The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] As was already pointed out yesterday at the beginning of the lecture, the impressions our soul receives are very different when, on the one hand, it is moved by the balanced, serene, passionless, and dispassionate, truly wise nature of the Bhagavad Gita, and on the other hand, what prevails in the Epistles of Paul, which in many respects give the impression of being permeated by personal passions, personal intentions, and views, permeated by a certain agitational, propagandistic spirit, and are even angry, at times thunderous. And if one even allows the manner in which the spiritual content is expressed to take effect, then one finds in the Gita, in a wonderfully artistically rounded form, something so perfect that one can scarcely imagine a greater perfection of expression for what is revealed there poetically and yet is so philosophical. In the Epistles of Paul, on the other hand, one often encounters—one might say—a clumsiness of expression, so that it becomes extraordinarily difficult, in the face of this clumsiness, which at times appears as awkwardness, to extract the deeper meaning.

[ 2 ] Despite all this, it remains true that in Paul’s epistles, the essential elements of Christianity are presented as setting the tone for the development of Christianity, just as the harmony of Eastern worldviews sets the tone for us in the Gita. For in the Epistles of Paul we find the fundamental truths of Christianity: the Resurrection, the significance of what is called faith in relation to the Law, the working of grace, the life of Christ in the soul or in human consciousness, and much more. After all, all of this is presented in such a way that, time and again, any presentation of Christianity must take these Epistles of Paul as its starting point.

[ 3 ] In the epistles of Paul, everything regarding Christianity is just as it is in the Bhagavad Gita regarding the great truths of liberation from action, of detaching oneself from active life to contemplate things, to immerse the soul, to ascend the soul to spiritual heights, to purify the soul, in short, if we speak in the sense of this Gita, to union with Krishna.

[ 4 ] All of this, as has just been described, makes a comparison of the two spiritual revelations extraordinarily difficult, and anyone who compares them merely on the surface will undoubtedly have to rank the Bhagavad Gita higher than the Epistles of Paul in terms of its purity, serenity, and wisdom. But what is someone who makes such a superficial comparison actually doing? They are doing something similar to someone who has before them a fully grown plant with a beautiful flower—a magnificent flower—and next to it a plant seedling, and who then says: If I have before me the plant with the fully developed, magnificent flower, then surely this is something far more beautiful than the inconspicuous, insignificant plant seedling. — And yet it could very well be the case that from this plant seedling, lying next to the plant with the beautiful flower, an even more beautiful plant with an even more beautiful flower will one day grow. And one has not made a proper comparison when one so directly compares what lies side by side, such as a fully developed plant and a completely undeveloped seed. And so it is when one compares the Bhagavad Gita with the Epistles of Paul.

[ 5 ] In the Bhagavad Gita, we have before us something like the ripest fruit, like the most beautiful manifestation of a long human evolution that has matured over millennia and has finally found a mature, wise, and artistic expression in the magnificent Gita. And in the Epistles of Paul, one has before one the seed of something entirely new, which must grow and grow ever more, and whose full significance one can only allow to take effect upon oneself if one regards it precisely as a seed and if one keeps in mind, as if prophetically, that which is to become of it once millennia upon millennia of development have passed into the future, and what is laid down as a seed in the Epistles of Paul will have become more and more mature.

[ 6 ] Only by taking this into account can one make a proper comparison. But then one also realizes that what was destined to become great had to first well up—seemingly chaotically—from the depths of Christianity in the Epistles of Paul, emerging in an unassuming form from the soul of humanity. Thus, one who keeps in mind the significance of the Bhagavad Gita on the one hand and the significance of the Epistles of Paul on the other for the entire development of humanity on Earth will have to present things differently than one who must judge the finished works in terms of beauty, wisdom, and inner perfection of form.

[ 7 ] But if one wishes to compare the two worldviews that emerge in the Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of Paul, one must first ask: What exactly are we dealing with here? The point is that, setting aside for the moment all that we can historically observe regarding the worldviews in question, we are dealing with the emergence of the “I” in human development. If one traces this “I” in human development, one can say: In pre-Christian times, this “I” was dependent, still rooted as it were in the hidden depths of the soul; it had not yet attained the capacity to develop independently.

[ 8 ] The fact that development with an independent character became possible could only have come about because the impulse—which we have just referred to as the Christ impulse—was instilled into this “I.” What has been possible within the human ego since the Mystery of Golgotha—and what is expressed in the words of Paul: “Not I, but Christ in me”—could not have existed in this ego before. But in the times when people were already approaching the Christ impulse through contemplation—in the millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha—what was to happen through the insertion of the Christ impulse into the human soul was slowly being prepared. It was prepared, in particular, in the manner expressed to us in the story of Krishna.

[ 9 ] What humanity had to seek within itself after the Mystery of Golgotha as the Christ impulse—what it had to find in the sense of the Pauline form: “Not I, but Christ in me”—this is what he had to seek outwardly before the Mystery of Golgotha; he had to seek it as if it were coming to him from the vastness of the worlds like a revelation. And the further back we go in the course of time, the more resplendent, the more impulsive the outer revelation was. One can therefore say: In the times before the Mystery of Golgotha, a certain revelation to humanity existed, a revelation to humanity that occurred as if sunlight were shining on an object from the outside. Just as light falls on this object from the outside, so the light of the spiritual sun fell from the outside upon the human soul and illuminated it.

