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The Forming of Destiny in Sleeping and Waking
GA 224

6 April 1923, Berne

Translator Unknown

My Dear Friends,

We will consider a certain theme today which may serve as an elaboration of the public lecture given yesterday.1The Aim of the Goetheanum and the Task of Anthroposophy, Berne, 5th April, 1923 I want to speak in greater detail of how the human being is placed within the sphere of the World Order that is connected with his destiny, with what we are accustomed to call Karma. How does the shaping of destiny proceed? In order to answer this question, not theoretically, but concretely in a vital and practical manner, it is necessary to study the being of man a little more closely.

Human life is often said to be divided into two different states of consciousness: waking life and sleep. The conception of sleep in most people's minds amounts to nothing more than this, that the human being rests during sleep. The scientific view indeed assumes that the activity of consciousness ceases when a man falls asleep and begins again when he wakes; in other words, so far as the organism is concerned, sleep is nothing but repose, a state in which human activity is at rest. But sleep is by no means merely rest; we must realise that from the time of falling asleep to the moment of waking, both the astral body and the Ego are present outside the physical and etheric bodies as active realities.

At the present stage of evolution reached by man in earthly life, it is not possible for him to have direct consciousness of what the Ego and astral body are doing during sleep; none the less their activities are, to say the least, as significant as those of waking life. The reason why the Ego and astral body cannot unfold consciousness of all the complicated circumstances in which they are immersed during sleep is that, at the present stage of the Earth's evolution, Ego and astral body have no organs wherewith to become aware of the happenings in which they are involved. Nevertheless these experiences are undergone by the Ego and astral body during sleep and they work on into the life of day, into man's conscious life.

We can most easily form an accurate conception of the way in which the experiences of Ego and astral body work into the life of day, by thinking of the beginning of man's life. During the very earliest period, as a tiny child, the human being as it were sleeps his way into the earthly life. You must not think here only of the times when a child is actually and obviously asleep, but of the whole period which cannot, in later life, be remembered by ordinary consciousness. To external observation the child may give the impression of being awake during this period, but what is going on in the child's consciousness does not take a form which can be remembered in later life. When we speak of all that is experienced by the child without his having subsequent memory of it, we are referring to this period during which the human being is ‘sleeping’ his way into earthly life.

But now, what develops out of this sleeping state at the beginning of man's life on Earth? Three things must be considered if we are to understand the workings of all that the human being brings from his pre-earthly life and proceeds to weave, in the dim consciousness of sleep, into his physical existence. There are three faculties which the human being has to acquire, differently from the animals. Animals either do not have them at all, or already possess them—in greater or lesser degree of development—when they come into the world.

Of the development of these three faculties people have usually quite a one-sided and inadequate conception. Very little of the whole process receives consideration. The first faculty is learning to walk. Man enters the world, the earthly world, as a being who cannot walk, who has to acquire this faculty. The second is speaking, and the third, thinking. One faculty may take precedence in a particular child, but in general it can be said that the human being learns to walk, to speak and to think. The faculty of thinking follows that of speaking; the faculty to grasp also in thought what is expressed in words develops, gradually, out of speaking. It is some considerable time before one can truly say that a child thinks.

The ordinary conception of walking is extremely inadequate. Walking does not merely consist in the child's learning to stand upright and propel his legs, it involves acquiring equilibrium, gaining complete mastery of the balance man has in the world. This means the child can move freely in any direction without falling over. Thus he learns to place his body into the world; he learns to control his muscles and limbs in such a way that the centre of gravity in the body, whether standing or walking, lies at the correct point. Current ideas about this faculty are, as I said, totally inadequate, for in reality something else of tremendous significance comes to pass with the learning to walk, namely differentiation of the functions of legs and arms. As a rule—and where modifications occur there is a sound explanation for them—animals make uniform use of their four limbs, whereas in the human being there is differentiation. For the purposes of equilibrium and of walking, man uses his legs, whereas his arms and hands are wonderful instruments for the expression of his life of soul, vehicles of the work he is to accomplish in the world. This differentiation between feet and hands, arms and legs, is one of the features that are ignored in the usual one-sided conception of the faculty of learning to walk. The differentiation testifies, in the physical world, to the fact that the human being has to acquire certain faculties during his physical life on Earth.

The second faculty, that of speaking, is also acquired by imitation; the little child tries to imitate—just as he does with walking, standing, equilibration, differentiation between hands and feet. It can be said with truth, that speaking is not unconnected with walking,—above all, with the use of the hand in its differentiation. It is well known that speaking is connected with the specific development of an organ situated at the left side of the brain. This however only applies to people who use their right hand for the most important activities of life; in left-handed people the organ of speech lies at the right side of the brain. These facts indicate that what comes to expression in speech is connected with the search for equilibrium. Then, out of speaking, thinking develops. A person who is born dumb can only be brought to think by artificial means; in all those who are not born dumb, thinking is a faculty that develops out of speech.

Now, the characteristic development I have just described is not really to be understood until we can follow how, in later life, the human being passes over from the waking to the sleeping state. During sleep, the physical and etheric bodies lie resting in the physical sense; the Ego and astral body have separated, in essentials, from the physical and etheric bodies. But if, with the methods of spiritual Science, we examine the astral body of man which has separated from the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, we find that this astral body contains within it the forces that are connected with learning to speak. It is extraordinarily interesting to watch the human being falling asleep and waking, during the time when, as a child, he is learning to speak; and it is also very interesting, in the case of some grown-up person who is learning to speak for the first time, to observe the intensity with which the astral body participates in the process. For when the human being is learning to speak, and even later on, too, when he is using speech in everyday life, the astral body carries with it, out of the physical and etheric bodies, the element of soul and spirit that is inherent in words and in speech.

If you can perceive how a human being speaks, how he forms his words, how he imparts to the words his own characteristic tone of voice, how he pours into words the force of his inner convictions, the experiences of his own soul—then you can also perceive how, when he falls asleep, the astral body carries this element of soul and spirit out of the physical and etheric bodies and during the period of sleep holds within itself, in the world of soul and spirit, as a kind of echoing wave, the after-workings of the psycho-spiritual qualities of speech. The forming of the words, the nuances of tone, the force of conviction which a man is able to bring into his words—all this can be perceived in the astral body during the sleeping state. There is, of course, no force of vibration such as is communicated to the physical air, and thus naturally no physical tone of voice is produced. The element of spirit and soul however, that proceeds from the human mouth on the waves of the words and is heard by the human ear, what the soul communicates in the flow of speech—all this is carried forth into the spiritual world by the astral body while the human being sleeps. It can be perceived more clearly when a child, or even a grown-up, is exerting himself to learn to speak a language. But through the whole of life, the element of spirit and soul inherent in speech during the day is taken out into the spiritual world by the astral body during the night. Thus we can say: the nuances of feeling in the spoken word—these it is above all that are carried out of the human being by the astral body during the night. This is a characteristic function of the astral body.

And now let us consider the Ego during the hours of sleep. The Ego is related, as it were, by nature to the limb-system. Just as the astral body is connected with the breast from which speech proceeds, so is the Ego involved in what the human being performs with his limbs, what he does between waking and falling asleep as he walks about or uses his arms and hands. The astral body flows into every word, carries forth the soul-quality of the word during sleep; the Ego is bound up with every movement we make as we go about the world in waking consciousness. The Ego is involved in every movement of the hands, in every act of grasping an object. Whereas, in connection with the astral body, too little attention is paid to the specific soul-element that pours into speech (speech being in itself so obviously a matter of the life of soul), when we come to the connection between the Ego and the limbs, we find an inclination to ignore altogether the working of the soul and spirit. Walking, grasping with the hands, are regarded as processes which happen entirely within a kind of physical mechanism,—for such the human organism is thought to be. But it is by no means so.

In every movement of the fingers that we make during the day, in every step we take as we go about, spirit and soul are contained, just as truly as they are contained in words. What is connected with our limbs and our movements is taken by the Ego out of our physical and etheric bodies into the spiritual world when we fall asleep; and in the process inheres a psycho-spiritual element of a very special nature. At every moment during the period of sleep, the Ego is unconsciously satisfied or dissatisfied. (You will understand this better presently, when I have explained it more fully). Although the words sound trivial, the Ego is satisfied with the legs having moved towards some place or other, or with something that has been accomplished by the arms. Not only is an aftermath of leg and arm movements carried out into sleep, but satisfaction or dissatisfaction as well. Part of the experience of the Ego during the hours of sleep is as follows: You should really not have gone to such and such a place! Or: It was very good to go there! It was good, too, that some particular thing was done with the arms! Or again: Such and such an action was not good! This is an expression of the element of soul and spirit that is added by the Ego to what it bears outwards from the limbs of man into sleep.

What underlies this? In accordance with the World Order the astral body of man is destined to come into inner contact between sleeping and waking with the Beings described in the book Occult Science as belonging to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi—the Archangels. The Archangel Beings feel an affinity with what is carried out into sleep as an echo sounding on from human speech. It is something they need, something they long to experience.

I will put it like this.—Just as human beings in their physical life on Earth have to breathe, have to be surrounded with oxygen, and consequently feel oxygen to be something beneficial, so do the Archangeloi, who are connected with the inner nature of the Earth, experience a need that the souls of men who are asleep shall bring to them the echo of what is contained in their speech.

Human speech is in this way connected, inherently and fundamentally, via the sleeping state, with the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi. You will remember what I have said in earlier lecture courses, namely, that the Archangeloi are the Leaders, the Guiding Spirits, of the folk-languages. This is connected with what has now been given. The Archangeloi are the Guiding Spirits of folk-languages because they breathe in what the human being, as he sleeps, brings to them from his speech. And a certain human failing is revealed—it is one that is particularly observable in modern cultural life—when, with his speech, a man does not carry out into sleep the right quality.

There is in the culture of the present day very little of what we call idealism. Our words relate entirely to things of the outer, material world. The voicing of ideals—which presupposes belief in the spiritual, for the ideal is a spiritual thing—is becoming rarer and rarer. Since in their waking life men do not unfold inner enthusiasm for ideals, they speak, in reality, of nothing but what is actually present in the physical world. More and more do their words apply and refer only to things of the physical world.

In our days it is often so that people who claim to believe fanatically in the Spirit are the very ones who refute the Spirit. I refer to such as engage in spiritualistic experiments with the object of producing manifestations of the Spirit. This is because, fundamentally, they are only willing to believe in a Spirit which can manifest in the material world. But it is no Spirit that reveals itself in glimmering material light and other such phenomena! Spiritualism is veritably the most extreme form of materialism. It is really an attempt to deny the Spirit, inasmuch as these people will only acknowledge as Spirit that which enters into the world of matter. We are living in an age when words, as they emerge from the soul, lack the wings of idealism. But if this quality is absent, if, in other words, man is unable in waking life to speak of his ideals as well as of physical things, unable to turn to the ideal which imparts real aim to life and transcends physical existence, if in his daily speech he produces no words to express ideals, so that language itself lacks idealism, then it is exceedingly difficult, during sleep, for the connection—which is so necessary for the human being—to be made with the Archangeloi; in such circumstances no order prevails during sleep in the intercourse which should be established between the human soul and the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi. Yes, it is indeed the case that every night man loses the opportunity, if I may so express it, of union with the Archangel Beings. And it is difficult for him, then, to have the inner connection with the spiritual world which enables his life between death and a new birth to be full of strong and vital experiences. The life of a man between death and a new birth is weakened when no idealism is expressed in his speech.

To understand these things constitutes an integral part of the knowledge of life. Those who realise what lack of idealism in speech signifies will ultimately develop the power to make it once again an integral quality of human speech. Even during earthly life it can be observed that a man who, during sleep, fails to draw the right power from the Archangel, does not unfold the strength he should really possess. With regard to what speech should accomplish during sleep for the human being, we can therefore say: In order that speech may produce something that is beneficial to life, we must make a real effort to develop idealism of such a kind that our words do not merely voice an understanding of everyday affairs, but are also imbued with the Spiritual, in the form of idealism.

