The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Jeshu Ben Pandira: The Forerunner for an Understanding of the Christ Impulse. Karma as the Meaning of Life I

My dear Theosophical friends!

[ 1 ] When we consider, in theosophy, other, supersensible worlds in addition to our physical world, and say that human beings are connected not only to this physical world but also to supersensible worlds, the question may arise: What is found in the human soul, before one develops any clairvoyant abilities, that is supersensory, that gives us an indication that human beings are connected to supersensory worlds? In other words: Can even the ordinary person, who has no clairvoyant abilities, perceive something in the soul, experience something that is connected to the higher worlds? Essentially, both our discussion today and tomorrow will be devoted to answering this question.

[ 2 ] When we consider the human soul, it can be clearly divided into three parts that are, in a certain sense, independent of one another, yet are closely interconnected.

[ 3 ] The first thing that confronts us when we consider ourselves as souls is our life of imagination, which in a certain sense also encompasses our thinking and our memory. Memory and thoughts are not physical; they belong to the invisible, supersensible worlds. In their life of thought, human beings have a glimpse of the higher worlds. Everyone can form a conception of what this life of imagination is in the following way: We present a object to them, which they look at. Then they turn away. They have not immediately forgotten the object, but retain an image of it within themselves, which lives on within them. In this way, we have mental images of the world around us, and when we speak of the life of imagination, we can speak of it as a part of our soul life.

[ 4 ] We can perceive a second aspect of our inner life when we ask ourselves: Do we not have something else in our souls toward things and beings besides merely our ideas? Yes, we do have something else. It is what we call feelings of love and hate, what we describe in our thinking as sympathy and antipathy. We find one thing beautiful, another ugly; we love one thing, perhaps hate another; we find one thing good, another evil. If we wish to summarize what occurs here in our soul, we can speak of emotional stirrings. The life of the emotions is something quite different from the life of the imagination. In the life of the emotions, we have a much more intimate connection to the invisible than in the life of the imagination. The life of emotional stirrings is a second member of our soul organism. Thus, we already have two members of the soul: our life of the imagination and the life of emotional stirrings.

[ 5 ] We become aware of a third aspect when we tell ourselves that we do not merely find something beautiful or ugly, nor do we merely find it good or evil; rather, we feel compelled to do this or that: we have the impulse to act. Whenever we undertake anything, perform a major act, or even simply pick up an object, there must always be an impulse in our soul that prompts us to do so. These impulses gradually transform into habits, and we do not always need to rely on our impulses for everything we do. For example, when we go out and have decided to walk to the train station, we do not resolve to take the first, second, and third steps; we simply walk to the station. Underlying all of this is the third aspect of our soul life: our volitional impulses as something that transcends the visible entirely.

[ 6 ] Let us now return to the initial question: Does the ordinary person have any indication of the existence of higher worlds? — with these three impulses peculiar to human beings, we must consider the life of dreams in relation to the three soul elements of the thought impulse, the feeling impulse, and the will impulse. We can clearly distinguish these three aspects of our soul life: our life of imagination, the life of our feelings, and our will impulses. If we reflect a little on our soul life, we can distinguish between these individual aspects of our soul life in our outer existence.

[ 7 ] Let us first consider the life of the imagination. This life of the imagination continues throughout the day, unless we are simply lost in thought. We have imaginative thoughts all day long, and when we grow tired in the evening, these thoughts begin to fade. It is as if they were transforming into a kind of mist. They grow weaker and weaker, and finally disappear entirely, and we can then fall asleep. This life of imagination, as we experience it on the physical plane, thus lasts from waking until falling asleep, and as such it disappears the moment we fall asleep. A person cannot imagine that when they are truly asleep—that is, not sleeping in a clairvoyant sense—they could nevertheless continue their life of thought in the same way as when awake. The life of thought, or rather the life of imagination, that fills us from waking until falling asleep must fade away, and only then can we fall asleep.