[ 10 ] Following the Mystery of Golgotha, we can compare what works in the soul as the Christ impulse—that is, as the spiritual sunlight—in such a way that we say: It is as if we had before us a self-luminous body that radiates its light from within. Then, when we view the matter in this way, the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha becomes a significant milestone in human development; then this Mystery of Golgotha becomes a milestone for us. We can symbolically represent the entire relationship.

[ 11 ] If this circle (left) represents the human soul, we can say: The light of the spirit shines upon this human soul from all sides from the outside. Then comes the Mystery of Golgotha, and after it, the soul possesses within itself the Christ impulse and radiates from within that which is contained in the Christ impulse (right).

[ 12 ] Just as a drop of water is illuminated from all sides and glows in that light, so the soul appears to us before the Christ impulse. Like a flame that glows from within and radiates its light, so does the soul appear to us after the Mystery of Golgotha, when it has become capable of receiving the Christ impulse.

[ 13 ] When we consider this, we can express this entire relationship using terms such as those we have encountered in Sankhya philosophy. We can say: When we turn our spiritual eye toward such a soul, which is radiant on all sides with the light of the Spirit prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, then this entire relationship of the Spirit—which radiates upon the soul from all sides and which, as we contemplate the whole relationship, shines forth in its spiritual nature—appears to us, according to the terminology of Sankhya philosophy, to be in the Sattva state. In contrast, after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place, when we observe the soul from the outside with the spiritual eye, so to speak, it appears to us as if the light of the Spirit were hidden in its deepest inner being and as if that which is soul-like were concealing this light of the Spirit. As if enveloped by soul substance, the spiritual light contained in the Christ impulse appears to us after the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 14 ] And do we not see this relationship confirmed right up to our own time—indeed, especially in our own time—with regard to everything that human beings experience externally? Let us try today to observe a human being, the external knowledge and external activities with which he must concern himself, and let us contrast this with how the Christ impulse reigns within the human being, hidden in the deepest innermost being, still as a very faintly glowing flame, enveloped by the rest of the soul’s content. This is the Tamas state in contrast to the pre-Christian state, which is the Sattva state in the relationship of the spirit to the soul.

[ 15 ] So what role does the Mystery of Golgotha, viewed in this sense, play in the evolution of humanity? In terms of the revelation of the Spirit, it transforms the sattva state into the tamas state. Humanity is thereby advancing; but it is, one might say, taking a deep fall—not because of the Mystery of Golgotha, but because of itself. The Mystery of Golgotha causes the flame to grow ever more and more. But the fact that the flame appears only as a small flame in the soul, after the mighty light has previously shone upon the soul from all sides, is due to human nature, which is progressing yet sinking ever more deeply into darkness. Thus, it is not the Mystery of Golgotha that is to blame for the tamasic state of the human soul in relation to the spirit; rather, the Mystery of Golgotha brings about the fact that, in the distant future, a sattvic state will once again emerge from the tamasic state, a state that is now being kindled from within.

[ 16 ] Between the Sattva and Tamas states lies the Rajas state, as understood in Sankhya philosophy, and this Rajas state is characterized, in terms of humanity’s development, by the period of time into which the Mystery of Golgotha falls. Humanity itself, in terms of spiritual revelation, makes the journey from light into darkness, from the Sattva state into the Tamas state, precisely during the millennia surrounding the Mystery of Golgotha. If we wish to examine this evolution more closely, we can say that if we designate the period of human evolution by the line a–b: In the time up to about the 8th or 7th century before the Mystery of Golgotha, everything in human culture was in the Sattva state.

[ 17 ] Then began the age into which the Mystery of Golgotha extended, and then began the age—we might say, roughly from the 15th or 16th century following the Mystery of Golgotha—when the Tamasic age truly began in earnest. But it is a transition. And if we wish to use our customary terms, then we have the first age, which in a sense still fell within the sattva state for certain spiritual revelations, coinciding with the age we call the Chaldean-Egyptian. The one in the Rajas state is the Greco-Latin age, and the one in the Tamas state is our age. We also know that, among the post-Atlantean states, this distinctive Chaldean-Egyptian age is the third, the Greco-Latin age the fourth, and our own the fifth. It was thus to take place, one might say, according to the plan of human development, from the third to the fourth post-Atlantean age, as it were, the withering away of external revelation, the preparation of humanity for the flare-up of the Christ impulse. But how did this actually happen?

[ 18 ] Now, if we wish to explain how human spiritual conditions differed in the third age of humanity—the Chaldean-Egyptian age—from those of the subsequent ages, we must say: In this third epoch, for all these lands—both Egypt and Chaldea, but also India—for all these regions of human development, the situation was such that humanity still possessed remnants of ancient clairvoyant power; that is to say, human beings perceived the world not only with the aid of their senses and the intellect bound to the brain, but they still perceived the world with the organs of their etheric body, at least in certain states that lay between sleeping and waking.