We are confronted with something even more striking when we observe the Ego in the sleeping state. The Ego carries out into sleep satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the activities of the limbs. Just as the astral body, as a result of the after-working of speech, is carried towards the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, so is the Ego carried towards the Hierarchy of the Archai—the Powers of the Primal Beginnings—by virtue of what it takes out into the sleeping state as an echo of what has been performed by arms and legs in the daily round of life. From these Archai, the power flows to us, firstly, so to permeate the physical body that we do not only desire the Good, but are also able to exercise upon the urges and instincts of the physical body the measure of control which ensures that the physical body shall present no insuperable obstacle to the fulfilment of the duty or aim we have set ourselves in freedom of thought. In our thoughts we are free beings; but the power to use the freedom in actual life arises only when we carry out into sleep the basis for a true connection with the Archai. How can this be done? Idealism brings the astral body into right connection with the Archangeloi. And what enables the Ego to be united with the Archai? Although we ourselves, to begin with, are unconscious during sleep, the Being from the Hierarchy of the Archai is fully conscious, receives what is unconscious in us and elaborates it into a definite thought of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with what we have done during the day. But what is it that enables us to be connected rightly with these Archai, in the same way as idealism in speech leads us into right connection with Archangeloi?

One quality alone brings the Ego, during sleep, into right connection with the Archai, namely true human love, universal and unselfish love for human beings, sincere interest in every fellow man with whom life brings us into contact. I do not mean sympathy or antipathy, which are merely the outcome of something we are not willing to overcome. True and genuine love for human beings during the waking state leads us, during sleep, to the bosom of the Archai. And there, while the Ego is resting in the bosom of these Beings, karma or destiny is shaped. A verdict is passed: ‘I am satisfied with what I have performed with my arms and legs.’ And out of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction is born a power that not only plays a part in the period immediately following death, but continues on to the next earthly life—the power to shape destiny aright, so that true balance and adjustment are brought about in all those things which in one earthly life we have experienced in the Ego during sleep, in communion with the Archai.

Reflection on these things will develop insight into the mysterious connection between the Ego and the karma, or destiny. Just as the astral body of a man who is an idealist can hand over his speech to the Archangeloi as an offering that then enables the Archangeloi to guide him aright between death and a new birth, so does the Ego weave and work at the texture of destiny. Karma is elaborated in conjunction with the Archai. It is moreover in the power of the Archai to bestow upon us what we need in order that we may not only live through the period between death and a new birth, but, at our next descent to the earthly world, possess already a power which in earliest childhood, enables us, each in his own way, to learn to walk, to find equilibrium, to differentiate the functions of feet and hands, arms and legs.

It is wonderful to be able to perceive how the efforts made by a child when it stops crawling and begins to walk, when it first learns to achieve equilibrium—how these efforts represent the after-effects of the way in which, during the previous earth-life, the Ego was able, because of a universal love for human beings, to make a connection, during sleep, with the Archai. This fact manifests now in the process of learning to walk and can be observed in the very details of the process.

Suppose, for instance, a little child continually stumbles and falls. This means that in a previous life feelings of strong antipathy or even hatred were harboured. No more than an approach was made to the Archai and the effect of the absence of any real connection is expressed in the constant falls during the process of learning to walk. One who develops insight into such matters and sets himself the aim, let us say, of fitting himself to be an educator in the true sense by making close and careful observations of the way in which little children learn to walk, can indeed come to realise what a great and far-reaching task lies before him in the karmic adjustment of something brought over into the present life through the fact that in the previous life there was too little human love, or perhaps enough, but of a misdirected kind.

We have here an example of how the materialistic outlook remains altogether within the realm of the physical. It describes how the human organism raises itself like a machine to the upright position, how it learns to walk, and so on: but behind every physical phenomenon is something spiritual and those who can survey the whole process learn to recognise that the previous earthly life works over into learning to walk. For learning to walk is one expression of how the human being, at the beginning of a new earthly life, learns to control his physical body. Those who understand it fully, know that there is a great deal more in the process of learning to walk than the capacity to lift the legs and raise the body upright; they know that, in truth, this phenomenon is connected also with deeply inward processes, it has to do with the whole manner in which the human being is becoming master of his glandular activity and the like. For when a child is learning to walk, and even before, it is not a matter only of walking, but of gaining—or failing to gain—control of the glandular activities, a factor in the process being whether the child's temperament is phlegmatic or choleric, or whether certain emotions in him are too intense. This, again, is connected with the relationship established with the Archai during sleep in a previous earthly life, as the outcome of universal human love, or lack of it. Materialistic thought says that the human being rests during sleep. But he is not merely resting. When the right kind of idealism is present in a man's waking life, then the astral body will be enabled, while he sleeps, to rise to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, that is to say, to be connected with the spiritual world during sleep in such a way that the period leading over from death to a new birth can be lived through in the right manner. If this period is not rightly spent, it means that weaknesses are carried over into another earthly life. How the next life is framed and built, depends upon the nature of the connection established with the Archai. Universal human love carries with it creative power. To have strength to place the body wholly in the service of the soul, to have mastery and control of the physical body—upon what does this depend? It depends upon whether the human being, in the previous life, unfolded love for his fellow men—a faculty that belongs entirely to the soul.

You will remember what I have said in previous lectures: The soul-element of one earthly incarnation manifests in the physical in the next; the spiritual of one incarnation in the soul of the next. These connections are as I have just described them.

It will not do to generalise, saying merely that destiny and karma exist. What can be said, and with truth, is that we behold how the human being works at the formation of his own karma. He weaves it during sleep; but it is during waking life that he gathers what he needs for its texture. He weaves the threads that are formed out of universal human love—or he weaves threads which perpetually tear asunder and make bad karma for the next life, threads that are woven out of feelings of hatred for our fellowmen. Love and hatred—these are creative forces in the forming and shaping of karma.

Such truths must be viewed in their true light. It is but a slip-shod and easy-going conception of karma which prompts us to say: ‘I am ill—it is my karma!’ ‘A misfortune has befallen me—it is my karma.’ To make karma responsible for everything in this fatalistic way does not, it is true, afford any real peace of mind, it is merely a convenient theoretical conception; it is, however, quite incorrect.

Imagine you are considering, not this present life, but the third subsequent life, then in that life you will be able to look back to the present one, and when you say: ‘It is my karma,’ your karma, as it will be then, is to be traced back to this present earthly life where it was actually born. In other words, karma is all the time coming into being.

It is not right to throw everything back to the past. The right attitude to karma leads us to say: An illness which befalls me now, need not necessarily be the consequence of earlier weaknesses of soul; it is possible that an illness may constitute a first beginning. Karma holds good, nevertheless. If an illness, a misfortune befalls me in this present earthly life, the compensation will quite surely come,—or again the illness, the misfortune, may itself be the compensation.

In other words: the future, too, must be reckoned with, when we are speaking about karma. The right attitude towards karma is to have an unshakable conviction of justice reigning through all the worlds, a knowledge that for everything there is compensation. But the present earthly life must not be considered as breaking the on-flowing sequence of incarnations so that we relegate everything to the past. The healthy and positive attitude to the karmic flow of life's happenings rests on the sure knowledge that there is justice. What really matters most of all is the mood of soul that is born from this understanding of karma.

The whole feeling and attitude of soul that must emerge from a true understanding of karma, is one which makes us realise when, perhaps some misfortune befalls us as consequence of an earlier weakness in the life of soul—that if this misfortune had not come about, the weakness would have persisted. Looking into the depths of our soul, we must realise: It is good and right that this misfortune has come upon me, because it has enabled a weakness to be eliminated.

A man who bewails a misfortune which is really the consequence of a preceding weakness or failing, is not adopting the standpoint of true manhood, for the inference is that it matters not to him whether he remains weak or achieves some measure of strength. That man alone faces misfortune aright who says to himself: ‘If it has occurred because of an earlier weakness, it is to be welcomed, for it will make me conscious of the weakness (which expressed itself perhaps in some definite failing); I will now eradicate the weakness, I will be strong again.’

In a case, on the other hand, where a misfortune befalls one as the first step in karma, the right attitude is to say to oneself: If we were always only to encounter what we wish for ourselves, such a life would make us out and out weaklings! One or two earthly lives might continue to be comfortable and easy through the fact that only that would befall us that we desired for ourselves—but in the third or fourth life a kind of paralysis of soul and spirit would supervene, and no effort to overcome obstacles would arise in us. For, after all, obstacles would not be there for us to overcome unless the unhoped-for, the undesired came upon us. But if the right kind of strength is developed vis-à-vis the obstacles, if enough human love is carried over into sleep, then the karma that is woven by the Ego in communion with the Archai is such that the true compensation takes place in the next earthly life.

The truths of Anthroposophy need not remain in the realm of cognition; their very nature is such that they affect a man's attitude and temper of mind and heart. A man who is not thus affected has not grasped them fully; for him indeed they remain abstract and theoretical. The effect which a true understanding of karma has upon a man is to make him more sensitive to happiness and misfortune than he would otherwise be; happiness and misfortune are experienced with great intensity; but he is also able to induce in his soul an attitude to the spiritual world which arises, not out of any belief or creed but out of a perception of what the Ego and astral body are doing while they are withdrawn from the bodily life of day. Recognition of this promotes an unshakable conviction of world-justice. Understanding of karma means that a man has a true perception of world-justice. It does not mean that he becomes phlegmatic towards happiness or unhappiness, joy or pain; it means that joy and pain, happiness and misfortune are for him allotted to their proper place in life.

Observing the human being during the life of day, we can see how the Ego and astral body are working in the physical body. This means that we know something of their activity in the physical body. But we know nothing about the workings of the soul and spirit within the Ego and astral body. If, as a materialist, I am speaking to a human being, listening to his words, I say to myself: Lungs, larynx are at work as he speaks; vibrations are set up in the air and they strike on my ear. But if I see the process truly, I perceive in the words and speech the man's astral body in which his kinship with the Divine-Spiritual world is expressed. I say to myself: When, during the life of day, the astral body is within the physical body, it conceals itself in the man's speech and similar activities; during the night, however, the astral body participates in the life of the higher Hierarchies. And it is the same with the Ego.

When the human being sleeps he is not merely resting from the fatigues of his daily life. Here in the physical world, man sleeps, works and speaks with his physical body; but he is active too in the spiritual world, while he is asleep. Since materialism denies that Ego and astral body exist and operate in full reality of being during sleep, materialism cannot possibly understand the world in its entirety. What is the ‘moral world’ to materialism? To materialism the ‘moral world’ is something the human being formulates in thought—something that has nothing to do with the actively creative powers of the world. But those who have true and penetrating perception of human life know that man lives within the moral world-order during sleep just as truly as during waking life he lives in air and light. This again leads us to something more that it is essential we should understand.

The workings of speech (and the same holds good for karma, too) accompany us when we die. Through the course of our life we have been connected—rightly, or perhaps inadequately—with the world of the Archangeloi. This relationship has repeated itself in every period of sleep, and we bear with us through the Gate of Death into the spiritual world what has been given us by the Archangeloi during sleep. We can then find the way rightly into the spiritual world which is, indeed, the Logos, the world consisting of cosmic principles which have their images in the words of speech; we can find our way into the spiritual world to live out there our life between death and a new birth.

But the matter is not so simple. After death we have no physical body; we are able to turn to good account what the Archangeloi have conferred upon us from our periods of sleep. But when as physical human beings on the Earth, we wake from sleep, we have again to descend into a physical body. The Archangeloi cannot bestow upon us the power to do this. Still higher Hierarchies must add their work, namely, the Beings designated in Occult Science the Exusiai and the Kyriotetes. Into the urges, instincts and desires of the physical body—which offer resistance to us—these higher Beings must introduce the fruits of what we have achieved in communion with the Archangeloi through the spirituality of speech; and this now flames up within us, as the voice of conscience. When that which we bring out of sleep into the body lights up as the voice of conscience, there is working, in this voice, all that has been bestowed by the Hierarchy of the Exusiai and Kyriotetes—a Hierarchy more sublime than that of the Archangeloi.

Thus when we discover in the physical world a man whose conscience is so strong that instincts of a higher order arise in his physical body, we realise that as a result of idealism in his speech, Kyriotetes and Exusiai have worked upon him.

Again, when through universal human love a man forms a real link with the Archai, the results of the work that he himself does on his karma appear in the body of the next earth-life when, in early childhood, while he is sleeping his way into life, he learns to walk, acquires balance, skill in the use of his arms, control of the glandular system, and so on. All this is possible because he has been able, between death and a new birth, to work in communion with the Archai. But in order that in his life on Earth a man may develop delicate sensitivity, a quick and clear consciousness in regard to his own deeds, it is necessary for the still higher Beings referred to in the book Occult Science as the Dynamis to work together with the Archai.