[ 8 ] But one must tell oneself: The thoughts one has—which have occupied one’s mind in abundance throughout the day and which are always present unless one is merely dozing off—are no obstacle to falling asleep. This is best seen when one indulges in particularly vivid thoughts before falling asleep, for example by reading a difficult book. When we have thought quite intensely, we fall asleep most easily; and if we cannot fall asleep, it is good to pick up a book or occupy ourselves with something that requires concentrated thought—such as studying a mathematics book—which will help us fall asleep; on the other hand, nothing that holds a deeper interest for us, such as a novel containing much that is of personal interest to us. This is where our emotional stirrings arise, and the activity of these emotional stirrings is what prevents us from falling asleep.

[ 9 ] When we go to bed with a mind that is in a state of agitation, when we know we have something weighing on our minds, or when we feel a particular joy that has not yet been fully expressed, we will very often toss and turn in bed and be unable to fall asleep. So while thoughts that are not accompanied by emotional agitation tire us out, allowing us to fall asleep easily, it is precisely that which stirs our minds quite strongly that prevents us from falling asleep. It is not possible to bring about the separation that is necessary if we wish to enter the state of sleep. From this we can already see that the life of our emotions relates to our entire existence differently than the life of our ideas. If we wish to make this distinction properly, however, we must take something else into account: namely, our dreams. At first, one might believe that when the colorful life of dreams affects us, these are ideas that continue their existence into sleep. But if one examines this very closely, one will notice that our life of ideas does not continue in our dreams. That which is capable of wearying our soul does not continue in our dreams. This happens only when our imaginings are linked to intense emotional stirrings. It is these emotional stirrings that appear in the dream image. To recognize this, however, one must examine things closely. An example: Someone dreams that they are young again and are experiencing this or that. Immediately afterward, the dream changes, and something happens that they need not have actually experienced. Some event appears that is foreign to their memory, because they did not experience it on the physical plane. But familiar people appear. How often does it happen that in a dream one finds oneself entangled in situations where one is with friends or acquaintances whom one has not seen for a long time. But if one examines it closely, one must admit that there are emotional stirrings in the background of what appears in the dream. Perhaps we are still attached to that former friend, not yet fully detached from him. There must still be some emotional stirring connected to him. Nothing appears in a dream that is not connected to emotional stirrings. Accordingly, one must draw a specific conclusion here, namely this: If the images conveyed to us by our waking daytime consciousness do not appear in the dream, this is proof that they do not enter into sleep. If emotional stirrings prevent us from sleeping, this testifies that they do not let us go, that they must be present in order to appear in the dream images. Emotions are the forces that draw forth the images of dreaming. This is because emotions are much more intimately connected to the very essence of the human being than the life of the imagination. We carry these emotions into sleep as well. They are thus a part of the soul that remains connected to us even during sleep. In contrast to ordinary imaginings, emotional stirrings are something that enters sleep with us, and are thus much more closely and intensely connected to human individuality than ordinary thinking, which is not interwoven with emotional stirrings.

[ 10 ] What, then, of the third member of the soul—the impulses of the will? Here, too, we can offer a kind of illustration. However, only those who are able to observe the moment of falling asleep with a certain degree of sensitivity can perceive this. If a person has acquired, through training, a certain ability to observe this moment, the result is extremely interesting. At first, our mental images seem shrouded in mist; the outer world disappears, and the person has a feeling as if their soul-being is expanding beyond their physical body, as if they are no longer confined within the limits of their skin but are flowing into the elements of the cosmos. A great sense of well-being can be associated with falling asleep. Then comes a moment when a certain memory arises. Very few people likely experience this, but we can perceive this moment if we pay close attention. The good and also the bad impulses of will that we have had come before our eyes, and what is noteworthy is that a person feels toward the good impulses of will: This is something connected to all healthy forces of will, something that refreshes you. And when a person is presented with these good impulses of the will before falling asleep, they feel all the more refreshed and full of vitality, and with that often comes the feeling: Oh, if only this moment could last forever! If only this moment could last eternally! Then one feels the physical body being left by the soul, there is a jolt, and one falls asleep.

