The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. How Spiritual Insights Flow into Life

[ 1 ] As we progress through our studies in this branch, we come to understand the concepts of the nature of the human being and human development; in other words, when we learn, for example, that human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an I, then we have certainly gained something compared to the knowledge that exists in the world today; yet we cannot yet say that, with such more or less theoretical knowledge, we have truly grasped what Theosophy can actually be for human beings. Theosophy only becomes what it is meant to be for the individual human being and also for the human community when it passes into life, when it becomes a way of life, and on such occasions, when I myself am able to see my dear friends again, I also like to take the opportunity to draw attention to how those ideas, world and human laws that we otherwise acquire in the course of the annual branch life play their great role in human life. So let us also undertake such a reflection today on the infusion of Theosophy into life.

[ 2 ] The question is sometimes on everyone’s lips, especially those who know little about Theosophy: Yes, there is talk of facts and truths of a supersensory nature, but how can a person who has not yet become clairvoyant speak at all about these spiritual worlds, or know anything about them, except that these things are simply told to him? — This is a very common prejudice, but it is quite unfounded. Although one cannot, for example, see the human astral body without being clairvoyant, one can certainly experience in one’s own life what happens within that astral body, and this is where Theosophy has an immense effect.

[ 3 ] I would like to cite an example where a person can experience that they have an astral body. You know that in everyday life, people are accustomed to doing many things without thinking about them, and that they are also accustomed to doing many things that are not at all to their liking. Think about how much people do from morning to night without thinking, without really considering it fully, without their thoughts being present; how much people do in such a way that they say afterward: I don’t entirely agree with what I did. Can we not say, then, that we are doing something that we only partially consider, that we only partially accompany with our thoughts? It is precisely such habits that underlie our inclinations—habits we have adopted from the outside, which we would not have if we had educated ourselves.

[ 4 ] This is what life looks like when viewed from a materialistic perspective: as if it were irrelevant whether we do things we agree with or not, things for which we can justify ourselves or not. To the clairvoyant eye, this is not the case. To the clairvoyant eye, it becomes clear that with every deed, with every action, the part that is not such that we could morally justify ourselves regarding it leaves an impression on our astral body. Such an action has, as it were, a recoil effect on our astral body. And so one can say of such a person: He has so many cracks, so many dimples in his astral body, because he does many such things which, if he were to think about them, he would not be able to morally justify.

[ 5 ] I am not referring here to professional matters, but rather to habitual actions. Each such impact affects the astral body, and because it does not simply fade away, it continues to affect the etheric body, imprinting itself like a seal and remaining there, so that the person goes about with these imprints in their etheric body. Up to this point, a person who is not a clairvoyant might say they cannot know this; but what happens here is experienced by the person. These things remain present in a certain way, actually throughout the entire subsequent life, and now have a retroactive effect on the person, so that he sometimes says: If only I knew nothing more of that whole life! — Or he displays a sullen disposition to everyone around him, and this morose nature has a retroactive effect on his health. It is extremely important to be clear about such things, for it often happens, for example in our thirty-seventh year, that something occurs which makes us inwardly—without any external cause—grumpy, out of sorts, melancholic, and this then has a harmful influence on our health, ruins our digestive system, and so on. Perhaps the foundation for this is laid in the twentieth year, when the astral has made an impression on the etheric body.

[ 6 ] So we can say: Only the clairvoyant can see what is within the astral body, but what becomes of it in life is experienced by the individual. Many people would not go about grumpy, with a certain stagnation and helplessness of the soul and a disrupted physical system, if people would consider that what does not immediately take effect as the consequence of our actions in the visible world enters our invisible part and then becomes visible later. A person who says, “I want to observe whether what the clairvoyant says is correct,” can in this way come to understand and feel that what the clairvoyants say is true. — It is this: With the deeds and actions we undertake daily and cannot justify to ourselves, we are dealing with the consequences.

[ 7 ] Let us assume the opposite case, that a person is capable of contemplating and thinking more deeply than is reflected in their actions. In this case, everyone is an idealist. They know that not all ideals can be realized, but only a part of them. When we have great ideas, we must be content that we can carry out only a part of them. If we are capable of thinking far beyond what life allows us, this also has an effect on the astral body, but in a different way, so that the person infuses it with healthy forces, making it powerful, inwardly firm, and calm. If, for example, a person was an idealist around the age of twenty and did not listen to the materialists, if they preserved their faith and trust in the ideal, then this is evident in the fact that in later life they are not thrown off balance by every little misfortune, or even by ill health, that they stand firm and let things pass them by more than is the case with others.