When a man lacks wide-hearted love for his fellowmen, lacks interest in his human environment, he does not find a true link with the Archai. The result is that he prevents himself from weaving his karma rightly for the next earth-life, and the compensation has to wait for later incarnations. In the present earth-life such a man suffers from increasing lack of power to carry into the physical body the judgments that he forms—satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the actions performed by legs and hands. This cannot be achieved by ourselves alone; through intensified human love we need to have entered into a true relationship with the Dynamis. These Beings then bear into our physical body the requisite power; otherwise we come to grief, although we may perceive quite clearly what is right.

In thought we can be free. But in order to use this freedom aright in the physical body, the proper equilibrium must be established in waking and sleeping life because we must be united not only with the Archai but also with the Dynamis.

The highest Hierarchy of all—Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones—bear our deeds out into the universe. From out of sleep, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes bear as moral power into our bodily nature what we grasp in thoughts: Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones bear this out into the universe, so that our own moral forces become world-creative forces.

When the time comes for the Earth to pass over to the Jupiter condition and for our moral forces to perform their true functions in this great process of transformation, Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones can only play their part if we are able to offer them the necessary foundations. If, because of feebleness, we have only forces of destruction to offer them, then we are working for the destruction of the Earth, not for the upbuilding of Jupiter.

When Anthroposophy speaks of the manifoldness of the spiritual world, this is by no means a mere naming of particular stages, but we are enabled gradually to behold the whole warp and woof of the world and to perceive the connection of the human being with the spiritual world as clearly as we perceive his connections with the physical world. The power to promote and upbuild life arises in men who acquire in this way a true insight into their connection with the spiritual world, who realise that the purpose of sleep is not merely repose but that the after-workings of the physical body may bring the human being into a right connection with the spiritual world.

It is quite possible for a man to deny the spiritual and moral world because, to begin with, at his present stage of Earth evolution, he is not aware of its reality. He is asleep in this respect. A true science must evoke into the realm of consciousness, realisation of the heavenly existence which reaches into earthly life. Sleep comes over man for this very purpose—that he may, himself, draw out of the spiritual world the power he needs for his physical life.

And now, from this point of view, study the connection of what I have sketched today in outline with my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. As I have stated with emphasis there, it is not a matter of establishing the theory that the will must be free, but that the thought must be free. The thought must control the will if man is to be a free being. But a man's life must be suitably directed and ordered if the will is not to present insuperable hindrance to the thought that is free. As men in the physical world we can make our thought free. Feeling2The German word here is ‘Gemut’—a word that means more than “feeling,” for it includes also the perception and understanding that belong to the heart. becomes free only when we have established a true relationship with the Archangeloi; will becomes free when we have established a true relationship with the Archai.

The living content of speech, as well as all that lives in our limbs, passes out, during sleep, together with the soul and spirit. Astral body and Ego go forth, but the ether-body remains with the physical body. The thinking that is bound up with the ether body continues within the ether-body; but we know nothing in ordinary consciousness of how this ether body thinks from the time of falling asleep to that of waking, because we are outside it. It is not true that thinking ceases during sleep; we think from the moment of falling asleep until we wake. Man's thoughts are in perpetual flow in his ether-body, only he is unaware of it. Not until the moment when he returns to the body do the thoughts light up in his consciousness. Man can become free in his life of thought because his thoughts are bound, through the ether-body, with the physical life of Earth; for he has been placed upon the Earth in order that he may become free. From the spiritual world alone can he draw the power of freedom—the power that leads to freedom in feeling and in will.

It will be clear that throughout the whole of his life on Earth the human being retains the real foundation for his thinking—the ether-body. Astral body and Ego pass out into a cosmic world during earthly life; not so, the ether-body. The ether-body emerges only at death. Then comes the backward review, lasting one, two, three days, of the life that has just ended; the human being sees his whole life as a panorama. Always, without exception, the human being looks back, after death, upon his earthly life which has now run its course. The whole ocean of the thoughts that have arisen in him between birth and death, both in sleeping and waking life—a great sea of inter-weaving thoughts—is present before him during these three days after death, but immediately thereafter the thoughts are claimed by the Cosmos; the thoughts dissolve, and after two or three days the whole panorama has passed away—into the Cosmos. We are accustomed to say that the ether-body has been detached and has dispersed, but in actual fact the Cosmos has absorbed it into itself. The ether-body has continued to expand, until finally it is completely absorbed into the Cosmos. Then, as Ego and astral body, the human being is received into the bosom of the Higher Hierarchies. Only when an ether-body is again bestowed upon him, can he descend to a new earthly life and continue the work which will make him a free human being. For it is the goal of earthly life that man shall become free. The foundation for freedom lies in the activity of pure thinking—a faculty that is bestowed upon man on Earth. Therefore is the ether-body bound to the physical body for the whole course of earthly life, releasing itself only at death in worlds where freedom is not to be acquired. Freedom is acquired during life on Earth, and moreover, as you know, during certain epochs only of Earth life.

We can thus understand that there is a true relationship between freedom and karma, for freedom is connected with those members of man's being (physical body and ether-body) which remain behind during sleep. Karma is woven by the Ego during the period of sleep,—that is to say, in a realm beyond and apart from those members wherein freedom has its foundations. Karma does not weave the texture of free or unfree thoughts; karma weaves at feeling and will. Karma emerges from the depths of human nature, out of the ‘dreaming’ feeling and the ‘sleeping’ will. Into this we can pour, or rather over against this we can place, the power that lives in the free activity of thoughts, in pure thinking, in the ethical and moral impulses as I described them in the book Philosophy of Spiritual Activity for these impulses must have their root in pure thinking.

Everything, you see, fits into a whole. It is essential to realise that the further we progress in Anthroposophy, the more completely do we find the details uniting and forming one whole. Contradictions may well be found in what is said concerning one particular domain or another; this is inevitable, because before arriving at any real insight in one domain we need, in reality, to study this domain in connection with the whole. Otherwise our conclusions are like that of a man who makes statements about a planet and is unable to understand the causes of its specific movements. In such a case it is of course necessary to reckon with the whole planetary system. Thus, if we wish really to know something about the world and about life, we must try to fathom all the connections, all the details of actual realities, both in the physical world and in the worlds of soul and spirit.

This was what I wanted to say to you today, my dear friends, when it has been possible for us to be together again in a Group Meeting. My desire has been to help you to develop that attitude to karma—that is, to universal justice—which arises in a man when he finds his true bearings in Anthroposophy. More important than the mere comprehension of theories is the feeling, the attitude of soul which we carry over into life itself. May you succeed, in ever greater and greater measure, in making the gifts of Anthroposophy the very substance of your soul, receiving them verily not into your thoughts alone, but into your heart and soul. The more Anthroposophy becomes the heart-substance of those who desire to understand it truly, the more will it be possible to introduce Anthroposophy into cultural spiritual life in the wide sense. This is a deep and urgent need, for with antiquated traditions mankind will be incapable of progress. Try to tread the path of Anthroposophy which leads from the head to the heart, for in your hearts Anthroposophy will be secure.

Schicksalsgestaltung in Schlafen Und Wachen

Die Geistigkeit der Sprache und die Gewissensstimme

Lassen Sie uns heute etwas betrachten, das vielleicht in gewissem Sinne wiederum eine Ergänzung zu dem gestrigen Öffentlichen Vortrage bilden kann. Näher ins Auge fassen möchte ich heute die Art, wie sich der Mensch hineinstellt in jenen Teil der Weltenordnung, der zusammenhängt mit seinem eigenen Schicksal, mit demjenigen, was wir in unserem Kreise gewohnt worden sind, das Karma zu nennen. Wie findet eigentlich diese Schicksalsgestaltung beim Menschen statt? Da müssen wir, um diese Frage lebensfähig, nicht theoriefähig zu beantworten, etwas näher eingehen auf die Wesenheit des Menschen.

Man spricht von dem menschlichen Leben oftmals so, daß man sagt: Das Menschenleben zerfällt in diese beiden voneinander unterschiedenen Bewußtseinszustände, in das Wachen und in das Schlafen. Aber man faßt dabei das Schlafen eigentlich nur in dem Sinne auf, daß man sich die Vorstellung bildet: Im Schlafe ruht sich der Mensch eben aus. - Die naturwissenschaftliche Anschauung nimmt ja überhaupt an, daß die Bewußtseinstätigkeit aufhört mit dem Einschlafen, dann wiederum beginnt, daß also auch in bezug auf den Organismus das Schlafen nichts weiter sei als ein Aussetzen der menschlichen Tätigkeit zur Ruhe. Aber der Schlaf ist nicht ein bloßes Ruhen, sondern man muß sich klar darüber sein, daß vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen zunächst das, was wir den astralischen Leib nennen, und dann das Ich als wirklich Wesenhaftes außer dem physischen und ätherischen Leibe sind.

Nun kann der Mensch zwar auf der Entwickelungsstufe, auf der er gegenwärtig im Erdenleben steht, kein unmittelbares Bewußtsein davon erringen, was eigentlich dieses Ich und was der astralische Leib zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen tun. Aber dasjenige, was die beiden da tun, das ist für das menschliche Leben zum mindesten von einer ebenso großen Bedeutung wie das tagwachende Leben. Daß das Ich und der astralische Leib kein Bewußtsein entwickeln können von all den komplizierten Verhältnissen, die mit ihnen vorgehen im Schlafe, das rührt nur davon her, daß im Erdenstadium, so wie es heute ist, dieses Ich und dieser astralische Leib keine Organe haben, um die Ereignisse, in die sie verstrickt sind, wahrzunehmen. Aber diese Ereignisse sind da. Und diese Ereignisse werden vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen durchgemacht, und sie wirken herein in das Tagesleben, in das bewußte Leben des Menschen.

Wir werden uns am besten richtige Vorstellungen verschaffen über die Art und Weise, wie hereinwirken die Erlebnisse von Ich und astralischem Leib in das tagwachende Leben, wenn wir auf den Anfang des Menschenlebens sehen. Wir haben das bei andern Betrachtungen schon öfter getan. Da schläft sich gewissermaßen in der allerersten Lebenszeit der Mensch als ganz kleines Kind in das Erdenleben herein. Man darf da nicht nur von derjenigen Zeit sprechen, in der das Kind vollständig schläft, so daß es auch äußerlich sichtbar ist, daß es schläft, sondern man muß eigentlich von der ganzen Zeit sprechen, an die man sich mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein gar nicht zurückerinnern kann. Das Kind mag allerdings auch für diese Zeit für die äußerliche Beobachtung einen wachen Eindruck machen, aber dasjenige, was im Bewußtsein vor sich geht, bildet sich ja nicht so aus, daß es später erinnert wird. Und alles dasjenige, was von dem Kinde erlebt wird, ohne daß es sich später daran erinnert, all das können wir so bezeichnen, daß wir sagen: Wir verweisen dabei auf die Zeit, in welcher sich der Mensch in das Erdenleben hereinschläft.

Aber was entwickelt sich alles gerade aus diesem Schlafenszustande im Beginne des menschlichen Erdenlebens? Drei Dinge müssen wir ganz besonders ins Auge fassen, wenn wir verstehen wollen, wie das wirkt, was da der Mensch heruntergetragen hat aus seinem vorirdischen Dasein, was er in einer ihm selbst dunklen, schlafdunklen Art nun hineinverwebt in sein physisches Dasein; drei Dinge sind es, die der Mensch in einer andern Weise als die Tiere sich aneignen muß. Die Tiere eignen sich das entweder gar nicht an, oder sie bringen es schon mehr oder weniger mit auf die Welt.

Diese drei Dinge sind dasjenige, was wir gewöhnlich im Leben so bezeichnen, daß es sehr einseitig aufgefaßt wird. Nur ein kleiner Teil von dem Ganzen wird eigentlich aufgefaßt. Das erste ist das Gehenlernen. Der Mensch kommt als ein Wesen in die irdische Welt, das nicht gehen kann, das sich erst das Gehen aneignen muß. Das zweite, was sich der Mensch aneignen muß, ist das Sprechen, und das dritte ist das Denken. Wir können beim Kinde genau unterscheiden, wie manchmal das eine vor dem andern kommt, aber wenn man die Menschheit im allgemeinen nimmt, so kann man im ganzen sagen: Der Mensch lernt gehen, sprechen, denken - jedenfalls das Denken erst nach dem Sprechen. Erst aus dem Sprechen heraus entsteht allmählich die Fähigkeit, dasjenige, was in Worte gefaßt wird, auch in Gedanken festzuhalten. Und es dauert eigentlich ziemlich lange, bis man wirklich sagen kann: Das Kind denkt.