[ 11 ] You don’t need to be a clairvoyant to experience this; you simply need to observe the inner life of the soul. Something very important follows from this. Our impulses of will are active before we fall asleep, and we feel them as something that nourishes us. We feel an extraordinary strengthening. In contrast to mere emotional stirrings, we had to say that these are more closely connected to our individuality than our ordinary thinking or our ordinary imagination. So now we must say of our volitional impulses that they are not merely something that remains with us during sleep, but something that becomes a source of strengthening and invigoration for our life within us. The life of our volitional impulses is even more intimately connected with our life than our emotional stirrings, and anyone who frequently observes the moment of falling asleep will sense that, if they cannot look back on any good volitional impulses from the day, this has the effect of something within them being killed off from what enters the state of sleep. The impulses of the will are thus connected with health and illness, with our life force.

[ 12 ] Thoughts cannot be seen. At first, one sees the bouquet of roses through the ordinary means of physical perception. But when a person turns away or walks off, the image of the object remains within them. They do not see the object, but they can imagine it. Our life of thought is therefore something supersensory. Our emotional states are all the more supersensory, and our volitional impulses, though they are translated into actions, are nonetheless supersensory. But we also know, at the same time, when we take into account everything we have just said, that our life of thought, which is not interwoven with our volitional impulses, is the least closely connected to us. Now one might think that what has just been said is refuted by the fact that the very next day our ideas from the day before come back to our minds, that we can remember them. Yes, we must remember. We must recall our ideas into our memory in a supersensible way.

[ 13 ] It is quite different with our emotions; they are more closely connected to us. If we have gone to sleep with a remorseful heart, we will already feel the next morning, when we wake up, that we are waking up with a dull head or something similar. If we have experienced remorse, we feel it in our bodies the next day as weakness, heaviness, or drowsiness; joy as strength and lightness. We do not need to first recall the joy or the remorse, or reflect on them; we feel them in our bodies. We do not need to remember what has been: it is there, it has gone to sleep with us and has lived with us. Our emotions are more intense, more closely connected to our eternal self than our thoughts.

[ 14 ] But anyone who is able to observe their impulses of will feels that they are simply there again. They are always there. It may happen that, the moment we wake up, we notice that at that very moment we are, in a certain sense, immediately experiencing again what we felt the previous day as joy in life through our positive moral impulses. In truth, nothing refreshes us as much as the good impulses of will that we allowed to permeate our soul the previous day. Therefore, we can say that what we call our impulses of will is most intimately connected with our very existence.

[ 15 ] The three soul elements are thus distinct from one another, and when we consider these differences, we will understand that, from the perspective of occult science, it can be said with some justification that through our thoughts—which are, after all, of a supersensible nature—we are connected to the supersensible world; through our emotions to another; and through our impulses of will to yet another supersensible world, one that is even more intimately connected to our true being. And that is why we say: When we perceive externally through the senses, we can thereby perceive everything that exists in the physical world. When we imagine, our images, our life of thought, are connected to the astral world; our emotional states bring us into contact with what we call the heavenly world, the lower Devachan; and the world of moral impulses brings us into contact with the upper Devachan or the world of reason. Thus, the human being is connected to three worlds through thought, emotion, and volitional impulses. And insofar as the human being belongs to the astral world, they can carry their thoughts into the astral world; they can carry their emotional states into the Devachanic world; and into the higher heavenly world, they can carry everything they possess in their soul in terms of impulses of the will.

[ 16 ] If we look at things this way, we will see how right occult science is to speak of the three worlds. And when we take this into account, we will view the moral world in an entirely different light, for through the world of good will impulses we are connected to the highest of the three worlds, which is the first to be reached by the human being.