[ 8 ] It is this—the thoughts we have that go beyond what life allows us to realize in terms of ideals—that gives us strength and peace. Doctors are already officially taking notice of this, but they do not know how to actually achieve it—that a person can have positive thoughts to a significant extent about what goes beyond everyday life.

[ 9 ] Certainly, there are popular writings that are touted as beneficial for mental health. They claim that, in order to have strength, one must possess inner peace and equanimity, keep one’s thoughts from wandering aimlessly, and so on. For some, such writings on mental health are a very good start. But they won’t get you very far if you want real nourishment for your soul. The works of Duboc, Ralph Waldo Trine, and others are quite good—very good for a start. Compared to the real demands of spiritual health, they seem as if we were asking: How must we live physically to be healthy? — and receiving the answer: Then you must eat food that is beneficial to health, food whose nutrients can easily be absorbed by your body. — Quite right! But anyone who wants to seriously address the matter will ask: What kind of food is that? Tell me in more detail exactly what I’m supposed to eat!

[ 10 ] Writings that approach mental health in the same way these rules approach physical health may be quite good as a starting point, but they are of little use for the further course of the spiritual quest. In contrast, spiritual science provides us with ideas that are expressed in the most precise manner—very specific ideas about how humanity has developed in every age and how it is developing in the present. This becomes increasingly clear to us through theosophical wisdom, so that we can say: Spiritual science gives us ample opportunity to take our thoughts far beyond what we can actually realize. That is why theosophy is what makes us, in our souls, steadfast human beings who, when this or that happens in our surroundings that threatens to unsettle us, can draw from within something that gives us balance.

[ 11 ] It is not decisive whether something happening in our surroundings reaches our ears in order for us to be disturbed; rather, what matters is whether we take an interest in it and turn our attention to the event. This applies not only to external circumstances but also to our inner state, in which we go through life one moment elated, the next moment deeply sorrowful, thereby undermining our moral and physical health. There are many painful states of the soul that can be compared to the clatter of a mill: the miller working in the mill no longer hears the clatter. So one can surrender to every such pain, even the smallest, in order to hear, so to speak, the clatter of one’s own mill, or one can turn one’s attention away. One cannot get past it if one has an empty soul. This is only possible if one has a spiritual substance from which to draw.

[ 12 ] Let’s take an example. Of two people, one lives like this: In the morning, he does his usual work at the office; in the afternoon, he has a drink and engages in a little conversation; in the evening, he has another drink, and then he goes to bed. Such a person, if anything happens that disrupts his usual routine, will be immediately overwhelmed by it: he hears the clatter of his own mill or his own pain. For he has nothing in his soul, nothing he can draw upon to drown out the clatter.

[ 13 ] Another person lives just as fully in their daily duties, but they harbor within themselves many profound thoughts, such as those provided by spiritual science. These then resound from within him, and he no longer hears the clatter. It is not that we have to exert ourselves or spend a long time bringing it forth, but rather it emerges all by itself, because we have developed strong feelings for it. In this way, we will suffer less from life’s disturbances and find ever more comfort in what has accumulated in the soul through years of spiritual striving. This is a possession, a possession of a special kind, the only one that no one can take from us. Whatever else we acquire in the world, or whatever else comes to us in the world, belongs to that which can be taken from us. But what we acquire for the spirit is the only possession that can never be taken from us.

[ 14 ] People often say: Death makes everything equal. - Certainly, but it is equally true that no situation can be imagined to which what has been said here would not apply in the same way. Nothing else in the world matters—whether one is rich, whether one is the descendant of a wealthy noble family—if one wishes to attain this spiritual possession, one must take the same path, the one and only path. It is not only death that makes everything equal; it is spiritual life before which all are equal. This gives this spiritual life a far-reaching significance, for from it springs something that lifts us above the deceptive appearance of the senses.

[ 15 ] Someone might object: A brick could hit me and I could become crippled, or I could injure my brain so badly that I become mentally disabled. — But whoever can make the treasures of theosophy their own to such an extent that they carry them within their soul knows that such a case is only a temporary condition. Even if the brain were shattered, it would be no different than if we wanted to do something and the tool broke; for example, as if we wanted to hammer in a nail and the hammer broke. There is nothing we can do but take another hammer; and so we do the same with the brain. Consciousness may lose its tools, but in a new life we can restore them, so that we do not allow ourselves to be disturbed in our sense of eternity regarding the indestructibility of this spiritual possession. It is not a matter of what we know, but how it penetrates our heart, and it is able to penetrate our heart in such a way that we retain the fruit of it and that it also carries us beyond the loss of this tool.