Aber gerade das Gehen wird als etwas sehr Einseitiges aufgefaßt. Das Gehen besteht ja nicht bloß darin, daß das Kind sich aufrichten lernt und sozusagen seine Beine in pendelnde Bewegung setzen kann, sondern es besteht darin, daß das Kind überhaupt sich aneignet, das Gleichgewicht, das menschliche Gleichgewicht in der Welt durchaus zu beherrschen, ich möchte sagen: daß man sich überall hinstellen kann, ohne daß man umfällt; daß man also seinen Leib hineinstellen kann in die Welt, seine Muskeln, seine Gliedmaßen so beherrschen lernt, daß der Schwerpunkt des Leibes, ob wir stehen, oder ob wir gehen, an die richtige Stelle fällt. Aber das ist noch immer einseitig aufgefaßt, denn Sie müssen bedenken, daß etwas außerordentlich Wichtiges sich dabei noch vollzieht: das ist die Differenzierung der Beine und der Arme.

Die Tiere gebrauchen ihre vier Gliedmaßen in gleichförmiger Weise - in der Regel wenigstens, wenn Abweichungen da sind, läßt sich das sehr gut erklären -, der Mensch differenziert. Er braucht zum Ins-Gleichgewicht-Stellen, er braucht zum Gehen seine Beine, während die Arme und die Hände gerade wunderbare Ausdrucksmittel für sein Seelisches und die Träger seiner Weltenarbeit werden. Gerade auch in dieser Differenzierung zwischen Füßen und Händen, Armen und Beinen liegt dasjenige, was hinzugehört zu dem, was man gewöhnlich mit dem Gehenlernen nur einseitig bezeichnet. Damit ist man dann zu dem gekommen, was uns innerhalb der physischen Welt dasjenige bezeugt, was sich der Mensch erst während des physischen Erdenlebens aneignet.

Das zweite, was er sich aneignet, indem er - wie beim Gehen und Stehen, beim Gleichgewichtsuchen, beim Differenzieren der Hände von den Füßen - probiert, nachahmend probiert, das zweite, was er sich dadurch aneignet, ist das Sprechen. Und wir können sagen: Das Sprechen ist nicht ganz ohne Zusammenhang mit dem Gehen, namentlich nicht mit dem Gebrauche der differenzierten Hand. Denn man weiß ja, wie das Sprechen mit einer ganz bestimmten Ausbildung eines Gehirnorgans, der linken Schläfenwindung zusammenhängt. Aber das ist nur bei denjenigen Menschen der Fall, welche vorzugsweise die wichtigsten Angelegenheiten des Lebens mit der rechten Hand erledigen. Linkshänder haben auf der andern Seite, der rechten Seite, ihr Sprachorgan gelegen. Daraus können wir schon sehen, wie mit dem Suchen nach Gleichgewicht dasjenige zusammenhängt, was sich im Sprechen ausdrückt.

Und aus dem Sprechen heraus entwickelt sich dann das Denken. Nur auf künstliche Weise kann derjenige, der stumm geboren ist, zum Denken gebracht werden. Aber für all diejenigen Menschen, die nicht stumm geboren werden, ist das Denken etwas, was sich aus dem Sprechen erst herausentwickelt.

Nun aber kann man diese Eigentümlichkeit des Menschen, die ich eben jetzt zusammengefaßt habe, eigentlich erst ganz übersehen, wenn man den Übergang des Menschen im späteren Leben aus dem Wachen in den Schlafzustand verfolgt. Da ist es ja so, daß physischer Leib und ätherischer Leib auf physische Weise im Bette ruhend sind, daß das Ich und der astralische Leib sich im wesentlichen getrennt haben von dem physischen und dem ätherischen Leib. Wenn wir aber nun mit den Mitteln der Geisteswissenschaft an diesen astralischen Leib des Menschen herantreten, wie er vom physischen und Ätherleib vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen getrennt ist, dann finden wir, daß dieser astralische Leib wesentlich in sich die Kräfte enthält, die zusammenhängen mit dem Sprechenlernen des Menschen. Es ist außerordentlich interessant, das Einschlafen und Aufwachen des Menschen zu beobachten, wenn er als Kind sprechen lernt, und es ist sogar noch interessant bei irgend jemandem, der erst als Erwachsener sprechen lernt, zu beobachten, wie der astralische Leib gerade an dem Sprechenlernen außerordentlich stark beteiligt ist. Denn der astralische Leib trägt in der Zeit, in der der Mensch im Sprechenlernen darinnen ist, und auch später, wenn er sich im Tageslaufe des Sprechens bedient, mit sich das Geistig-Seelische, das in den Worten, das in der Sprache liegt, hinaus aus dem physischen und Ätherleibe.

Können Sie verfolgen, wie der Mensch spricht, wie er seine Worte formt, wie er seinen Worten den eigentümlichen Stimmklang gibt, können Sie verfolgen, wie er in seine Worte die Kraft der Überzeugung seiner Seele hineinlegt, wie er das Seelische, das er erlebt, in seine Worte hineinverlegt, dann können Sie auch weiter verfolgen, wie mit dem Einschlafen der astralische Leib dieses Geistig-Seelische aus dem physischen Leib und dem Ätherleib herausnimmt und im schlafenden Zustande gerade die Nachwirkung des Geistig-Seelischen der Sprache in der geistig-seelischen Welt wie ein Nachschwingen enthält. Sie können die Wortbildungen, die Lautnuancierungen, die Überzeugungskraft, die der Mensch in die Worte hineinzulegen vermag, auch an dem schlafenden astralischen Leibe verfolgen. Da ist natürlich nicht etwas von einer Schwingungskraft vorhanden, die sich der Luft mitteilt; dadurch kommt auch kein physischer Stimmklang der Sprache zustande. Aber dasjenige, was auf den Wellen der Worte als Geistig-Seelisches aus dem menschlichen Munde herauskommt und vom menschlichen Ohre gehört wird, was da auf dem Strom der Sprache sich seelisch vermittelt, das trägt als Seelisch-Geistiges der astralische Leib hinaus in die geistige Welt, wenn der Mensch schläft. Man sieht das nur deutlicher während das Kind oder auch der Erwachsene im Erlernen einer Sprache sich anstrengen, die Sprache sich erst aneignen; aber statt findet es das ganze Leben hindurch, daß dasjenige, was wir bei Tag sprechen, in bezug auf sein Geistig-Seelisches dann in der Nacht vom astralischen Leibe hinausgetragen wird in die geistige Welt. So daß wir sagen können: Namentlich die Gefühlsnuance des Gesprochenen wird durch den astralischen Leib aus dem Menschen hinausgetragen während der Nacht. Das ist eine Eigentümlichkeit des astralischen Leibes.

Aber jetzt beobachten wir, wie das Ich sich vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen verhält. Das Ich ist ebenso zunächst, ich möchte sagen, rein natürlich an das Gliedmaßensystem gebunden. Wie der astralische Leib an die Brust gebunden ist und aus der Brust die Sprache kommt, in eben solcher Weise ist das Ich an alles dasjenige gebunden, was der Mensch mit seinen Gliedern ausführt, was der Mensch vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen tut, indem er diesen oder jenen Gang macht, indem er dieses oder jenes mit seinen Armen und Händen vollzieht. So wie der astralische Leib in jedes Wort hineinfließt und das Seelische des Wortes sich herausnimmt während des Schlafens, so ist das Ich verbunden mit jeder Bewegung, die wir machen, indem wir in der Welt diesen oder jenen Ort aufsuchen im Wachzustande. Es ist das Ich verbunden mit jeder Handbewegung, mit jedem Ergreifen irgendeines Gegenstandes. Aber während man beim astralischen Leib, weil die Sprache etwas so Seelisches ist, das eigentliche Seelische weniger beachtet, weniger darauf aufmerksam wird, daß in der Sprache eben noch etwas ganz Besonderes seelisch in die Sprache hineinergossen wird, ist man schon bei dem Zusammenhang des Ich mit den Gliedmaßen geneigt, überhaupt nicht mehr darauf Rücksicht zu nehmen, daß damit etwas Seelisch-Geistiges verknüpft ist. Man faßt halt das Gehen, man faßt das Greifen mit den Händen auf wie etwas, ich möchte sagen, was rein in einer Art physischem Mechanismus geschieht, der der menschliche Organismus sein soll. Das ist aber nicht der Fall.

Dasjenige, was in jeder Fingerbewegung während des Tages liegt, was in jedem Schritte liegt, mit dem man einen Ort aufsucht, das enthält auch ein Geistig-Seelisches, so wie das Wort ein Geistig-Seelisches enthält. Und das, was da mit unseren Gliedmaßen verbunden ist, was verbunden ist mit unseren Bewegungen, das nimmt das Ich beim Einschlafen aus unserem physischen und Ätherleib hinaus in die geistige Welt, nur deutlich verbunden jetzt mit einem besonderen Geistig-Seelischen: damit nämlich, daß das Ich in jedem Augenblick zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen unbewußt zufrieden oder unzufrieden ist - Sie werden das gleich nachher besser verstehen, wenn ich es weiter erläutern werde -, zufrieden ist damit, wenn ich mich zwar deutlich, aber etwas trivial ausdrücken muß, ob die Beine sich nach diesem oder jenem Ort hinbewegt und etwas getan haben, ob die Arme dies oder jenes verrichtet haben. Nicht nur wird der Nachklang der Beinbewegungen und Armbewegungen hinausgenommen in das Schlafen, sondern es wird Zufriedenheit oder Unzufriedenheit hinausgenommen. Es haftet vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen dem Erleben des Ich an: Eigentlich hättest du dahin nicht gehen sollen. Oder: Eigentlich war das recht gut, daß du dahin gegangen bist. Eigentlich war es gut, daß du dies oder jenes mit deinen Armen gemacht hast. Eigentlich war es schlecht, daß du dies oder jenes getan hast. — Das ist das Geistig-Seelische, das das Ich hinzusetzt zu dem, was es aus den Gliedmaßen des Menschen hinausnimmt in den schlafenden Zustand.

Und woher kommt es denn, daß dies so ist? Das kommt davon, daß der astralische Leib, indem er zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen in die geistige Welt versetzt wird, nach der Weltenordnung beim Menschen eigentlich dazu bestimmt ist, in innigen Kontakt zu kommen zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen mit denjenigen Wesenheiten, welche in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» geschildert sind als angehörig der Hierarchie der Archangeloi, der Erzengel. Denn mit dem, was wir da als den Nachklang der Sprache mit hinausnehmen in das Schlafen, fühlen sich diese Archangeloiwesen verwandt. Das ist dasjenige, was sie brauchen, das ist dasjenige, was sie erleben wollen.

Ich möchte sagen: Genau ebenso, wie wir Menschen im physischen Erdenleben darauf angewiesen sind, zu atmen, also Sauerstoff um uns haben, und daher den Sauerstoff als etwas Wohltätiges empfinden, so empfinden die Erzengel, die mit dem Inneren der Erde verbunden sind, es als ihr Bedürfnis, daß ihnen die Menschenseelen, wenn sie schlafen, entgegenbringen den Nachklang dessen, was in ihrer Sprache liegt.

Das ist das Eigentümliche der menschlichen Sprache, daß sie Verwandtschaft hat durch die Vermittlung des Schlafzustandes mit der Hierarchie der Archangeloi, der Erzengel. Sie werden sich erinnern, wenn Sie sich ins Gedächtnis rufen, was ich verschiedentlich gesagt habe in früheren Zyklen: daß eigentlich die Erzengel die Genien, die Leiter, die Führer der Volkssprachen sind. Das hängt damit zusammen. Die Erzengel sind deshalb die Führer der Volkssprachen, weil sie — es ist ja figürlich ausgesprochen, aber es ist so — geradezu einatmen dasjenige, was ihnen der Mensch aus der Sprache entgegenträgt, wenn er einschläft. Aber es ergibt sich sofort eine Unzulänglichkeit des Menschen, wenn der Mensch mit seiner Sprache in den schlafenden Zustand nicht das Rechte hinausbringt.

Das ist etwas, was man insbesondere innerhalb der Gegenwartskultur beobachten kann. Innerhalb dieser Gegenwartskultur ist eigentlich wenig von dem vorhanden, was man Idealismus nennt, und die menschlichen Worte haben allmählich bloß solche Bedeutungen angenommen, die sich auf äußerlich physisch-materielle Dinge beziehen. Die Bezeichnung von Idealen - was ja voraussetzt, daß man ans Geistige glaubt, denn das Ideal ist Geistiges -, die Bezeichnung von Idealen fällt immer mehr und mehr aus. Die Menschen entwickeln nicht im wachen Zustande den Schwung, den inneren Enthusiasmus für Idealismus. Dadurch reden sie eigentlich auch nur mehr über solche Dinge, die in der physischen Welt da sind. Worte nehmen immer mehr und mehr die Bezeichnung an für Dinge, die in der physischen Welt da sind.