[ 17 ] Our ordinary life of thought extends only as far as the astral world. No matter how brilliant our thoughts may be, those that are not carried by emotional impulses do not go beyond the astral world and have no significance for other worlds. With this, however, you will understand what has been said about external science—about dry, sober, external science: No human being can say anything about worlds other than the astral world with thoughts that are not imbued with emotional impulses. Under ordinary circumstances, the thinking of the scientific researcher, the chemist, the mathematician proceeds without any emotional impulse; it goes no further than beneath the surface. Indeed, scientific research is virtually required to proceed in this manner, and therefore it penetrates only into the astral world.

[ 18 ] Only when delight or aversion become intertwined with the thoughts of the seeker does what is necessary to enter the Devachan world join those thoughts. Only when emotional stirrings enter our thoughts and ideas—when we perceive one thing as good and another as evil—do we connect our thoughts with that which carries them into the heavenly world. Only then can we glimpse the deeper reasons for existence. If we wish to understand anything about the Devachan world, all theories are of no help to us. What helps us is only if we can connect emotional movements with our thoughts. Thinking alone brings us into contact with the astral world. When the geometer, for example, grasps the relationships of the triangle, this helps him only into the astral. But when he grasps the triangle as a symbol and draws out what lies within it regarding humanity’s share in the three worlds, regarding its threefold nature, and so on, this helps him ascend higher. Whoever feels the expression of the soul’s power in the symbols, whoever imprints it upon their heart, whoever feels all that which is otherwise merely known—such a person connects their thoughts with Devachan. That is why, when meditating, we must feel our way through what is given to us, for only in this way do we bring ourselves into relationship with the Devachanic world. Ordinary, soulless science, therefore, no matter how astute it may be, can always connect human beings only with the astral world.

[ 19 ] Art, music, painting, and so on, on the other hand, lead him into the lower Devachan. One might object: If it is true that emotional stirrings lead to the lower Devachan, then so would the drives, desires, and instincts. Yes, of course they do. But this is merely proof that we are more intimately connected to our feelings than to our thoughts. Our sympathies can also be linked to our lower nature; drives and instincts also give rise to an emotional life, and that leads to the lower Devachan. While we shed our false thoughts in Kamaloka, what we have developed—up to and including our emotional responses—enters with us into the Devachan world and imprints itself upon us until the next incarnation, so that it finds expression in our karma. Through our emotional life—insofar as it can have these two sides—we either rise into the Devachan world or we offend it.

[ 20 ] Through our volitional impulses, however—whether immoral or moral—we are either in harmony with the higher world or we violate it and must make amends for this through karma. If a person is so wicked and depraved that, through his evil impulses, he establishes such a connection with the higher world that it is completely violated, he will be cast out. But the impulse must nevertheless originate from the higher world. The full significance of the moral life becomes clear to us in all its grandeur when we view the matter in this way.

[ 21 ] From the worlds with which human beings are so closely connected through their threefold soul nature and also through their physical nature—from these worlds emanate the forces that can guide human beings through the world. This means that when we observe an object of the physical world, this can only happen because we have eyes to see it: through this, human beings are connected to the physical world; through the development of their life of thought, to the astral world; through the development of their emotions, to the devachanic world; and through their morality, to the higher devachanic world.

Four Worlds: The Human Share:

Upper Devachan: Will – moral impulses
Lower Devachan: Sentiment – aesthetic ideals
Astral World: Thought – ethereal nature
Physical World: Physicality – physical-material nature

[ 22 ] Human beings have four relationships with four worlds. This simply means that they have relationships with the beings of these worlds. From this perspective, it is interesting to examine the development of humanity and to look into the past, the present, and the near future.

[ 23 ] Forces emanate from the worlds we have mentioned that penetrate our lives. First of all, we must note that in the age now behind us, human beings were primarily dependent on, and predisposed to, being influenced by the physical world and receiving impulses from it. This lies behind us as the Greco-Roman era. In this era, Christ worked on Earth in a physical body. Because human beings were primarily predisposed to be influenced by the forces of the physical world, Christ had to appear on the physical plane.