[ 16 ] All of this serves as evidence that, in a certain sense, we can say: what we have just described has an effect on our astral body. Only a clairvoyant can know exactly how it works, but everyone experiences the consequences in their daily life. A person who commits many acts for which they cannot take moral responsibility, and who thereby becomes morose, will be particularly vulnerable to pain in difficult life situations. If, on the other hand, a person can say to themselves in the face of the same incidents: “These are insignificant compared to my inner experiences, my ideals”—then a healing effect will emanate from this certainty. They will then, in all cases, hold fast to what lives within them as eternal. When the spirit of eternity approaches us in this comprehensive way, as is the case in Theosophy, then we are secure in all situations of life.

[ 17 ] Well, my dear friends, there are other things that can convince us that the spiritual realm we take in—and allow to permeate us—is intimately connected with our overall happiness in life and with our ability to live well. Just as a person can have good moods, so too can they be subject to bad moods that may persist throughout their entire life and never allow them to be happy, moods that dominate their entire inner soul structure. Here the spiritual researcher says: Such moods have an effect on the supersensible nature of the human being; such moods have an effect in the etheric body, are reflected in the physical body, and affect the blood. Because a mood in the human etheric body has an effect, it acts upon the blood, and the consequence of this is that such a mood, which prevents a person from being happy throughout their entire life, impairs blood circulation and makes their blood heavy. Here we have an example where we can say: The effect of what is happening in the soul penetrates into the physical body. Even a person who is not clairvoyant can notice this and say to themselves: I suffer from my physical condition. This stems from my overall mood. If I could change my overall mood, then a healing influence could be exerted on my entire constitution.

[ 18 ] One might think: what matters is that human beings free themselves from the physical body. But the point is not simply that we demand they recognize that the body is dependent on the spirit, but rather the reality that, through the power of the spirit, we need not be dependent on the body. We become independent by making the body an instrument of our spirit.

[ 19 ] The worst kind of materialist is not the one who believes in the teachings of materialism, who believes in the doctrine of “force and matter,” but rather the one who is dependent on force and matter—for example, when he can live only in this place in winter and only in that place in summer, making himself entirely dependent on matter so as not to become neurasthenic. Therefore, it is not merely a matter of not believing in this doctrine of “force and matter,” but of becoming independent of matter. What kind of life is it when one can live only in a big city in winter and only in the countryside in summer? For such a person, prayer does not help and faith does not help, for he is a materialist; he is dependent on “force and matter.”

[ 20 ] When we allow thoughts derived from spiritual research to take effect within us, our connection to the spiritual world becomes apparent. But we see something else as well. If we are so deeply unhappy that another person could not cope with such unhappiness, it becomes clear that a theosophist can cope with it. Let us suppose, for example, that a person who has turned eighteen and has been living off his father now experiences this: his father goes bankrupt. He is then forced to work. He may perceive this as a misfortune. He reaches the age of fifty and has become a respectable person in the process. Then he can say: Thank God this misfortune happened, otherwise I would have become a good-for-nothing. — Once one is no longer in the midst of misfortune, one can view the misfortune as a tool of education. We must be able to tell ourselves: It is we ourselves who, through our karma, have brought this misfortune upon ourselves, because we need it in this life for our education. At least a person who can entertain such thoughts will not grumble against the guidance of the worlds in times of misfortune, but will recognize its wisdom. This, however, gradually creates moods within us that have a completely different effect than those we experience when we feel entirely dependent on “force and matter.” Now one knows that one is dependent on the spiritual guidance of the universe. This is communicated to the mood, and then, through the influences on the etheric body, one withdraws from dependence on “force and matter.” Then we need not go to the Riviera to lift our spirits, but our spiritual possession enables us to shape our tools in such a way that we can be independent of the external world.

[ 21 ] In the writings on spiritual health by Ralph Waldo Trine and others, one does not find what brings about this state of mind. Infusing this mood with the wisdom of Theosophy makes us independent of matter and force; it opens up a source that lifts us above space and time. Then we withdraw from the power of matter and act back upon the instrument of our body. In this way, through spiritual science, we gradually acquire a way of life. Not everyone, my dear friends, believes this right away, because very few people today—when everyone is so dependent on matter and force—are predisposed to understand such things. You should convince yourselves through experience that this is so, for experience will be able to provide you with more and more evidence from life. This is, in fact, the result of spiritual science: that it works its way into the very ordinary, external conduct of life.