Es ist ja so, daß in unserer Zeit mehr oder weniger selbst diejenigen Menschen, die sehr fanatisch manchmal an den Geist glauben wollen, doch den Geist gerade ablehnen. Da machen sie spiritistische Experimente, wobei sie den Geist sich manifestieren lassen, weil sie eigentlich an den Geist nur glauben wollen, wenn er materiell sein kann. Aber das ist ja kein Geist, der im materiellen Lichtschimmer und dergleichen erscheint. Spiritismus ist nämlich die äußerste Form des Materialismus. Man versucht den Geist abzuleugnen dadurch, daß man nur das als Geist gelten läßt, was in die Welt des Materiellen hereinkommt.

Also wir sind schon einmal in einem Zeitalter, wo die Worte sich nicht so aus der Seele herausringen, daß sie einen idealen Schwung annehmen. Und das wird immer weniger. Aber wenn dieser ideale Schwung nicht da ist, wenn, mit andern Worten, der Mensch im wachenden Zustande nicht in der Lage ist, außer von den physischen Dingen auch von seinen Idealen zu sprechen, gewissermaßen sich hinzuwenden an dasjenige, was eben dem Ideal angehört, was über die physische Welt hinausliegt, was dem Leben Ziele gibt, die über das physische Leben hinausliegen, wenn der Mensch nicht in seiner Tagessprache Worte entwickelt für Ideale, wenn nicht die Sprache selber in Idealismus ergossen ist — dann findet der Mensch nur außerordentlich schwierig während des schlafenden Zustandes jenen Zusammenhang mit dem Erzengelwesen, der ihm eigentlich notwendig ist, und dann kommt im schlafenden Zustande keine Ordnung hinein in dasjenige, was sich da abspielen soll zwischen der menschlichen Seele und der Hierarchie der Archangeloi. Wenn das der Fall ist, wenn der Mensch dem Materialismus verfallen ist, in seiner Sprache keinen Idealismus entwickelt, die Worte nach und nach so geworden sind, daß der Mensch nur mehr wenig spricht von Idealen, dann verfließt das irdische Leben so, daß der Mensch jede Nacht eigentlich, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, den Anschluß versäumt an das Erzengelwesen. Dann wird es ihm schwer, mit der geistigen Welt so innig verbunden zu sein, daß er nun auch in genügender Weise das Leben nach dem Tode, vom Tode zu einer neuen Geburt, kräftig durchleben kann. Der Mensch schwächt sich dadurch, daß seine Sprache keinen Idealismus enthält, für das Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt.

Zu wissen, wie es sich mit diesen Dingen verhält, ist eigentlich schon ein Lebenswissen. Derjenige, der weiß, was es für eine Bedeutung hat, wenn die Sprache keinen Idealismus enthält, der wird endlich die Kraft gewinnen, wiederum einzutreten dafür, daß in die menschliche Sprache auch Idealismus hineinkommt. Schon während des Erdenlebens kann man bemerken, daß derjenige nicht zu seiner rechten Kraft kommt, der aus dem Erzengelwesen nicht die nötige Kraft heraussaugen kann in diesem Zustand vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen. Wir können geradezu sagen in bezug auf dasjenige, was die Sprache an uns als Menschen während des Schlafes tun soll: Um das in der rechten Weise als Ergebnis für das Leben zu bekommen, müssen wir uns wirklich bemühen, solchen Idealismus zu haben, daß in die Worte nicht bloß die Verständigung über das alltägliche Leben einfließt, sondern in die Worte auch Geistiges in Form des Idealismus einfließt.

Aber noch stärker tritt das hervor, wenn wir jetzt auf den schlafenden Zustand des Ich schauen. Das Ich nimmt mit hinaus in den schlafenden Zustand Zufriedenheit und Unzufriedenheit über dasjenige, was die Gliedmaßen getan haben. Geradeso wie der astralische Leib durch die Nachwirkung der Sprache an die Hierarchie der Erzengel herangetragen wird, so wird das Ich durch das, was es da als Nachklang der täglichen Verrichtungen durch Arme und Beine hinausbringt in den Schlafzustand, herangetragen an die Hierarchie der Urkräfte, der Archai, der Urbeginne. Aus diesen Urbeginnen kommt uns dann die Kraft, erstens den physischen Leib in der richtigen Weise zu durchdringen, so daß wir nicht nur das Gute wollen, sondern bis zu einem gewissen Grade auch imstande sind, die Triebe des physischen Leibes soweit zu beherrschen, daß wir kein Hindernis haben an unserem physischen Leib, um dasjenige zu tun, was wir in der Freiheit des Gedankens uns als Pflicht oder als Ziel vorsetzen. Wir sind frei im Gedanken. Aber die Kraft, die Freiheit im Leben anzuwenden, bekommen wir nur, wenn wir in den Schlaf hinaustragen den richtigen Zusammenhang mit den Urkräften, mit den Archai,

Aber wie können wir das? Der Idealismus bringt unseren astralischen Leib in richtiger Weise mit den Erzengelwesen in Zusammenhang. Was bringt unser Ich in der richtigen Weise mit den Urkräften in Zusammenhang? Wenn auch wir zunächst unbewußt in der Nacht bleiben — aber das Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Urkräfte hat ein völliges Bewußtsein von der Sache, nimmt dasjenige auf, was wir unbewußt haben, und entwickelt es zu einem ausgesprochenen Gedanken der Zufriedenheit oder Unzufriedenheit mit dem, was wir am Tage getan haben. Was aber bringt uns in einen richtigen Zusammenhang mit diesen Urkräften, in einen solchen Zusammenhang, wie wir ihn durch den Idealismus in der Sprache zu den Erzengeln bekommen?

Es gibt nichts anderes, um während des Schlafens in bezug auf sein Ich in den richtigen Zusammenhang mit den Urkräften zu kommen, als wirkliche, echte, wahre Menschenliebe, unbefangene Menschenliebe, allgemeine Menschenliebe, richtiges Interesse für jeden Mitmenschen, mit dem uns das Leben zusammenbringt, nicht Sympathie oder Antipathie, die nur aus irgend etwas herauskommen, das wir nicht überwinden wollen. Echte, wahre Menschenliebe während des Wachzustandes führt uns zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen in den Schoß der Urkräfte, der Archai, in der richtigen Weise hinein. Und da wird, während das Ich im Schoße der Archai ruht, das Karma, das Schicksal geformt. Da entsteht das Urteil: Ich bin unzufrieden mit demjenigen, was ich mit meinen Armen und Beinen getan habe. Und aus dem, was da als eine Zufriedenheit oder Unzufriedenheit sich ergibt, entsteht nun nicht bloß das, was gilt für die Zeit kurz nach dem Tode, sondern für das nächste Erdenleben; es entsteht die Kraft zum richtigen Bilden des Schicksals, so daß auch wirklich die Dinge ausgeglichen werden, die wir in einem Erdenleben empfunden haben während des Schlafes, im Ich, im Zusammenhange mit den Urkräften.

Wenn Sie dies bedenken, so sehen Sie genau hinein in diesen merkwürdigen Zusammenhang des Ich und des Schicksals, des Karma. Während wir sozusagen dem astralischen Leibe ansehen, wie er, wenn der Mensch ein Idealist ist, die Sprache als eine Opfergabe den Erzengeln übergibt, so daß ihn dann die Erzengel in der richtigen Weise zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt leiten können, so sehen wir, wie das Ich an dem Schicksal webt. Da wird das Karma ausgearbeitet im Zusammenhange mit den Urkräften. Und die Urkräfte haben wiederum die Gewalt, dasjenige uns zu verleihen, was wir brauchen, um nicht nur die Zeit zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt durchzugehen, sondern beim nächsten Herabsteigen ins Irdische mit einer solchen Kraft anzukommen, daß wir, wenn wir ein kleines Kind sind, jetzt mit der Erbschaft vom vorhergehenden Erdenleben so oder so gehen lernen, Gleichgewicht finden lernen, Füße und Hände, Arme und Beine differenzieren lernen.

Es ist sehr merkwürdig, zu sehen, wie beim Kinde, wenn es vom Kriechen zum Gehen übergeht, wenn es zunächst Gleichgewicht erwirbt, in dieser Anstrengung die Art und Weise nachwirkt, wie im letzten Erdenleben das Ich durch allgemeine Menschenliebe in der richtigen Weise den Schlaf in Zusammenhang mit den Urkräften gebracht hat. Das drückt sich aus im Gehenlernen. Man kann dies bis in die Einzelheiten verfolgen. Man kann sehen, wenn ein Kind immer wieder umkippt, wie das davon herrührt, daß in einem früheren Leben .das Kind starke menschenhassende Gefühle entwickelt hat. Da ist es nur herangekommen an die Urkräfte, da hat es nicht die richtige Verbindung mit ihnen gefunden, und gerade in dieses Gehenlernen hinein, in das fortwährende Umkippen, da hinein prägt sich die Wirkung aus. Derjenige, der sich einen richtigen Blick gerade dafür aneignen würde, der also zum Beispiel sich vornehmen würde: Ich will dadurch ein richtiger Erzieher werden, daß ich die Kinder im Gehenlernen richtig beobachte -, wer das durchführen könnte, der würde aus der Art und Weise, wie das Kind gehen lernt, wirklich Ungeheures von dem sehen, was man auch als Unterrichtender, als Erzieher karmisch auszugleichen hat, weil es aus dem vorhergehenden Erdenleben durch nicht genügende, oder genügende, aber falsch angebrachte Menschenliebe in dieses Leben hereingebracht worden ist.

Hier sehen Sie, wie die materialistische Ansicht beim Physischen bleibt. Die materialistische Ansicht beschreibt, wie der menschliche Organismus wie eine Maschine sich aufrichtet, gehen lernt und so weiter. Aber mit allem Physischen ist ein Geistiges verbunden, und derjenige, der den ganzen Vorgang überschaut, lernt erkennen, daß im Gehenlernen des Kindes hereinspielt das vorhergehende Erdenleben. Das heißt, Gehenlernen ist überhaupt die Art und Weise, wie der Mensch, wenn er ein neues Erdenleben antritt, seinen physischen Körper beherrschen lernt. Und für den, der die Sache vollständig überschaut, ist das Gehenlernen nicht erschöpft damit, daß man seine Beine aufrichten kann und den ganzen Körper aufrichten kann, sondern das geht so weit, daß es nun zu inneren Prozessen des Menschen kommt, auch dazu, wie der Mensch nun innerlich Herr wird über seine Drüsentätigkeit und so weiter. Denn wenn das Kind gehen gelernt hat, und schon vorher, kommt es nicht nur auf das Gehen an, sondern es kommt auch darauf an, daß es, sagen wir, wenn es einen phlegmatischeren oder cholerischeren Charakter hat oder ein Übermaß an den oder jenen Emotionen, dann seine Drüsentätigkeit beherrschen oder nicht beherrschen lernt. Das hängt wiederum mit dem zusammen, was während des Schlafes aus den vorhergehenden Erdenleben aus allgemeiner Menschenliebe oder nicht allgemeiner Menschenliebe sich als das Verhältnis zu den Urkräften herausgestellt hat.

Wenn man materialistisch denkt, so sagt man: Der Mensch ruht im Schlafe. - Aber er ruht nicht bloß. Wenn er den richtigen Idealismus während des Wachens entwickelt, so trägt er in den Schlaf hinein für den astralischen Leib die Möglichkeit, sich hinaufzuschwingen zu der Hierarchie der Archangeloi, also mit der geistigen Welt während des Schlafes so in Beziehung zu treten, daß in der richtigen Weise verlebt werden kann die Zeit vom Tode bis zu einer neuen Geburt. Natürlich tragen wir, wenn wir diese Zeit nicht richtig verleben, auchSchwächen davon in das Erdenleben hinein. Aber in der Art und Weise, wie sich der Mensch in ein richtiges Verhältnis zu den Urkräften, zu den Archai versetzt, davon hängt es dann ab, wie wir uns das nächste Leben zu zimmern verstehen. Man sieht also, daß allgemeine Menschenliebe geradezu eine schöpferische Kraft hat. Denn, wovon hängt es denn ab, daß irgend jemand stark und kräftig ist in einem Leben, um seinen physischen Leib in den Dienst der Seele zu stellen, beherrschen zu können seinen physischen Leib? Das hängt davon ab, ob er im vorhergehenden Leben Menschenliebe, etwas rein Seelisches entwickelt hat.