[ 19 ] If we wish to imagine a person from that era, we have no choice but to say: For those people, perceiving nature and the world as we know it—through the senses and the intellect, which is bound to the brain—was merely one of the states they experienced. But in these states they did not yet form any knowledge; they merely looked at things, as it were, and let them interact side by side in space and one after another in time. If these people wished to arrive at knowledge, they had to enter a state that, unlike in our time, did not occur artificially but naturally, as if of its own accord, where their deeper powers—the powers of their etheric body—came into play for the sake of cognition. And from such insight also arose all that which appears to us as the wondrous knowledge of Sankhya philosophy; from such contemplation also arose all that—though it belongs to an even earlier time—which has been handed down to us in Vedic knowledge.

[ 20 ] Thus, human beings acquired knowledge by placing themselves in a different state or by feeling as though they had been transported into one. They had, so to speak, their everyday state, in which they saw with their eyes, heard with their ears, and followed the course of things with their ordinary intellect. But he used this seeing, this hearing, and this intellect only to carry out external practical tasks. It would never have occurred to him to use these faculties for science or for knowledge. For science and for knowledge, he used what appeared to him in the other state, where he brought the deeper powers of his being into activity.

[ 21 ] We can thus imagine human beings in those ancient times as having, so to speak, their everyday body, and within this everyday body their finer spiritual body—their “Sunday body,” if I may use that comparison. With the everyday body, they worked out the everyday matters, and with the Sunday body, which was woven solely from the etheric body, there they perceived, there they developed their science. And for a person of those ancient times, the comparison would be apt if one were to say: This person is astonished that in our time we build our science with our everyday body and never put on our Sunday body when it comes to knowing something about the world. Yes, what was it like for such a person to experience all these states? In experiencing all these states, it was such that when a person was engaged in cognition through his deeper powers—that is, in the cognition through which he developed, for example, Sankhya philosophy—he did not feel as today’s human being feels, who, when seeking to acquire knowledge, must strain his intellect and think with his head. When acquiring knowledge, they felt as if in their etheric body; however, this body was least developed in what is today the physical head, but was more developed in the other parts. People thought much more with the other parts of their etheric body. The etheric body of the head is the least developed part. People felt, so to speak, that they were thinking with their etheric body, that in thinking they were lifted out of their physical body. But they felt something else in such moments of acquiring knowledge and insight: they felt that they were actually one with the Earth. They had the feeling, when they shed their everyday body and put on their Sunday body, as if forces were passing through their entire being, just as forces pass through our legs and feet and these forces connect us to the Earth in the same way that the forces passing through our hands and arms connect us to our body. Human beings began to feel themselves as a limb of the Earth. On the one hand, he felt that he thought and knew in his etheric body, and on the other hand, that he was no longer a separate human being, but a limb of the Earth. He felt his being growing into the Earth. Thus the entire inner nature of experience changed when the human being put on his Sunday body and was able to prepare himself for knowledge.

[ 22 ] What, then, had to happen for that old age to truly come to an end, and for the third age—the new age, the fourth—to begin? If we want to understand what had to happen, we would do well to familiarize ourselves with the terminology of the time.

[ 23 ] The person who, in that ancient age, experienced what I have just described said: “The serpent has become active within me.” — His being had extended itself into the earth. He did not feel his physical body as the actual agent. He felt as if he were extending a serpentine appendage into the earth, with the head being what protruded from the earth. And this serpentine being—this he felt as the thinking entity. And one could depict his being in such a way that his etheric body extended into the earth as a serpent’s body, and that, while he was outside the earth as a physical human being, during the process of cognition and knowledge he reached into the earth and thought with his etheric body. “The serpent is active within me,” he said. Thus, in a sense, “cognition” in ancient times meant: “I bring the serpent within me to activity; I feel my serpentine being.”

[ 24 ] What had to happen for the new era to dawn, for this new understanding to emerge? It could no longer be possible for there to be moments when a person felt their being extending into the earth through their legs and feet. And furthermore, the sensation had to die out in the etheric body and pass over into the physical head. If you truly imagine this feeling of transition from the old understanding to the new, you will find that it is a fitting expression of this transition to say: One is wounded at the feet, but one tramples the serpent’s head with one’s own body—that is, the serpent ceases to be the organ of thought with its head. The physical body, specifically the physical brain, kills the serpent, and the serpent takes its revenge by depriving one of the sense of belonging to the earth: it bites one in the heel.

[ 25 ] In such times of transition from one form of human experience to another, what remains from the old epoch is, as it were, locked in a struggle with what is emerging in the new era; for the two still exist side by side. The father is still there even when the son has long since been living. Nevertheless, the son is that which comes from the father. The characteristics of the fourth epoch, the Greco-Latin one, were present, but the characteristics of the third, the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, still extended into the lives of individuals and peoples. In the course of development, these naturally merge into one another. But what lives side by side as something newly emerging and something anciently inherited no longer understands one another well. The old does not understand the new. The new must defend itself against the old, must assert its life in the face of the old. That is to say, the new is there, but the ancestors—who still project their characteristics from the old age into their descendants—the ancestors who did not experience the new. This is how we can characterize the transition from the third age of humanity to the fourth.