[ 24 ] We now live in an age in which thinking is being developed as a priority, an age in which human beings receive their impulses from the world of thought, from the astral world. This is already evident from external history. One can hardly speak of philosophers in pre-Greek times; at most, one can speak of a preparation for thinking in pre-Greek times, which is why the history of philosophy begins with Thales. Scientific thinking only emerges after the Greco-Roman era. Intellectualistic thinking does not rise until around the sixteenth century. Hence the great progress of the natural sciences, in that every emotional impulse is excluded from intellectual work. And science is so particularly popular in our age because thinking within it is not permeated by emotional impulses. Our science is devoid of emotion and seeks its salvation in feeling nothing. Woe to anyone who dares to feel anything during a laboratory experiment! This is the defining characteristic of our age, the one that connects humanity most closely to the astral plane.

[ 25 ] The next age to follow ours will be a more spiritual one. In this age, feelings will also play a role in science. If someone then wishes to take an exam and be admitted to the scientific community, it will be necessary for them to be able to sense the light that lies behind all things—the spiritual world that brings everything into being. The value of a scientific thesis will then lie in determining whether the person can develop sufficient emotional response during the examination; otherwise, they will fail the exam. No matter how much one knows, if one does not have the right feelings, one cannot pass an exam. This may sound very strange, but nevertheless it will be the case that the laboratory table will be elevated to an altar, at which a person’s examination will consist of developing feelings during the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen that correspond to what the gods feel when this happens. There, the person will receive their impulses through an intimate connection with the lower Devachan.

[ 26 ] And then comes the age that will initially be the last one before the next great cataclysm on Earth; this is the age in which human beings will be connected to the higher world through their impulses of will, and in which what is morally right will prevail on Earth. Neither external skill nor intellectual ability nor emotional disposition will take precedence, but rather the impulses of the will. It is not dexterity but the moral quality of the human being that will be decisive. Thus, when humanity reaches this point, it will have entered the moral age, in which it stands in a special relationship with the higher Devachan world.

[ 27 ] The fact is that, as human beings develop, more and more forces of love awaken within them, from which they can draw their insights, motivations, and activities.

[ 28 ] Whereas in the past, when Christ descended to Earth in a physical body, people could not have perceived him except in that physical body, in our age the powers are indeed awakening that will see Christ not in his physical body, but in a form that will exist as an etheric being on the astral plane. Thus, already in our century, beginning in the 1930s and increasingly until the middle of the century, a large number of people will perceive the Christ as an etheric form. This will be the great progress compared to earlier times, when people were not yet ready to see him in this way. This is also what is meant by the statement: “Christ will appear in the clouds,” for this signifies that he will appear as an etheric form on the astral plane. It must be emphasized, however, that he can only be seen in his etheric body during this epoch. Anyone who might believe that Christ will reappear in physical form is overlooking the progress of human powers. It is a mistake to believe that an event such as the appearance of Christ could be repeated in the same way as it happened before.

[ 29 ] The next event, then, is that people will see the Christ on the astral plane in ethereal form, and those who are then living on the physical plane and have accepted the teachings of Theosophy will perceive him; but those who are no longer alive, yet who have prepared themselves through Theosophical work, will still see him in his ethereal form between their death and a new birth. However, there will also be people who will no longer be able to see him in his etheric body. Those who have spurned Theosophy will not be able to perceive him, but will have to wait until their next incarnation, during which they can then devote themselves to spiritual knowledge and prepare themselves so that they may understand what is taking place. It will then not depend on whether one has studied Theosophy or not while living on the physical plane; only, the appearance of Christ will then be a reproach, a torment to them, while those who sought spiritual knowledge in their previous incarnation will know what they are seeing.

[ 30 ] Then there will come an age when even higher powers will awaken within human beings. This will be the age when Christ reveals himself in an even higher way: in an astral form in the lower Devachan world. And the final age of moral impulses will be the one in which people who have passed through the other stages will see Christ in his glory, as the form of the highest Self, as the spiritualized Self, as the great teacher of human evolution in the upper Devachan.