Sie erinnern sich, wie ich in früheren Vorträgen gesagt habe: Das Seelische des einen Erdenlebens lebt sich in dem Physischen des nächsten Erdenlebens aus, das Geistige des einen Erdenlebens in dem Seelischen des nächsten Erdenlebens. - Aber so hängen die Dinge zusammen, die ich eben auseinandergesetzt habe.

Man kann nicht bloß so im allgemeinen behaupten, daß es so etwas wie ein Schicksal, wie ein Karma gibt. Man kann geradezu sagen: Man schaut, wie der Mensch an seinem Karma arbeitet. Er webt es während des Schlafes, aber er erntet dasjenige, was er zum Gewebe braucht, während des Wachens ein. Denn das, was er webt, sind die Fäden, die er wirken muß aus allgemeiner Menschenliebe; oder die Fäden, die fortwährend abreißen und ein schlechtes Karma für das nächste Leben bilden, das sind diejenigen, die aus Menschenhaß gewoben sind. Denn für das Karma kommen als schöpferische Kräfte vor allen Dingen Menschenliebe und Menschenhaß in Betracht.

Nun muß man diese Sache in der richtigen Weise ansehen. Es ist im Grunde genommen eine bequeme Karmaauffassung, wenn man sagt: Ich bin krank - nun, das ist mein Karma. Mich hat dieses Unglück getroffen — das ist mein Karma. - Ich will nicht sagen, daß es als Lebensweisheit besonders beruhigend ist, aber eine bequeme theoretische Auffassung ist es, in fatalistischer Weise alles auf das Karma zu schieben. Es ist aber durchaus nicht richtig so. Denn nehmen Sie an, Sie betrachten nicht dieses Erdenleben, sondern das drittnächste, so werden Sie in dem drittnächsten Erdenleben auf dieses jetzige zurückschauen können. Dann werden Sie sagen: Es ist mein Karma. - Aber dasjenige, was Ihr Karma ist, weist in dieses Erdenleben zurück; da ist es entstanden. Das heißt, es ist fortwährend entstehendes Karma da.

Wir müssen nicht alles in die Vergangenheit zurückschieben. Wir müssen uns klar sein, daß in der richtigen Weise zum Karma sich zu stellen dazu führt, daß man sich sagt: Eine Krankheit, die mich jetzt trifft, braucht gar nicht die Folge früherer seelischer Schwächen zu sein, sondern es kann eine Krankheit zuallererst auftreten. Aber Karma gilt doch. Trifft mich eine Krankheit, ein Unglück in diesem Erdenleben, es wird der Ausgleich kommen, oder dieses Unglück, diese Krankheit können der Ausgleich sein.

Das heißt, man muß immer auch mit der Zukunft rechnen, wenn man von Karma spricht. Das Verhältnis, das man zum Karma hat, ist das, daß man unerschütterlich wird in der Anerkennung der allgemeinen Weltengerechtigkeit, daß man also weiß: Alles gleicht sich aus, aber nicht so, daß man einfach die Reihe der Erdenleben zerreißt durch das gegenwärtige und alles auf die Vergangenheit schiebt.

Derjenige stellt sich in einer lebensvollen Weise in den karmischen Verlauf der Lebensereignisse hinein, der da weiß: Ausgleich ist. Aber das Wesentliche bei der Karmaauffassung ist die Seelenstimmung, die aus dieser Auffassung kommt. Und die Seelenstimmung, die aus der Karmaauffassung kommen muß, das ist die, daß für den Fall, wo irgend etwas, sagen wir als Unglück, die Ausgleichung ist für eine frühere Seelenschwäche, wir darin den Anlaß finden, uns zu sagen: Hättest du jetzt dieses Unglück nicht erfahren, so hättest du die Schwäche fernerhin behalten. Wenn du in die Tiefen deiner Seele hineinsiehst, so mußt du sagen: Es ist recht, daß dieses Unglück über mich gekommen ist, denn dadurch ist eine Schwäche ausgelöscht, eine Schwäche hinweggenommen.

Wer ein solches Unglück, welches ein Ausgleich ist für eine vorherige Seelenschwäche oder Verfehlung, hinwegwünscht, stellt sich eigentlich nicht auf den Standpunkt vollständiger Menschenwürde. Er sagt gewissermaßen: Ach, mir ist es gleichgültig, ob ich schwach bleibe oder eine gewisse Stärke mir erringe! - Allein derjenige faßt ein Unglück in der richtigen Weise auf, der da sagt: Falls es für eine frühere Schwäche wäre, ist es gut, daß es mich getroffen hat. Denn ich werde diese Schwäche, die ich gehabt habe, die sich in einer Verfehlung vielleicht ausgedrückt hat, durch das Unglück fühlen. Dadurch lösche ich die Schwäche aus, ich werde wieder stark.

Und falls ein Unglück als erster Schritt im Karma kommt, so ist die richtige Stimmung dagegen diese, daß man sich sagt: Wenn den Menschen nur dasjenige treffen würde, was er sich wünscht, so würde er gerade durch einen Lebensverlauf, der so ist, recht schwach werden. Wir würden zwar unter Umständen in einem oder zwei Erdenleben bequem und wohl leben, weil immer nur dasjenige über uns kommt, was wir uns wünschen, aber im dritten, vierten Erdenleben würden wir überhaupt seelisch und geistig wie gelähmt sein, weil gar keine Anstrengung in uns entstehen würde, um Widerstände zu überwinden. Widerstände lassen sich ja nur überwinden, wenn das Unerwartete, das Unerwünschte kommt. Entwickelt man aber die rechte Kraft an den Widerständen, nimmt man genug Menschenliebe hinein in den Schlaf, dann gestaltet sich dasjenige, was von dem Ich im Zusammenhange mit den Urkräften, mit den Archai als Karma gewoben wird so, daß der richtige Ausgleich in dem nächsten Erdenleben stattfindet.

Alle anthroposophischen Wahrheiten müssen nicht bloß theoretische Wahrheiten sein, durch die man etwas erkennt, sondern sie sind alle so, daß sie in die Stimmung, in die Gemütsverfassung übergehen. Und derjenige, bei dem sie nicht in die Gemütsverfassung übergehen, der hat sie noch nicht vollständig erfaßt, der hat sie bloß als theoretische Wahrheiten erfaßt. Das richtige Verstehen des Karma, des Schicksals, führt eben dazu, daß der Mensch zwar, indem er dem Leben gegenübersteht, sogar feiner empfänglich wird für Glück und Unglück, als er sonst es ist — er erlebt stark Glück und Unglück -, aber er findet auch die Möglichkeit, in seiner Seele sich gewissermaßen der geistigen Welt gegenüber in jene Stimmung zu versetzen, die nun nicht aus einem Glaubensbekenntnis heraus, sondern aus der Anschauung desjenigen kommt, was Ich und astralischer Leib tun, während sie dem Tagesleben entzogen sind. Aus der Anerkenntnis dessen kommt er in die Stimmung hinein, unerläßlich festzuhalten an der Weltgerechtigkeit. Karma verstehen heißt, in der richtigen Weise die Weltgerechtigkeit anschauen. Es heißt nicht, phlegmatisch werden gegenüber Glück oder Unglück, gegenüber Freude und Schmerz, aber es heißt, Freude und Schmerz, Glück und Unglück an die richtige Stelle des Lebens versetzen.

Nun können wir sagen: Wenn man den Menschen während des Tageslebens sieht, so sieht man ja eigentlich nur Ich und astralischen Leib, wie sie sich betätigen am physischen Leibe, und dann weiß man nur etwas von der Betätigung am physischen Leibe, nicht von dem Geistig-Seelischen im Ich und astralischen Leibe. Wenn ich mit einem Menschen spreche, achte ich auf die Worte, die er mir sagt, und bin ich dann Materialist, so erkläre ich mir das folgendermaßen: Lunge, Kehlkopf und so weiter arbeiten, dadurch wird die Luft in Schwingungen versetzt, die stoßen an mein Ohr an und so weiter. — Sehe ich aber die Sache recht an, so sehe ich vibrieren in dem, was als Worte sich bildet, was in der Sprache sich ausgestaltet, seinen astralischen Leib. Aber ich finde dann mit diesem astralischen Leibe verbunden des Menschen Verwandtschaft mit der göttlich-geistigen Welt. Ich sage mir: Ist der astralische Leib im physischen Leibe darinnen während des Tagwachens, dann verbirgt er sich in der Sprache und in ähnlichen Tätigkeiten. Während der Nacht nimmt er teil an dem Leben der höheren Hierarchien. Und in einer solchen Weise ist es auch der Fall mit dem Ich.

So dürfen wir sagen: Wenn der Mensch schläft, so ruht er sich nicht bloß für das tägliche Leben aus. Dann arbeitet et in der geistigen Welt, so wie er mit seinem physischen Leib arbeitet und spricht hier in der physischen Welt. Und so wie der Materialismus ableugnet, daß als reales Wesen Ich und astralischer Leib vorhanden sind während des Schlafens, so muß es auch der Materialismus belassen, daß er nicht die ganze Welt verstehen kann. Denn was ist für den Materialismus moralische Welt? Moralische Welt ist für ihn, was sich der Mensch vorsetzt in Gedanken, was aber mit den weltschöpferischen Kräften nichts zu tun hat. Für denjenigen, der wirklich, wahrhaftig hineinschaut ins menschliche Leben, ist die moralische Weltenordnung dasjenige, in dem der Mensch schlafend ebenso stark lebt, wie er wachend in Luft und Licht lebt.

Da gibt es noch etwas, was wesentlich ist zu beachten. Wenn wir sterben, nehmen wir die Sprache heraus - dasselbe gilt dann auch für das Karma -, wir sterben, und wir waren das Leben hindurch in richtiger oder in mehr oder weniger mangelhafter Weise verbunden mit der Welt der Archangeloi. Das hat sich wiederholt in jedem Schlafe. Wir tragen durch die Pforte des Todes in die geistige Welt dasjenige hinaus, was uns die Erzengelwesen im Schlafe gegeben haben. Da können wir uns dann in der richtigen Weise in die geistige Welt hineinfinden, die der Logos ist, die aus den kosmischen Elementen besteht, die in den Worten der Sprache ihr Abbild haben, da können wir uns hineinfinden in die geistige Welt für das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt.

Aber so einfach ist dies nicht. Wenn wir durch den Tod gehen, haben wir keinen physischen Körper mehr. Da genügt das, was die Erzengel uns mitgegeben haben aus jedem Schlafzustand, um zu wirken, um es zu verwerten zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Wenn wir aber aufwachen als physische Erdenmenschen, müssen wir in den physischen Leib wiederum untertauchen. Das können uns die Erzengel gar nicht vermitteln. Da müssen noch höhere Hierarchien mitwirken: diejenigen Wesen, die ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» bezeichnet habe als die Exusiai und als die Kyriotetes. Die müssen das, was wir zunächst im Verein mit den Erzengeln durch die Geistigkeit der Sprache uns. errungen haben, in die Triebe und Begierden des physischen Leibes, der uns sonst Widerstand leistet, hineinbringen. Da flammt es dann auf als Gewissensstimme. Aber indem das, was wir aus dem Schlaf in den Leib hineintragen, als Gewissensstimme aufflammt, wirkt in dieser Gewissensstimme dasjenige, was in der Hierarchie der Exusiai und der Kyriotetes, als einer höheren Hierarchie als der der Erzengel, gegeben ist.

Wenn wir also in der physischen Welt herumschauen und finden, daß der eine oder der andere Mensch das Gewissen so stark entwickelt, daß sein physischer Leib bessere Triebe, bessere Instinkte bekommt, dann haben infolge des Idealismus seiner Sprache Kyriotetes und Exusiai in der richtigen Weise an ihm gewirkt.

Und wiederum, wenn der Mensch durch allgemeine Menschenliebe in den richtigen Zusammenhang kommt mit den Archai, mit den Urkräften, so arbeitet er sich sein Karma in einer solchen Weise aus, wie es eben in dem nächsten Erdenleben im Gehenlernen, im Gleichgewichtlernen, im Geschicklichwerden der Arme, im Beherrschen des Drüsensystems und so weiter in der allerersten Kindheitszeit, wenn wir uns in das Erdenleben hereinschlafen, sich in den Körper hineinfügt. Denn wir haben uns das erworben, daß wir sozusagen im Verein mit den Urkräften, mit den Archai zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt arbeiten können. Aber damit der Mensch hier auf Erden in einer richtigen Weise eine feine Empfindung, ein scharfes Bewußtsein bekommt für seine eigenen Taten, dazu ist notwendig, daß diejenige Hierarchie, die ich Ihnen in der «Geheimwissenschaft» bezeichnet habe als die Dynamis, im Zusammenhang wirkt mit den Archai, also wiederum Wesenheiten einer höheren Hierarchie.