[ 26 ] One might say, then, that there had to be a hero, a leader of humanity, who first embodies in a significant way this process of slaying the serpent, of being wounded by the serpent, and who at the same time had to rise up against that which, though related to him, still shines into the new age with its characteristics from the old. Humanity must progress in such a way that what entire generations experience must first be experienced by one individual in all its grandeur.

[ 27 ] Who was the hero who slew the head of the serpent that reared itself against what was significant in the third world age? Who was the one who led humanity out of the old Sattva age into the new Tamas age? It was Krishna. And how could it be made clearer to us that it was this Krishna than through the Eastern legend in which Krishna is portrayed as a son of the gods, as a son of Mahadeva and Devaki, who enters the world amid miracles—that is, in such a way that he brings something new; who—if I continue with my comparison—leads people to seek knowledge in their everyday bodies, and who slays the Sunday body, that is, the serpent; who must defend himself against what reaches into the new age from his kinship.

[ 28 ] Such a being is something new, something wondrous. Hence the legend tells how the infant Krishna was surrounded by miracles even at birth, and that Krishna’s mother’s brother, Kansa, sought to take the infant’s life. Here we see the intrusion of the old in the form of the infant Krishna’s uncle, and Krishna must defend himself, must rebel—he who is to bring the new, that which kills the third age, that which destroys the old conditions for the outer evolution of humanity. He must defend himself against Kansa, the guardian of the old Sattva age. And among the most significant miracles with which Krishna is associated, the legend tells that the mighty serpent Kali encircled him and that he succeeded in crushing the serpent’s head, though it wounded him on the heel. Here we have something that we might describe as the legend directly reflecting an occult reality. That is what legends do. However, one must not rely on an external explanation, but must take up the legends in the right place, in the proper context of understanding, in order to bring them to comprehension.

[ 29 ] Krishna is the hero of the waning third post-Atlantean epoch of humanity. The legend tells us once again: Krishna appeared at the end of the third world age. Everything makes sense when it is understood. Krishna is thus the one who kills the old knowledge, who brings about its eclipse. He does this through his outward manifestations. He brings about the eclipse of what once surrounded humanity like a Sattva-knowledge. Yes, but how does he stand there in the Bhagavad Gita? He stands there in such a way that he gives the individual—as it were, as a counterbalance to what he has taken away—the guidance on how to ascend once more through yoga to that which was lost to ordinary humanity.

[ 30 ] Thus, for the world, Krishna is the slayer of the ancient sattvic knowledge and, at the same time—as he appears to us at the end of the Gita— the Lord of Yoga, who is to lead us back up into the knowledge we have abandoned—the knowledge of ancient times, which can only be attained by overcoming and defeating what we have now donned outwardly like an everyday garment, and by returning once more to the ancient state of mind. That was Krishna’s dual deed. As a hero of world history, he acted on the one hand by smashing the head of the serpent of ancient knowledge and forcing humanity to turn inward into the physical body, in which alone the I could be conquered as a free, self-acting I, whereas previously everything that made a person into an I radiated in from the outside. That was he as a hero of world history. Then, for the individual, he was the one who restored, for times of devotion, of contemplation, and of inner discovery, what had once been lost. And this is what confronted us in such a magnificent way in the scene from the Gita that we allowed to work upon our souls at the end yesterday, and what confronts Arjuna as his own being, but seen from the outside, seen in such a way that it is spread out endlessly across all spaces.

[ 31 ] And if we examine this relationship more closely, we come to a passage in the Gita which, even if we are already amazed by the vast and powerful content of the Gita, must increase our amazement to infinite proportions. There we come to that passage, which must indeed be quite inexplicable to modern people, to the passage where Krishna reveals to Arjuna the nature of the Ashvattha tree, the fig tree, by telling him that this tree is rooted upward and branches downward, and where Krishna goes on to say that the individual leaves of this tree are the leaves of the Veda, which together constitute the knowledge of the Veda. This is a peculiar passage. What, then, does this passage mean—this reference to the great tree of life, whose roots point upward and whose branches point downward, whose leaves constitute the content of the Veda?

[ 32 ] Yes, we simply have to put ourselves in the mindset of ancient knowledge and understand how that knowledge worked. Modern people, after all, are familiar only with their present-day knowledge, so to speak, which is conveyed to them through the physical organ. Ancient knowledge was attained, as we have just described, in the etheric body. Not that the whole human being was etheric, but rather that knowledge was attained in the etheric body, which was within the physical body. Through the organization, through the structure of the etheric body, ancient knowledge was acquired.