[ 22 ] I want to illustrate what spiritual science teaches through examples; to do so, I will cite a few instances from the trivialities of life. For example, because we now live on the physical plane with external matter, we must, in certain cases, have the ability to perceive the spirit everywhere in the external matter around us. For matter is, after all, only an 'illusion, Maya; everything is condensed spirit. So that in ordinary life we must be able to sense the spirit within material objects. We must therefore be able to enter into an external relationship with it, so that we can, as it were, form intimate connections with things. There are people who wash their hands often, and there are those who rarely wash their hands. Well, in a certain sense, there is a tremendous difference between the two. The human being is, in fact, permeated by the supersensible in quite different ways through his various body parts. For example, the chest and thighs are not permeated by the etheric body in the same way as the hands. Powerful rays of the etheric body emanate precisely from the fingers. Because this is the case with the hands, it is precisely through the hands that we can develop a wonderfully intimate relationship with external life. People who wash their hands often have a more subtle relationship with their surroundings and are more finely attuned to them, because the spirit materialized in the blood exerts an effect that makes a person more sensitive in their hands. People who are thick-skinned in relation to the outside world do not wash their hands often. See how little such robust people are receptive to the peculiarities of their fellow human beings, while those who wash their hands more often enter into a more intimate spiritual relationship with their environment. If a person were to try to achieve the same effect in another part of the body, for example on the shoulders, it would become apparent that, even if they washed them just as much, they would become neurasthenic. What is healthy for the hands is not healthy for the shoulders. Human beings are organized in such a way that they are able to enter into this intimate relationship with the environment through their hands.

[ 23 ] It would also be detrimental if people were inclined to wash their faces just as often. Treating the face in this way would not be beneficial to health. The situation is quite different for other parts of the human body. People who have not been properly trained in spiritual science—materialistically minded doctors, for example—do not notice the difference and recommend cold washes for children; such practices are carried out fanatically. One should realize that nothing causes more mischief! This is the basis for a great deal of neurasthenia—that one impairs one’s health in such an abstruse manner. The hands can tolerate this, but the rest of the body becomes susceptible to the material as a result. There you see the effect of materialism. I am speaking here of the general rule. Where a temporary cure is involved, the situation is different.

[ 24 ] It is not only the youngest children who seek to wash themselves in a systematic manner—they are put through this ordeal every morning—but people do not stop there. They walk around in the sun to soak up the light, to allow the material aspects of the external world to affect them as a whole. We should be glad that we are able to act outwardly from our inner center and should not make ourselves increasingly dependent on the material world. This exposure to all its elements is the same as if a miller were to do everything possible to constantly hear the clatter of his mill, and were not content to no longer hear it. Exceptions, of course, are again those cases involving a temporary cure. — If this is practiced in youth, it makes a person capable of allowing even the slightest influence to affect his organism. He hardens himself, that is, he hardens himself in such a way that he eventually becomes completely “hardened” and no longer perceives any external influences.*)

[ 25 ] Such insights do not simply arise from ordinary life experience—that is, after all, impossible—but can only be assessed once one knows the whole person. And the fact that the human being is a complex being, and that with regard to its individual members there are the most varied relationships between the physical, etheric, and astral bodies and so on, you can deduce from very simple things. Today it may have seemed somewhat amusing to you what was said in this connection, namely that the human being, with its astral and etheric bodies, stands in a very special relationship to the physical body. On the other hand, you may have heard that the removal or disease of a certain organ brings a person close to a state that appears to be idiocy. But if, for example, one administers thyroid fluid from a sheep to such a person, he is transformed from an idiot back into a thinking human being. This is a well-known fact. These facts are only properly understood through spiritual science. For why is this so? Well, you see, it is because not only in the thyroid gland, but also in the far greater number of glandular organs, there are tools that are built up from the etheric body. We need our tools in the physical world to accomplish anything. Just as we need a hammer to drive in a nail, so we need the tools for which they are given to us. When they are removed, we no longer have the tool. But that is no proof that the ability to replace their effect has been taken away. However, we must know that even such an effect is possible only when the etheric body comes into function.