[ 31 ] The sequence is therefore as follows: In the Greco-Roman era, Christ appears on the physical plane; in our era, as an etheric form on the astral plane; in the next era, as an astral form on the plane of the lower Devachan; and in the Age of Morality, as the embodiment of the Great I.

[ 32 ] Now we can ask ourselves: What is the purpose of Theosophy? It is so that there may be a sufficiently large number of people who are prepared when these events occur. And already, Theosophy is working toward this: that people may connect with the higher worlds in the right way, that people may enter in the right way into the etheric-astral, into the aesthetic-devachanic, and into the moral-devachanic realms. In our age, it is the movement that specifically aims to enable human beings to establish the right relationship with the Christ through their moral impulses.

[ 33 ] The next three millennia will be devoted to making the Christ-appearance perceptible in the etheric world. Only those who feel entirely materialistic will not be able to perceive it. One can think materialistically by accepting only matter and denying everything spiritual, or by dragging the spiritual down into the material. One is also materialistic by insisting on accepting the spiritual only in material form. There are also theosophists who are materialists. These are those who believe that humanity is condemned to having to see Christ again in physical form. One is not a materialist simply by being a theosophist, but rather by recognizing that the higher worlds exist even when one cannot perceive them in a sensory manifestation; rather, one must evolve upward to perceive them.

[ 34 ] When we take all this to heart, we can say: It is Christ who is the true moral impulse that permeates humanity with moral strength. The Christ impulse is power and life, the moral force that permeates humanity. But this moral force must be understood. It is especially necessary in our age that Christ be proclaimed. Therefore, theosophy also has the task of proclaiming Christ in his etheric form.

[ 35 ] Before the Christ appeared on earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, the teaching about the Christ was also prepared. Even then, the physical Christ was proclaimed. It was primarily Jeshu ben Pandira, a hundred years before Christ, who was the forerunner and herald. He, too, bore the name Jesus, and to distinguish him from the Christ Jesus, he was called Jesus ben Pandira, son of Pandira. He lived about a century before our era. One does not need to be a clairvoyant to know this, for it is written in rabbinic texts, and this fact has often led to him being confused with Christ Jesus. Jeshu ben Pandira was first stoned and then hung on the stakes of the cross. Jesus of Nazareth was indeed crucified first.

[ 36 ] Who was this Jeshu ben Pandira? He is a great individual who, since the time of the Buddha—that is, six hundred years before our era—has been incarnated almost once in every century to advance humanity. To understand him, we must go back to the essence of the Buddha. We know, of course, that the Buddha lived as the prince of the Sakya clan five and a half centuries before our era. The individual who became the Buddha at that time was not already a Buddha beforehand. The Buddha, that prince who brought the teaching of compassion to humanity, was not born as a Buddha at that time. For the Buddha is not an individual; the Buddha is a title. That Buddha was born as a Bodhisattva and was elevated to the status of Buddha in the twenty-ninth year of his life, when, immersed in meditation, he sat beneath the Bodhi tree and brought the teaching of compassion down from the spiritual heights into the physical world. He was a Bodhisattva before that, and thus also in his previous incarnations, and then he became a Buddha. Now, however, it so happened that as a result, the position of a Bodhisattva—that is, the position of a teacher of humanity in physical form—became vacant for a certain age and had to be filled again. When the Bodhisattva who incarnated here ascended to Buddhahood in the twenty-ninth year of his life, the dignity of the Bodhisattva was immediately transferred to another individuality. We must therefore speak of the successor to the Bodhisattva who ascended to Buddhahood here. The successor to the Gautama Buddha-Bodhisattva was that individuality who, at that time, one hundred years before Christ, was incarnated as Jesus ben Pandira, as a herald of the Christ in the physical body.

[ 37 ] He is now the Bodhisattva of humanity, until, three thousand years from now, he himself will ascend to become a Buddha. It will thus take him exactly five thousand years to transform from a Bodhisattva into a Buddha. He, who has incarnated nearly once every hundred years since then, is already incarnated now and will be the true herald of the Christ in ethereal form, just as he once heralded the Christ as the physical Christ. And many of us will still experience for ourselves that in the 1930s there will be people—and later, in the course of this century, more and more—who will see the Christ in ethereal form. Theosophy exists to prepare for this, and everyone who collaborates in the theosophical work helps with this preparation.