[ 33 ] Just imagine this vividly: When you perceive, in your etheric body, the serpent, there is something in the world that does not exist for modern humans. Isn’t it true that modern humans perceive many things in their surroundings when they behave naturally? But imagine a person observing the world: there is one thing the observer does not perceive—the brain. No one can see their own brain when they are observing. Nor can anyone see their own spinal cord. This impossibility ceases as soon as one observes through the etheric body. Then a new object appears that one would otherwise not see: one perceives one’s own nervous system. But one does not perceive it, however, in the way today’s anatomist perceives it. It does not look as he perceives it, but rather it looks such that one gets the feeling: Yes, there you are in your etheric nature! — Now one looks upward and sees how the nerves, which go into all the organs, gather upward in the brain. This gives the feeling: This is a tree that has its roots reaching upward, and that extends its branches down into all the limbs.

[ 34 ] But this is not actually perceived as being as small as we are within our skin; rather, it is perceived as the mighty World Tree: its roots extend far out into the vastness of space, and its branches reach downward. So one feels oneself as a snake and sees, so to speak, one’s nervous system objectified, giving the impression that it is like a tree sending its roots far out into the vastness of space and whose branches extend downward. Remember what I have said in earlier lectures: that the human being is, in a certain sense, an inverted plant. All of this must be taken into account in order to understand something like this remarkable passage from the Bhagavad Gita. One is indeed amazed at that ancient wisdom, which today must once again be evoked from the depths of the occult using new means. And then one experiences what this tree brings to light; one experiences what grows upon it, in its leaves; this is the Vedic knowledge that radiates toward one from without.

[ 35 ] The wonderful image from the Gita stands right before us: the tree with its roots pointing upward, its branches pointing downward, its leaves containing knowledge, and humanity itself as a serpent coiled around the tree. You may have seen this image before, or perhaps this image of the Tree of Life with the serpent has come to meet you. And everything is significant when one considers these ancient things. Here the tree confronts us, roots upward, branches downward. One has the feeling that it is oriented in the opposite direction to the Tree of Paradise. This has a profound meaning, for the Tree of Paradise stands at the starting point of the other development—the development that then enters Christianity through ancient Hebrew antiquity. Thus, here too we are given a hint of the entire nature of that ancient knowledge. And when Krishna explicitly says to his disciple Arjuna: “Renunciation is the power that makes this world-tree visible to human beings,” we are shown how humanity returns to that ancient knowledge by renouncing everything that humanity has acquired in the further course of human development—and which we characterized yesterday. This is what Krishna gives to his individual disciple Arjuna as something glorious, something magnificent—as it were, as a down payment—while he must take it away from all of humanity for the everyday use of culture. This is the essence of Krishna.

[ 36 ] So what must it be that Krishna gives to his individual disciple? It must be sattvic wisdom. And the better he imparts this Sattva wisdom to him, the wiser, more serene, more composed, and more dispassionate it will be. But it will be an ancient revealed wisdom, something that approaches humanity from without in such a wondrous way through the words spoken by the Exalted One—that is, Krishna himself—and to which the individual disciple then responds. Thus does Krishna become the Lord of Yoga, who leads back to the primordial wisdom of humanity and seeks ever more to overcome that which, even in the Sattva Age, still veiled the spirit in a soul-like manner—the spirit in its ancient purity, before it had descended into matter—and seeks to reveal this to the disciple. It is thus only in the spirit that Krishna stands before us in that dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna that we presented yesterday.

[ 37 ] We have thus brought before our soul the end of that age, which was the last in the era of ancient spirituality—a spirituality we can trace in such a way that we see the full light of the spirit at the starting point and then its descent into matter, so that human beings might find their I, their independence. And when the light of the spirit had descended so far that the fourth post-Atlantean epoch had arrived, there was a kind of reciprocal relationship, a rajasic relationship, between the spirit and the outer soul. The Mystery of Golgotha fell within this epoch. Could one have described it in this epoch from the perspective of the sattvic relationship? No, one would not then have described what belonged specifically to that age. Whoever described from the Rajasic age—to use this term from Sankhya philosophy—in the proper sense, had to describe from Rajas. Not from serenity, but from the personal, from indignation over this and that—that is how one had to describe. And so Paul described things from the perspective of the Rajasic state. Feel the pulse of many a word in the Thessalonians, many a word in the Corinthians, many a word in the Epistle to the Romans—struggling to break free from the Rajasic state of humanity, you feel what pulsates from Paul’s letters like anger, often like a personal characteristic. That is the style and character of Paul’s letters. They had to appear this way, whereas the Bhagavad Gita must appear serene and devoid of personal character, since it is the highest flowering of the passing age, yet provides the individual human being with a substitute for what has passed away and leads him back to the heights of spiritual life. Krishna had to give the highest spiritual flowering to his own disciple because he had to slay the old knowledge for humanity, because he had to crush the serpent’s head.

[ 38 ] This Sattva condition had come to an end of its own accord. It was no longer there, and in the Rajasic age, only one who had spoken within the Sattva condition could have spoken of the past. Anyone who stood at the starting point of the new era had to speak from what was now the defining reality. Personality had entered human nature as human nature had found the quest for knowledge through the organs and instruments of the physical body. But this is what speaks from the Epistles of Paul; this is the personal element in the Epistles of Paul. This is what causes a personality to thunder with words of wrath against all that is drawing in as the darkness of the material. For there is often a thunder of words of wrath in the Epistles of Paul.