Wenn dem Menschen nun allgemeine Menschenliebe fehlt, richtiges Interesse an seiner menschlichen Umgebung fehlt, so findet er nicht den richtigen Anschluß an die Archai. Dadurch verdirbt er sich die Möglichkeit, sich sein Karma für das nächste Erdenleben in der richtigen Weise zu weben, und es müssen weitere Erdenleben kommen, durch die er das ausgleicht. Aber für dieses Erdenleben hat er noch das im Nachteil, daß er immer weniger und weniger die Kraft bekommt, die Urteile, die gebildet werden, Zufriedenheit oder Unzufriedenheit mit dem, was Beine und Hände tun, hinauszutragen in den physischen Leib. Denn das können wir nicht selber, da müssen wit durch verstärkte Menschenliebe in der richtigen Weise mit den Dynamis zusammenkommen. Die tragen dann in der richtigen Weise in unseren physischen Leib die Kraft herein, die das Richtige ausführt. Sonst klappen wir zusammen, trotzdem wir das Richtige einsehen.

Frei werden können wir in Gedanken. Daß wir aber auch die Freiheit in der richtigen Weise im physischen Leben gebrauchen können, dazu müssen wir das richtige Gleichgewicht im Wachen und Schlafen herstellen, weil wir in der richtigen Weise nicht nur mit den Urkräften, sondern auch mit den Dynamis zusammenkommen müssen.

Die höchste Hierarchie, Seraphim, Cherubim, Throne, sie wollen das, was wir tun, hinaustragen in die Welt. Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes tragen aus dem Schlaf als moralische Kraft dasjenige, was wir in Gedanken erfassen, herein in unser körperliches Wesen. Die Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne tragen das wiederum hinaus in die Welt, so daß unsere eigenen moralischen Kräfte weltschöpferische Kräfte werden.

Wenn also die Erde einmal in den Jupiterzustand übergehen wird und unsere moralischen Kräfte bei dieser Umwandlung ihre richtigen Funktionen ausführen, haben die Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne natürlich damit nur etwas zu tun, wenn wir ihnen die nötigen Unterlagen dafür geben. Übergeben wir ihnen dadurch, daß wir immer schwächer und schwächer werden, Zerstörungskräfte, dann arbeiten wir mit an der Zerstörung der Erde, nicht an dem Aufbau des Jupiter.

Sie sehen, die Gliederung der geistigen Welt ist in der Anthroposophie wahrhaftig nicht bloß dazu da, daß man für einzelne Stufen Namen hat, sondern man kann nach und nach wirklich eingehen in den ganzen Zusammenhang der Welt, kann den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der geistigen Welt so überschauen, wie man sonst den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der physischen Welt überschaut. Und das ist dasjenige, was den Menschen wiederum die rechte Kraft geben wird zu einem aufbauenden Leben, wenn sie in dieser Weise den Weg finden, um ihren Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt einzusehen, wenn sie nicht bloß glauben, der Schlaf sei da, um zu ruhen, sondern die Überzeugung gewinnen: Der Schlaf ist da, um mit der geistigen Welt unter den Nachwirkungen des physischen Lebens in den richtigen Zusammenhang zu kommen.

Ja, es ist schon richtig, die geistig-moralische Welt kann der Mensch leugnen, weil er sie zunächst in diesem Erdenstadium verschläft. Aber es muß dutch eine wirkliche Wissenschaft herauskommen, was der Mensch da verschläft. Er verschläft nämlich dasjenige, was sich in das Erdenleben herein als himmlisches Dasein erstreckt. Dazu hat der Mensch den Schlaf, daß er tatsächlich aus der geistigen Welt sich die entsprechende Kraft herausholen kann gerade für sein physisches Leben.

Betrachten Sie jetzt von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus den Zusammenhang desjenigen, was ich versuchte, Ihnen heute skizzenhaft darzulegen, mit meiner « Philosophie der Freiheit». Da werden Sie finden: Ich habe ausdrücklich betont, es käme nicht darauf an, daß man die Theorie aufstellt, der Wille solle frei sein, sondern der Gedanke soll frei sein. Der Gedanke muß gerade den Willen beherrschen, wenn man ein freier Mensch sein will. Aber damit der Wille dem freien Gedanken nicht einen unmöglichen Widerstand bietet, muß der Mensch sein Leben in entsprechender Weise einrichten. Den Gedanken können wir frei machen als Mensch, der wir geworden sind in der physischen Welt. Das Gemüt und den Willen bekommen wir bloß frei, wenn wir für das Gemüt in das richtige Verhältnis zu den Erzengeln, wenn wir für den Willen in das richtige Verhältnis zu den Archai kommen.

Daher ist es aber auch so: Dasjenige, was in der Sprache lebt, lassen wir mit dem Geistig-Seelischen hinausgehen in der Nacht. Dasjenige, was in unseren Gliedmaßen lebt, lassen wir auch hinausgehen. Astralischer Leib und Ich gehen hinaus. Der ätherische Leib bleibt beim physischen Leib. Das Denken, das an den ätherischen Leib gebunden ist, das setzt sich fort im ätherischen Leib. Nur wissen wir im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nichts davon, wie der ätherische Leib vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen denkt, weil wir draußen sind. Es ist gar nicht wahr, daß wir in dem schlafenden Zustand nicht denken, wir denken vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen. Die Gedanken laufen fortwährend ab in unserem Ätherleib, nur weiß der Mensch nichts davon. Er fängt erst wiederum an etwas zu wissen, wenn er untertaucht; da werden die Gedanken wieder lebendig für sein Bewußtsein. Deshalb, weil die Gedanken mit dem physischen Erdenleben durch den Ätherleib so verbunden sind, ist es, daß der Mensch in Gedanken frei sein kann. Denn auf die Erde ist er versetzt, um frei zu werden. Die Kraft der Freiheit kann er sich nur aus der geistigen Welt holen, die Kraft zur Freiheit im Gemüte, die Kraft zur Freiheit im Willen.

Das ist der Zusammenhang mit der Tatsache, daß der Mensch seine eigentliche Denkgrundlage, den Ätherleib, durch das ganze Erdenleben hindurch behält. Der Ätherleib geht während des Erdenlebens nicht hinaus in eine kosmische Welt. Der astralische Leib und das Ich gehen hinaus. Erst wenn der Tod eintritt, geht auch der Ätherleib hinaus. Da kommt dann die Rückschau auf das Leben durch ein, zwei, drei Tage, wo der Mensch sein ganzes Leben überschaut, so ähnlich, wie ich das gestern für die Imagination, die erste Stufe des übersinnlichen Erkennens, beschrieben habe. Es tritt das nach dem Tode unter allen Umständen ein, daß der Mensch also zurücksieht auf sein verflossenes Erdenleben. Aber während das ganze Meer der Gedanken, die er schlafend und wachend zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode durchgemacht hat, da ist, während diese in den ersten drei Tagen nach dem Tode daliegen wie ein Meer von ineinanderwebenden Gedanken, nimmt der Kosmos diese Gedanken sogleich danach in Anspruch. Sie lösen sich auf, und nach zwei bis drei Tagen ist die ganze Rückschau in den Kosmos verflogen. Wir sagen, der Ätherleib hat sich auch getrennt. In Wahrheit hat der Kosmos den Ätherleib aufgenommen, aufgesogen. Er hat sich immer mehr und mehr vergrößert, bis er endlich ganz in den Kosmos aufgegangen ist. Da werden wir dann wiederum als Ich und Astralisches aufgenommen in den Schoß der höheren Hierarchien. Und erst, wenn wir wiederum einen Ätherleib bekommen, können wir zum Erdenleben heruntersteigen, können wir die Arbeit an uns zum freien Menschen fortsetzen. Denn das Erdenleben hat als Ziel, den Menschen zum freien Menschen zu machen. Das kann ihm auf Erden geschenkt werden, was im reinen Denken als Grundlage zur Freiheit liegt. Deshalb bleibt aber auch der Ätherleib durch das ganze Erdenleben mit dem physischen Leibe verbunden, das heißt, löst sich mit dem Tode auf in Welten, wo die Freiheit nicht erlernt wird. Die wird während des Erdenlebens erlernt; Sie wissen ja, auch nur während gewisser Epochen des Erdenlebens.

So können wir einsehen, daß die Freiheit durchaus in richtiger Verbindung mit dem Karma steht, denn die Freiheit hat zu tun mit dem, was im Bette liegen bleibt, was mit uns auch während des Schlafes verbunden ist, was sich nicht trennt von uns. Das Karma wird gewoben von dem Ich zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Das Karma wird gewoben abseits von dem im Menschen, worin die Freiheit liegt. Das Karma webt auch nicht an den freien oder unfreien Gedanken, das Karma webt an Gemüt und Willen. Da kommt aus den Tiefen der Menschennatur heraus, aus dem träumenden Gemüt und dem schlafenden Willen, das Karma herauf. In dieses können wir hineingießen, das heißt, dem entgegenstellen dasjenige, was in der Freiheit der Gedanken, im reinen Denken, in den ethischen, moralischen Impulsen lebt, wie ich sie beschrieben habe in der «Philosophie der Freiheit»; diese müssen im reinen Denken liegen.

So schließt sich wirklich alles zusammen. Und das wäre so notwendig, daß man immer mehr und mehr darauf aufmerksam würde, wie, je weiter man in der Anthroposophie vorrückt, desto mehr sich alle Einzelheiten zusammenschließen. Natürlich, wenn jemand herankommt an irgend etwas, was dieses oder jenes Gebiet darstellt, kann er Widerspruch über Widerspruch finden. Das ist gar nicht anders möglich, weil man, um einzusehen, daß es so ist, wie es auf einem einzelnen Gebiete dargestellt wird, doch eben das eine Gebiet im Zusammenhange mit dem Ganzen betrachten muß. Sonst urteilt man so wie einer, der über einen einzelnen Planeten urteilt und nicht begreifen kann, warum sich der so oder so bewegt: man muß das ganze Planetensystem beachten. Und so muß man auch, will man etwas wissen über Welt und Leben, den Zusammenhang, die physischen, seelischen und geistigen Tatsachen und die Einzelheiten der Tatsachenwelten versuchen zu überschauen.

Das wollte ich Ihnen heute, wo sich die Möglichkeit gegeben hat, daß wir auch wieder im Zweige zusammensein konnten, auseinandersetzen. Ich wollte damit etwas beitragen dazu, daß Sie die Stimmung empfinden, die der Mensch dem Karma, das heißt der Weltgerechtigkeit gegenüber entwickeln kann, wenn er in der richtigen Weise sich einlebt in die Anthroposophie. Denn auf die Empfindungen kommt es an, die wir ins Leben hinübertragen, nicht auf das bloße Einsehen des Theoretischen. Möge es Ihnen wirklich immer mehr und mehr gelingen, dasjenige, was Ihnen die Anthroposophie gibt, nicht bloß zum Gedankeninhalt, sondern zum Seeleninhalt, oder, wie man richtig sagt, zum Herzensinhalt zu machen. Und je mehr es gelingt, daß Anthroposophie Herzensinhalt derjenigen ist, die sie verstehen wollen, desto mehr wird es auch gelingen, Anthroposophie immer mehr in das allgemeine Kultur- und Geistesleben einzuführen. Und das brauchen wir gar sehr, sonst wird die Menschheit mit den alten Traditionen, mit den alten Dingen nicht vorwärtskommen können. Versuchen Sie, immer mehr und mehr den Weg der Anthroposophie vom Kopf zum Herzen zu finden. In Ihren Herzen wird Anthroposophie gut geborgen sein.

Shaping Destiny in Sleep and Wakefulness

The Spirituality of Language and the Voice of Conscience

Let us consider something today that may, in a certain sense, serve as a supplement to yesterday's public lecture. Today I would like to take a closer look at the way in which human beings place themselves in that part of the world order that is connected with their own destiny, with what we in our circle have become accustomed to calling karma. How does this shaping of destiny actually take place in human beings? In order to answer this question in a way that is viable and not merely theoretical, we must examine the nature of the human being in greater detail.