[ 26 ] In the case of organs related to the astral body, it is out of the question that we could alter anything in the organs by replacing their secretions. I have seen that people with brain damage have eaten sheep brains or the like without any improvement in their mental faculties, because the brain is an organ related to the astral body. Here we see how spiritual science sheds light on these matters as well. One cannot understand human beings if one cannot take into account these higher, supersensory aspects of human beings, and then one really has no idea what is at stake.

[ 27 ] When you read medical books today, it is described as if a person loses their mind due to the disease or the absence of the thyroid gland. No, they merely lose their empathy and interest; they become dull and do not use their intellect. One does not become stupid simply because one cannot think. Even if one has no interest, the mind remains intact. What is lost is the lively engagement that a person has with things—the interest and the ability to direct one’s attention to them. Someone who has no interest does not direct their attention to anything because they lack the tool. We do not give them intelligence through the thyroid gland, but rather we give them a tool to take a living interest in the things of the world. One judges people completely wrongly if one knows nothing at all about the supersensible world, and a large part of what is taught in our scientific and popular books is at this level. If you read that a person becomes a fool through the loss of the thyroid and becomes smarter by taking thyroxine, that is not true. What is true is that their attention is awakened. The consequences can be seen everywhere: what is said through clairvoyant research is not fantastical. Even if not everyone can see it, one can prove that what the clairvoyants see is there. It is everywhere. I recommend that you think again and again of the following: If you cannot personally comprehend what is discovered through clairvoyant research, you can experience it in the world. - In this way, one can obtain indirect evidence for what is communicated through spiritual science,

[ 28 ] I have now told you a great deal about the ways in which the human astral body can exert its influence on life. I have told you how the etheric body affects life. I would now also like to say a few things regarding the ego, from which you can build a bridge from theosophical theory to the reality of life. You are all familiar with the widespread phenomenon in life that is described in two words because it manifests itself in two ways: shedding tears and being sad.

[ 29 ] What does it mean in human life to feel a sadness caused by external factors, which manifests physically as tears, or to have an inner spiritual experience that also manifests as tears? Human beings have something within them that enables them not only to experience what is happening within their own bodies, but also, even in ordinary, normal consciousness, to share in and empathize with what is taking place in their surroundings. We are then immersed in our surroundings when we are saddened by this or that loss, sad enough to weep. What does this prove? That we can take into ourselves what lives in our surroundings and carry it truly within our own hearts. It means that we have an “I” within us that stands in a mysterious, magical connection with our entire environment. Through this magical connection of human beings with what does not live within them, a connection with the external world is experienced. The “I” can be present within itself in two ways: first, in an egoistic way; in this case, it essentially amounts to us seeking relief from pain through tears. Because we do not want to have a [true] share in it. Secondly, however, sadness can also be fully justified because we pour something that lives in our surroundings into ourselves. That is why tears mean the most to a person when they can be sad about things that concern them as little as possible personally. There are people who cry out of sheer selfishness because they cannot bear what is happening in their lives, or cannot bear their own loss. True, there are also people who weep over things that do not concern them, so that the world says: he’s wailing like a lapdog over a passage in a novel or a play. And this possibility can create a certain radiance in him, which may extend from his grief to all other tears and other sadness, for the more we are moved by everything else, the greater our sadness becomes. And in his sorrow, man is, in a certain sense, led to his self in an unselfish way. What has no self cannot weep and cannot be sad. The claim that animals also weep is therefore, at its core, sheer nonsense. It is rather true that animals cannot weep and cannot be sad as humans do. The dog only seems sad because it does not receive everything it used to get when its master was still there. The psychologists are right when they say: Animals can only howl, but humans can cry. — For crying and sadness can be the strongest proof that the deepening of the self is within us and that through this we come into connection with what is around us. This leads to a condensation of our ego, which then emerges in tears. Because this is so, we can say: Ultimately, crying and tears are something connected to the innermost essence of human nature.

[ 30 ] When a person rediscovers their inner stability, the best way to express this state is through tears. Thus, spoken from the depths of the soul, are the words in *Faust*, after Faust returns from his attempt at suicide and removes the poisoned cup from his mouth: “The tear wells up, the earth has me again!” The ego speaks at this moment. This is expressed in these words: The tear wells up, the earth has me again.