[ 39 ] But this also means that one cannot speak in the strictly closed lines, nor in the wise, sharply defined clarity found in the Bhagavad Gita or the Epistles of Paul. One can speak with wisdom, as in the Bhagavad Gita, when describing how a person is freed from external activity, how they triumphantly rise into the spirit, where they become one with Krishna. Thus, the path of yoga upward to the highest heights of the soul could be described with wisdom.

[ 40 ] That which came into the world as something new—the victory of the spirit over the purely soul-like within—could initially be described only from the perspective of the rajasic state. And the one who first describes it in a way significant for human history—describing it with all his enthusiasm—does so in such a way that one knows: He was involved; he himself trembled when he stood before the revelation of the Christ impulse. It had approached him personally; there, for the first time, he had before him what was to work through the coming millennia. There it stood before him in such a way that all the powers of his soul had to be personally involved. Therefore, he does not describe it in philosophical, wisdom-filled terms, as is done in the Bhagavad Gita, but rather he describes what he has to describe as the Resurrection of Christ as something in which one is immediately and personally involved.

[ 41 ] And shouldn’t it be a personal experience? Shouldn’t Christianity permeate, ignite, and be lived out in the most personal way? Truly, the one who first described the Christ event could only have done so personally.

[ 42 ] We see how, in the Gita, the main emphasis is placed on ascending to spiritual heights through yoga; the other aspects are only touched upon in passing. Why? Because in his instruction to an individual disciple—precisely this individual disciple—Krishna is concerned with that disciple, not with what other people out there perceive as their relationship to the spiritual. There Krishna describes what the disciple is to become, and he is to become ever higher, ever more spiritual. This is a description that leads to ever more mature states of the soul, and thus to ever more impressive images of beauty. That is why it is also the case that only at the end do we encounter the contrast between the demonic and the spiritual, and something solidifies in the contrast of this ascent into the beauty of the soul life: only at the end do we find the contrast presented between those who are demonic and those who are spiritual. Demonic are all those through whom the material merely speaks, who live in the material world, who believe that with death everything is over. But this is only mentioned by way of explanation; it is not something with which the great teacher is actually concerned; he is concerned above all with the spiritualization of the human soul. Only in passing might yoga speak of what is the opposite of yoga.

[ 43 ] Paul is first and foremost concerned with all of humanity—with that very humanity that finds itself in the dawning age of darkness. He must direct his gaze to all that this age of darkness brings about in human life; he must contrast this general, dark existence with that which is only just beginning to sprout as a small plant—the Christ impulse in the human soul. We see this coming to light in Paul as well, where time and again reference is made to all manner of vices, to all manner of materialism, which is to be combated by what Paul has to offer. He has to offer what first flickers like a tiny flame in the human soul and can only gain power when his words are backed by the enthusiasm that triumphantly manifests itself in words as the revelation of a feeling carried by the personality.

[ 44 ] The depictions in the Gita and the Epistles of Paul are so different: in the Gita, there is serenity and an impersonal narrative, whereas Paul must weave personal elements into his words. This sets the tone and the style on the one hand of the Gita, and on the other of the Epistles of Paul. It confronts us there and here, in both works—one might say, in every line. Artistic perfection can only be achieved once it has reached maturity; in its early stages of development, it manifests itself in a somewhat chaotic manner.

[ 45 ] Why is all this so? This question is answered for us when we look at the powerful opening of the Gita. We have already described it; we have seen how the armies of relatives face each other in battle, how warrior stands against warrior, yet how victor and vanquished must be blood relatives. We are facing a transition from the old kinship of blood, to which clairvoyance is bound, to the differentiation and mixing of blood that characterizes our new age. We are dealing with a transformation of the human being’s outer physicality and the resulting change and transformation of knowledge. A different kind of blood mixing, a different significance of blood, is emerging in human evolution. If we wish to study—I refer again to my short essay: “Blood Is a Very Special Fluid”—the transition from that old age to the new, then we must say: Clairvoyance in ancient times was bound to the fact that blood remained, so to speak, within the tribe, whereas the new age arises from the mixing of tribes, from the mixing of blood, whereby the old clairvoyance was extinguished and the new cognition arose, which is bound to the physical body.

[ 46 ] At the beginning of the Gita, we are directed toward an external aspect bound to the human form. Sankhya philosophy focuses primarily on such external transformations of form; it leaves what is spiritual—as we have characterized it—in the background, so to speak; the souls simply stand in their multiplicity behind the forms. We have found a kind of pluralism in Sankhya philosophy. We have been able to compare it with the modern philosophy of Leibniz. So if we try to put ourselves in the mind of the Sankhya philosopher, we can imagine him saying: Here is my soul, which expresses itself either in the Sattva, Rajas, or Tamas mode in its relations to the forms of the outer body. — But this philosopher considers these forms. These forms undergo change, and one of the most significant changes is that which is expressed in the different use of the etheric body or through the transition regarding blood kinship, as we have characterized it. There we have an external change of form. The soul is not at all affected by what Sankhya philosophy considers. A change in external form is entirely sufficient here if we wish to consider what is relevant in the transition from the old Sattva age to the new Rajas age, at the threshold of which Krishna stands. Here, a change in external form is what matters.