[ 38 ] The way in which humanity is taught by the leaders—and especially by a Bodhisattva who will become the Maitreya Buddha—changes dramatically over the course of the ages. Theosophy could not have been taught in the Greco-Roman era in the way it is taught today; no one would have understood it back then. At that time, the Christ Being had to physically and visibly exemplify the goal of evolution, and only in this way could it have had an effect.

[ 39 ] Theosophy is spreading this teaching more and more among people, and more and more people will come to understand the Christ impulse until Christ himself has taken root within them. Today, through the spoken word, it is possible to make the goal understandable in concepts and ideas, through thinking, and to influence souls in a positive sense, in order to inspire and enthuse them with aesthetic and moral ideals. However, today’s spoken language will be superseded in the coming periods by more powerful impulses of inspiration than are possible today through language alone. Then language, the word, will bring about a state in which powers lie within the word itself that transmit emotional stirrings from soul to soul, from master to disciple, from the Bodhisattva to all who do not turn away from him. Language will then be able to serve as a vehicle for aesthetic emotions. But this requires the dawn of a new era. In our time, even the Bodhisattva would not be able to exert such effects through the larynx as will then be possible.

[ 40 ] And in the final epoch, before the great war of all against all, it will be the case that just as language today is a vehicle for thoughts and ideas—and will later become a vehicle for the soul—so in the final epoch language will carry and transmit morality and moral impulses of the will from soul to soul. Today, the word cannot yet have a moral effect. Our larynx, as it is today, is not yet capable of producing such words. But such a theosophy will one day exist. Words will be spoken through which human beings will receive moral strength.

[ 41 ] Three thousand years from now, the Bodhisattva mentioned above will become a Buddha, and then his teachings will directly inspire humanity. He will be the one whom the ancients foresaw: the Buddha Maitreya, a bringer of good. It is his task to prepare humanity to understand the true Christ impulse. His task is to increasingly direct people’s eyes toward what can be loved, and to increasingly channel what can be disseminated as theory into a moral current, so that ultimately everything a human being can possess in thought flows into the moral realm. And while it is still quite possible today for someone to be very intelligent but immoral, we are moving toward an age in which it will be impossible for a person to be both intelligent and immoral. It will be impossible for intelligence and immorality to go hand in hand.

[ 42 ] This is to be understood as follows: Those who have kept themselves apart and resisted progress will be the combatants who fight against one another. Even those who develop the highest intelligence today will derive no benefit from their cleverness if they do not continue to develop in character and morality in the coming epochs. The highest intelligence is indeed being developed in our age. This also marks a high point. But whoever has developed intelligence now and misses out on the opportunities for further development that follow will destroy themselves through their intelligence. It will then act like an inner fire that burns them, consumes them, makes them small and so weak that they become foolish and incapable of doing anything—a fire that will destroy them in the epoch when moral impulses have reached their peak. While today a person can still be very dangerous with their immoral cleverness, they will then be harmless. In return, however, the soul will possess ever greater moral powers—moral power of a kind that people today cannot even imagine. The highest power and morality are necessary to receive the Christ impulse, so that it becomes power and life within us.

[ 43 ] We see, then, that theosophy has the task of planting the seeds for humanity’s future development within it even now. However, theosophy must also take into account what must be taken into account in the entire structure of the world: that errors can occur. But even those who cannot yet penetrate the higher worlds can examine things closely and see whether the truth is being proclaimed here and there: the details must correspond. Examine what is being proclaimed—all the individual data gathered regarding human development, the various phases of the appearance of the Christ, and so on—and you will see that the details support one another. This is the proof of truth that even those who cannot yet see into the higher worlds can possess. One can be quite at ease: for those who wish to examine it, the teaching of the Christ returning in the Spirit will be the only correct one.