[ 31 ] Therefore, what we witness in our surroundings when we grieve is connected to the innermost essence of the human being. And what is connected to this innermost essence demands that we take it with true seriousness and that we be able to feel sorrow for the misery in our surroundings—though never for mere imagined misery. All the dramas that merely bring misery to the stage can only evoke unnatural emotional responses. We can only reconcile all unreal misery on stage with our human dignity if it is accompanied by the meaning that the hero, even if he falls, emerges as a victor. We can only endure dramas that depict misery if we see the victory of good. Then it has a right to our sadness and our tears, because it so deeply sinks into our innermost being the sorrow of reality. |

[ 32 ] The situation is quite different when it comes to another experience of our self, which we can describe by many names. What is expressed in laughter, merriment, joy, and perhaps even in jokes—in our engagement with the comic—the situation is reversed. Laughing at a fool in reality is inhuman; laughing at imagined folly is actually infinitely liberating. One should experience folly because it has a healing effect—even at the circus one can experience this good remedy for the soul—for it is, in turn, a rediscovery of one’s own self. When we are able to laugh, we rise above the situation. There we become aware of our own inner worth, and through this we rise above it. There is something tremendously healing in the burlesque jokes of the Punch and Judy show, right up to the comedians who commit all manner of follies and entangle themselves in all manner of contradictions, while laughter at folly, when it is genuine, betrays the inhuman.

[ 33 ] The ego reveals itself in a curious way through its healthy relationship with the environment. In the face of misery, we are moved to tears—by the real kind, not the depicted kind. The opposite is true of laughter and jesting. We are inhuman when we laugh at the follies that are inherent in human nature. But it is healthy and contributes to sound human development when we can take pleasure in the burlesque and the comic as they are portrayed. For this points to the healthy ego within us.

[ 34 ] There you see how the healing aspect of the environment can also be understood when we realize that we, too, have a self. Now we ask: Does this manifest itself in our materialistic humanity, even in relation to art? Yes, it manifests itself very characteristically and genuinely. If people were truly confronted with what is depicted, for example, in Hauptmann’s or Sudermann’s dramas, how many would faint! In the portrayal, they can endure the very same things that, in life, should fill them with sorrow and move them to act. That is not possible on stage. Where does such a reversal of facts come from? It comes from the fact that in our materialistic age, people live mostly on the periphery, where the ego does not assert itself. Indeed, what can move us most to sadness is what happened in the Mystery of Golgotha—the most terrible event in the development of the world—in the suffering, in the entire tragedy of Christ Jesus. And we can be most moved to rejoicing where the victory—the victory of life over death, depicted as directly pertaining to the realms of eternity—is won in the Resurrection. No other victory exists in which the highest Hallelujah is so united with the deepest sorrow, all suffering in the death on Golgotha and all the glory of the Easter season in the Resurrection—there is no other event in which both the deepest sorrow and the highest joy are expressed in this way.

[ 35 ] Therefore, there is no deeper wisdom than that which Paul proclaimed regarding this event: Not I, but Christ in me! — Here we see how we find the right center of gravity to make the “I” within us as firm as possible, by allowing the “I” to be permeated by what the Christ-revelation is. As theosophy becomes permeated by Christ, this also penetrates into our “I,” thereby giving us the greatest possible security in life, the greatest strengthening of life. For it is only through the understanding of Christ, as we attain it through spiritual science, that we find the right center within ourselves.

[ 36 ] If, then, theosophy is to have the effect that you will find hinted at in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*, an attempt is made to offer something that can instill in people the kind of steadfastness expressed in the saying: Not I, but Christ in me! — through which the human being can be increasingly transformed, so that within us that consciousness of eternity may well up, of which we can say: What can be received within us cannot be taken from us.

[ 37 ] Then we perceive a statement such as the one made by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the great scholar of theosophy; we feel what it means, what he is saying, for example: When I feel and comprehend my connection with the Eternal—and nothing can convey this connection to us more than theosophy—when I feel and comprehend my connection with the Eternal—so says Johann Gottlieb Fichte—and when we, too, comprehend this connection, we, too, stand here on Earth and say with him: I look upon you, O rocks, and upon you, O mountains; come crashing down and bury my body down to the last speck of sun-dust, and destroy all that are my physical instruments—and I defy you, for you are not eternal; but I am connected with the Eternal, I am eternal!

[ 38 ] Thus speaks the person who comprehends the value of the wisdom of the Eternal. Thus speaks the human being who absorbs theosophy into himself, to his physical, astral, and etheric totality, for the elevation of his existence, for his incorporation into the spiritual worlds, of which he need only know that he is spirit of their Spirit. For the human being is not merely flesh of flesh, but is spirit of the Spirit of Eternity.