[ 47 ] External changes in form were always a possibility whenever the times changed. The external changes in form were different during the transition from the Persian to the Egyptian era, as they were during the transition from the Egyptian to the Greco-Roman era; yet they were still changes in form. The transition from the primordial Indian age to the Persian was different in nature, but it was also a change of form. Indeed, it was merely a change of form when the transition took place from ancient Atlantis itself into the post-Atlantean epochs. That was a change of form. And one could trace it by adhering strictly to the tenets of Sankhya philosophy; one could trace it by simply saying: In these forms the soul lives out its existence, but one cannot approach this soul itself; Purusha remains untouched. — Thus we have a peculiar kind of change that can be characterized by Sankhya philosophy, using the concepts of Sankhya philosophy. But behind this change stands Purusha, stands the individual soul of every human being. Sankhya philosophy merely states that this individual soul stands in relation to the three gunas—Sattva, Rajas, Tamas—and to the outer forms. But this soul is not affected by the external forms. Purusha stands behind them, and we are directed toward the soul; and a constant pointing toward the soul occurs when Krishna’s teaching comes before our soul in what he teaches as the Lord of Yoga. Certainly, but what this soul is like in its nature does not present itself to us as knowledge. Guidance on how the soul is to develop is the highest; the change in external forms is not a change in the soul itself, but merely an echo. And we discover this echo in the following way.

[ 48 ] If a person is to ascend through yoga from the ordinary stages of the soul to the higher stages, then he must free himself from external activity; he must emancipate himself more and more from what he does and perceives externally; he must become an observer of himself. Then his soul stands free within, rising triumphantly above the external. This is how it is with the ordinary person. But for the one who enters into initiation and becomes clairvoyant, it does not remain that way; external matter does not stand before him. As such, it is Maya. It is a reality only for the one who makes use of his own inner tools. What takes the place of matter? This becomes clear to us when we consider the ancient initiation. While in everyday life the human being is confronted by matter, Prakriti, the soul that develops through yoga into initiation faces the world of the Asuras, the world of the demonic, against which it must fight. Matter is that which offers resistance; the Asuras, the powers of darkness, become enemies. But all of this is actually only a hint; something, so to speak, peeks in from the soul, and we begin to feel the soul. Only then does this soul become spiritually aware of itself, as it enters into battle against the demons, against the Asuras.

[ 49 ] In our language, we would describe this struggle—which, however, confronts us only on a small scale—as something that becomes visible as spirits when matter appears in its spiritual nature. What confronts us there on a small scale is precisely what we know as the soul’s struggle with Ahriman when it comes to initiation. But by perceiving this as such a struggle, we are fully immersed in the soul. Then what were once merely the material spirits grow to gigantic proportions; the mighty enemy stands opposite the soul. Here the soul stands opposite the soul; here the individual soul stands opposite Ahriman’s realm in the vast universe. The lowest level of Ahriman’s realm is that with which one struggles in yoga. But now he himself stands before us, as we contemplate it in our minds, in the soul’s struggle with Ahriman’s powers, with Ahriman’s realm. Sankhya philosophy describes the relationship of the soul to external matter, when this external matter has the upper hand, as the Tamasic condition. The initiate who attains initiation through yoga is not merely in this Tamasic relationship, but in a struggle against certain demonic forces into which matter transforms itself for his perception. In our mind’s eye we see the soul when its relationship is not only opposed to what is spiritual in matter, but when it is opposed to the purely spiritual, opposed to the Ahrimanic.

