the following consideration, if we translate this back into human language: Should I incarnate now or should I wait? Let's assume that the moon has not been out for very long, so things are still very hard. But the being that wants to incarnate is in a hurry; so it goes down under all circumstances and makes do with the bodies that are not yet far advanced. As a result, it has to remain on a lower level, so to speak. Another being says to itself: I prefer to wait longer and remain a while longer in world space until the earth has lightened and diluted its physical entity even more. Such an entity therefore waits until a later point in time and thereby succeeds in physically working on the entity into which it embodies itself, physically making it into its image. Thus all the entities that embody themselves too early must remain on subordinate levels. Those who can wait come to the higher levels. Our higher animals stopped at the animal level because they could not wait after the moon's exit. They made do with the bodies they had just been able to obtain. Those who came down later could only shape the bodies into the lower human races that were dying out or were in the process of dying out. Then came a time that was just right, when the souls united with the bodies, and that created what was actually capable of human development.

[ 29 ] Thus we see a desolation of the earth until the exit of the moon, then a revival of earthly conditions after the exit of the moon, and from then on again a descent of those beings who had left the earth because the earth became too bad for them. But now this does not only refer to the beings that only form the higher man, but to still other beings that descended to quite other things than to form man. Here, too, it is a question of always waiting for the right time for such a being to take possession of a body on earth.

[ 30 ] Let us go back to Indian times. There were people at a high stage of development. Just as the souls descending from Mars, Saturn and Jupiter sought out their bodies, so higher beings sought out higher bodies in order to work within the human being. Let us take the great holy teachers of the ancient Indians, the Rishis: they made a part of their being available; certain higher beings took up residence in them. But other higher beings said: No, we will wait until there are other beings down there who are undergoing a higher development themselves. We do not like to descend yet, we will remain above until men have made their inner being more mature; then we will descend, for now we find the inner being of men little prepared for us.

[ 31 ] Then, during the Persian civilization, certain higher beings said to themselves: Now we can descend into the human inner being as it has developed up to now. - And likewise during the Egyptian period.

[ 32 ] But the being who was the highest among the solar beings was still waiting. From abroad it sent down its forces to the holy Rishis. The holy Rishis looked up to the one whom they called Vishva Karman and of whom they said: Vishva Karman is beyond our sphere. - He waited, for he said to himself: “The human interior is not yet prepared so far that I can have a place in it. -- Then came the Persian culture. Then Zarathustra looked up to the sun and saw Ahura Mazdao in the sun. But still this high being did not descend into the earthly sphere. Then came the Egyptian culture and the culture of the people who had waited the longest. And there came the person who had waited the longest, who had already developed his inner being through many incarnations. Then the sun being looked down and saw the inner being of this man who dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth and who had made his inner being ready. The highest of the solar beings looked down and said: “Just as the lower beings once descended to build up the bodies, so now I descend and take up the interior of the person who has waited the longest. - Of course, higher beings have also united with human beings in the past. But the one who had waited the longest took the Christ into himself; at the baptism in the Jordan he was so far advanced that the same spirit which until then had remained in the spheres of world space was able to descend and unite with his inner being. The Christ had been in the body of Jesus of Nazareth since John's baptism, because the individuality working through Jesus of Nazareth had attained the maturity through repeated incarnations to receive this high spirit in the thus spiritualized body.

[ 33 ] This Christ Spirit has always been present. But after the separation of the moon, all beings first had to mature. First, little by little, the lowest beings emerged—those whose spiritual nature had been least able to wait—and then increasingly higher and higher beings. And as humanity was able to develop its inner being ever higher, and when the time had come when Jesus of Nazareth had attained the maturity to receive the Christ within himself, then the one who possessed the ability of higher vision could say: “I have seen how the Spirit descended upon him!” And what could the one upon whom the Spirit had descended say when he gave voice to what now lived within him? It was, after all, the same Being whom the Rishis knew as Vishva Karman. What would Vishva Karman have had to say about himself, not if the Rishis had spoken, but if he had spoken? He is, after all, the high Sun Spirit who works as a Spirit in the light; he would have had to say: I am the light of the world! — What would Ahura Mazdao have had to say if he had wanted to speak of himself? I am the light of the world! — And what did that same spirit speak when a human being had become ready to receive him within himself? How does that which was formerly in the cosmos, on the sun, now speak from within a human being? “I am the light of the world!”

[ 34 ] What has sounded down from the heights of the world to the earth as the innermost self-characterization of the guiding cosmic spirit, we hear it sounding again from a human inner being, since the being itself has taken its place in a human inner being. Jesus of Nazareth, as the Christ in him, rightly resounds:

"I am the light of the world!”