[ 50 ] In the Rajas state, according to Sankhya philosophy, matter and spirit are in balance; they fluctuate back and forth—sometimes matter is dominant, sometimes spirit; sometimes matter is subordinate, sometimes spirit. If this relationship were to lead to initiation, then, in the sense of ancient yoga, it would lead directly to an overcoming of rajas, leading into sattva. For us, it does not yet lead into sattva, but rather the other struggle begins there—the struggle with the Luciferic. And now, for our consideration, Purusha stands before us—a figure to whom Sankhya philosophy merely alluded. It is not merely that we point to him, but he stands right in the midst of the battlefield, facing Ahriman and Lucifer. The soulful stands opposed to the soulful. In a primal, distant perspective, Purusha of Sankhya philosophy appears. If we delve into the deeper aspects, into what plays a role in the essence of the soul, still undifferentiated from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic, then we have only in Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas the relationships of the soul to the material-substantial. Now, when we consider the matter in our minds, we have the soul in active struggle, wrestling between Ahriman and Lucifer. This is something that could only be viewed in its full magnitude through Christianity. For the ancient teaching of Sankhya, Purusha remains, so to speak, untouched. There, the relationship is described that arises when Purusha clothes himself in Prakriti. We enter the Christian era and what underlies esoteric Christianity, and we penetrate into Purusha itself and characterize it by taking into account the threefold: the soul, the Ahrimanic, and the Luciferic. We now consider the inner relationship of the soul in its own struggle. What had to come lay in the transition that took place within the fourth age, in the transition marked by the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 51 ] For what happened back then? What occurred during the transition from the third to the fourth age was something that can be characterized merely as a change in form. Now, however, it is something that can only be characterized by the transition from Prakriti to Purusha itself—something that must be characterized in such a way that one says: One feels how Purusha completely emancipates itself from Prakriti, feels it in one’s innermost being. Human beings are not merely torn away from blood ties, but from Prakriti, from all externality, and must come to terms with it within. This is where the Christ impulse enters. But this is also the greatest transition that could have occurred in the entire development of the Earth. Then the question no longer arises merely: What are the states in the soul’s relationship to the material, in Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas? — Then the soul must not only overcome Tamas and Rajas in order to rise above them through yoga; it must fight against Ahriman and Lucifer; it is left to its own devices. This is where the necessity arises to contrast, on the one hand, what is presented to us in the sublime Song, in the Bhagavad Gita, for the old times, and on the other, what is necessary for the new times.

[ 52 ] This is contrasted for us in the sublime song, the Bhagavad Gita. There, the human soul is revealed to us. It dwells within its physicality, within its sheaths. These sheaths can be described. They are that which is in a state of perpetual transformation. Just as the soul lives out its existence, so is it entangled in ordinary existence within Prakriti; thus it lives within Prakriti. And in yoga, this soul frees itself from that which envelops it, overcomes that which envelops it, and enters the spiritual sphere by making itself completely free from these sheaths.

[ 53 ] We contrast this with what Christianity, through the Mystery of Golgotha, has brought about. It is not enough for the soul merely to free itself. For if the soul were to free itself through yoga, it would come to behold Krishna; Krishna would then stand before it in all his majesty, but as Krishna was before Ahriman and Lucifer had attained their full power. There, a benevolent deity still veils the fact that, alongside that Krishna who becomes visible in the sublime manner we described yesterday, Ahriman and Lucifer stand to the left and right of Krishna. This was possible through ancient clairvoyance, because humanity had not yet descended into matter. That can no longer be the case. If the soul were merely to undergo yoga, it would have Ahriman and Lucifer before it and would have to take up the fight against them. And it could only stand beside Krishna once it had the ally who fights Ahriman and Lucifer for it, not merely Tamas and Rajas. But that is the Christ. Thus we see how the physical separated from the physical, or, one might also say, how the physical darkened within the physical at the time when the hero Krishna appeared. But on the other hand, we see the more powerful aspect: how the soul is left to itself and exposed to the struggle, something that is visible only in its own realm in the age when the Mystery of Golgotha took place.

[ 54 ] I can well imagine that someone might say: Yes, what could be more powerful than the fact that Krishna presents us with the highest ideal of humanity, the perfection of humanity? There can be something even higher. And that is what must stand by our side and permeate us when we must first conquer this humanity in the spirit, not merely against Tamas and Rajas. That is the Christ. And so it is one’s own inability not to see something even greater when one wishes to see the highest only in the portrayal of Krishna.

[ 55 ] And the predominance of the Christ impulse over the Krishna impulse is also expressed in the fact that, with the Krishna impulse, we have incarnated the being who was incarnated in Krishna into the entire humanity of Krishna. There, Krishna is born as the son of Visudeva and grows up; but in his entire humanity that highest human impulse is embodied, incarnated, which we recognize precisely as Krishna. That impulse which must stand by our side when it comes to our confrontation with Lucifer and Ahriman—this confrontation is only just beginning, for all the things depicted, for example, in our Mystery Dramas will become spiritually tangible to future human beings —this must be an impulse for which humanity as a whole is initially too small, an impulse that cannot dwell immediately even in a body such as that in which Zarathustra can dwell, but can dwell in it only when that body itself has reached the height of its development, when that body has attained the age of thirty. Therefore, the Christ impulse does not fill an entire life, but only the ripest periods of a human life. This is why the Christ impulse was present in the body of Jesus for only three years. Precisely in this lies the superiority of the Christ impulse: that it cannot dwell directly in this human body, as the Krishna being does from birth. And we will have much more to say about how the superiority of the Christ impulse over the Krishna impulse is further revealed. But you will see and sense from what has been described so far that it must indeed be as the relationship between the great Gita and the Epistles of Paul presents itself to us: that the entire presentation of the Gita, because it is the ripe fruit of many preceding ages, can be perfect in itself, and that the Epistles of Paul, because they are the first seeds of a subsequent, albeit more perfect and comprehensive, world age, had to be much more imperfect. Thus, anyone who describes the course of the world must indeed acknowledge the imperfections of the Epistles of Paul in comparison to the Gita—imperfections that are very significant and should not be glossed over—but they must also understand why these imperfections must exist.