People often speak of human life in such a way that they say: Human life is divided into two distinct states of consciousness, waking and sleeping. But sleep is actually understood only in the sense that one imagines that during sleep, the human being is simply resting. The scientific view assumes that consciousness ceases when we fall asleep and then begins again, so that in relation to the organism, sleep is nothing more than a suspension of human activity for the purpose of rest. But sleep is not mere rest; one must be clear that from the moment of falling asleep until the moment of awakening, what we call the astral body and then the I are real entities outside the physical and etheric bodies.

Now, at the stage of development in which human beings currently find themselves in earthly life, they cannot gain any immediate awareness of what this I actually is and what the astral body does between falling asleep and waking up. But what the two do there is at least as important for human life as waking life. The fact that the ego and the astral body cannot develop consciousness of all the complicated relationships that occur with them during sleep is only because, in the earthly stage as it is today, this ego and this astral body have no organs with which to perceive the events in which they are involved. But these events are there. And these events are experienced from the moment of falling asleep until the moment of waking up, and they have an effect on daily life, on the conscious life of human beings.

We can best gain a correct understanding of the way in which the experiences of the ego and the astral body affect waking life by looking at the beginning of human life. We have already done this frequently in other considerations. In the very first period of life, the human being sleeps its way into earthly life as a very small child. We should not speak only of the time when the child is completely asleep, so that it is also outwardly visible that it is asleep, but we must actually speak of the entire period of time that cannot be remembered with ordinary consciousness. The child may indeed appear awake to external observation during this time, but what is going on in its consciousness is not formed in such a way that it can be remembered later. And everything that the child experiences without remembering it later, we can describe by saying that we refer to the time in which the human being sleeps into earthly life.

But what develops from this state of sleep at the beginning of human earthly life? We must consider three things in particular if we want to understand how what the human being has brought down from his pre-earthly existence, what he now weaves into his physical existence in a way that is dark to him, dark with sleep, works; there are three things that the human being must acquire in a different way than animals. Animals either do not acquire these things at all, or they bring them with them into the world to a greater or lesser extent.

These three things are what we usually refer to in life in a very one-sided way. Only a small part of the whole is actually understood. The first is learning to walk. Man comes into the earthly world as a being that cannot walk, that must first acquire the ability to walk. The second thing that man must acquire is speech, and the third is thinking. We can distinguish precisely in children how sometimes one comes before the other, but if we take humanity in general, we can say as a whole: Man learns to walk, to speak, to think — in any case, thinking comes only after speaking. Only out of speaking does the ability gradually arise to hold in thought what is expressed in words. And it actually takes quite a long time before one can really say: The child is thinking.

But walking in particular is perceived as something very one-sided. Walking does not consist merely in the child learning to stand up and, so to speak, set its legs in pendulum motion, but in the child acquiring the ability to master balance, human balance in the world. I would like to say: that one can stand anywhere without falling over; that one can place one's body in the world, learn to control one's muscles and limbs so that the body's center of gravity is in the right place, whether we are standing or walking. But this is still a one-sided view, because you must remember that something extremely important is also taking place: the differentiation of the legs and arms.

Animals use their four limbs in the same way—at least as a rule; if there are deviations, they can be explained very well—but humans differentiate. They need their legs to keep their balance and to walk, while their arms and hands become wonderful means of expression for their soul and the carriers of their work in the world. It is precisely in this differentiation between feet and hands, arms and legs that lies what belongs to what is usually referred to one-sidedly as learning to walk. This brings us to what testifies within the physical world to what human beings acquire only during their physical life on earth.

The second thing he acquires by trying, by imitating, as in walking and standing, in seeking balance, in differentiating between hands and feet, the second thing he acquires in this way is speech. And we can say that speech is not entirely unrelated to walking, particularly to the use of differentiated hands. For we know how speech is connected with a very specific development of a brain organ, the left temporal lobe. But this is only the case for people who prefer to use their right hand for the most important tasks in life. Left-handed people, on the other hand, have their speech organ located on the other side, the right side. From this we can already see how the search for balance is related to what is expressed in speech.

And thinking then develops from speech. Only by artificial means can someone who is born mute be taught to think. But for all those people who are not born mute, thinking is something that develops from speech.

However, this peculiarity of human beings, which I have just summarized, can only be fully understood when one follows the transition of human beings in later life from the waking to the sleeping state. For then the physical body and the etheric body are physically at rest in the bed, and the I and the astral body have essentially separated from the physical and etheric bodies. But when we approach this astral body of the human being with the means of spiritual science, as it is separated from the physical and etheric bodies from the moment of falling asleep until the moment of waking up, we find that this astral body essentially contains within itself the forces that are connected with the human being's learning to speak. It is extremely interesting to observe the falling asleep and waking up of human beings when they are learning to speak as children, and it is even more interesting to observe someone who is learning to speak as an adult, how the astral body is extremely strongly involved in the process of learning to speak. For during the time when a person is learning to speak, and also later, when they use speech in the course of the day, the astral body carries with it the spiritual-soul element that lies in words and language, out of the physical and etheric bodies.

If you can observe how a person speaks, how they form their words, how they give their words their distinctive tone of voice, if you can observe how they put the power of their soul's conviction into their words, how they put the soul life they experience into their words, then you can also observe how, when the astral body falls asleep, it takes this spiritual-soul element out of the physical body and the etheric body and, in the sleeping state, contains precisely the after-effect of the spiritual-soul element of language in the spiritual-soul world, like an after-vibration. You can also follow the word formations, the nuances of sound, the power of conviction that a person is able to put into words in the sleeping astral body. Of course, there is no vibrational force that is communicated to the air; this does not produce the physical sound of speech. But what emerges from the human mouth as spiritual-soul content on the waves of words and is heard by the human ear, what is conveyed soulfully on the stream of language, carries the spiritual-soul content out into the spiritual world through the astral body when the human being sleeps. This can be seen more clearly when children or even adults are learning a language and making an effort to acquire it; but it happens throughout our entire lives that what we say during the day is carried out of the astral body into the spiritual world at night in relation to its spiritual-soul content. So we can say that the emotional nuances of what is spoken are carried out of the human being by the astral body during the night. This is a peculiarity of the astral body.

But now let us observe how the I behaves from the moment of falling asleep until waking up. The I is initially, I would say, purely naturally bound to the limb system. Just as the astral body is bound to the chest and speech comes from the chest, so the I is bound to everything that the human being does with his limbs, everything that the human being does from waking to falling asleep, by making this or that movement, by doing this or that with his arms and hands. Just as the astral body flows into every word and the soul of the word withdraws during sleep, so the I is connected with every movement we make when we seek this or that place in the world while awake. The I is connected with every movement of the hand, with every grasping of any object. But while in the case of the astral body, because language is something so soulful, we pay less attention to the actual soul, we are less aware that something very special and soulful is poured into language, we are inclined, in the connection between the I and the limbs, to disregard completely that something soulful and spiritual is connected with them. We simply perceive walking and grasping with our hands as something that happens purely in a kind of physical mechanism that is supposed to be the human organism. But that is not the case.

What lies in every movement of the fingers during the day, what lies in every step we take to reach a place, also contains something spiritual and soul-like, just as the word contains something spiritual and soul-like. And what is connected with our limbs, what is connected with our movements, the I takes out of our physical and etheric bodies into the spiritual world when we fall asleep, only now clearly connected with a special spiritual-soul element: namely, that at every moment between falling asleep and waking up, the ego is unconsciously satisfied or dissatisfied—you will understand this better in a moment when I explain it further—satisfied, if I must express it clearly but somewhat trivially, with whether the legs have moved to this or that place and done something, whether the arms have done this or that. Not only is the echo of the leg and arm movements carried over into sleep, but satisfaction or dissatisfaction is also carried over. From the moment of falling asleep until the moment of waking up, it clings to the experience of the ego: Actually, you shouldn't have gone there. Or: Actually, it was quite good that you went there. Actually, it was good that you did this or that with your arms. Actually, it was bad that you did this or that. — This is the spiritual-soul element that the ego adds to what it takes out of the limbs of the human being into the sleeping state.

And where does this come from? It comes from the fact that the astral body, when it is transported into the spiritual world between falling asleep and waking up, is actually destined, according to the world order in human beings, to come into intimate contact between falling asleep and waking up with those beings which are described in my “Outline of Secret Science” as belonging to the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, the archangels. For these Archangeloi beings feel related to what we take with us into sleep as the echo of language. That is what they need, that is what they want to experience.

I would like to say: Just as we humans in our physical life on earth are dependent on breathing, that is, on having oxygen around us, and therefore perceive oxygen as something beneficial, so the archangels, who are connected with the inner earth, feel it as their need that the human souls, when they sleep, offer them the echo of what lies in their language.

This is the peculiarity of human language, that it is related through the mediation of the state of sleep to the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, the archangels. You will remember, if you recall what I have said on various occasions in earlier cycles, that the archangels are actually the geniuses, the leaders, the guides of the vernacular languages. This is related to that. The archangels are the leaders of the vernacular languages because they — figuratively speaking, but it is true — literally breathe in what human beings convey to them through language when they fall asleep. But a deficiency in human beings immediately becomes apparent when they do not express the right things in their language as they fall asleep.

This is something that can be observed particularly in contemporary culture. Within this contemporary culture, there is actually little of what we call idealism, and human words have gradually taken on meanings that refer only to external physical and material things. The designation of ideals – which presupposes belief in the spiritual, because the ideal is spiritual – is increasingly falling away. People do not develop the momentum, the inner enthusiasm for idealism, in the waking state. As a result, they actually only talk about things that exist in the physical world. Words are increasingly taking on the meaning of things that exist in the physical world.

It is true that in our time, even those people who sometimes want to believe very fanatically in the spirit actually reject it. They conduct spiritualistic experiments in which they allow the spirit to manifest itself, because they only want to believe in the spirit if it can be material. But that is not a spirit that appears in material light and the like. Spiritualism is the extreme form of materialism. People try to deny the spirit by only accepting as spirit that which enters the material world.

So we are already in an age where words do not come from the soul in such a way that they take on an ideal momentum. And this is becoming less and less. But when this ideal momentum is not there, when, in other words, human beings in the waking state are not able to speak of anything other than physical things, to turn, as it were, to that which belongs to the ideal, to that which lies beyond the physical world, to that which gives life goals that lie beyond physical life, if human beings do not develop words for ideals in their everyday language, if language itself is not imbued with idealism — then human beings find it extremely difficult during the waking state to establish the connection with the archangelic beings that is actually necessary for them, and then no order enters into what is supposed to take place in the sleeping state between the human soul and the hierarchy of the archangels. If this is the case, if human beings have fallen prey to materialism, if they have not developed idealism in their language, if words have gradually become such that human beings speak very little about ideals, then earthly life flows by in such a way that every night, if I may express it thus, human beings actually miss their connection with the archangelic beings. Then it becomes difficult for them to be so intimately connected with the spiritual world that they can now also live through life after death, from death to a new birth, in a sufficiently vigorous manner. Human beings weaken themselves by not having any idealism in their language for the life between death and a new birth.

To know how these things are is actually already a knowledge of life. Those who know what it means when language lacks idealism will finally gain the strength to work toward bringing idealism back into human language. Even during earthly life, we can see that those who cannot draw the necessary strength from the archangelic beings in the state between falling asleep and waking up do not attain their true strength. We can say quite specifically about what language should do for us as human beings during sleep: in order to obtain the right result for life, we must really strive to have such idealism that words do not merely convey everyday communication, but also contain something spiritual in the form of idealism.

But this becomes even more apparent when we now look at the sleeping state of the I. The I takes with it into the sleeping state satisfaction and dissatisfaction with what the limbs have done. Just as the astral body is carried to the hierarchy of archangels through the after-effect of language, so the ego is carried to the hierarchy of the primordial forces, the archai, the primordial beginnings, through what it brings into the state of sleep as an echo of the daily activities of the arms and legs. From these primordial beginnings comes the power to first penetrate the physical body in the right way, so that we not only want what is good, but are also able, to a certain extent, to control the impulses of the physical body so that we have no obstacle in our physical body to doing what we set ourselves as a duty or goal in the freedom of thought. We are free in our thoughts. But we only gain the power to apply this freedom in life if we carry the right connection with the primordial forces, with the archai, into sleep.

But how can we do this? Idealism connects our astral body in the right way with the archangelic beings. What connects our I in the right way with the primordial forces? Even if we remain unconscious at night, the beings from the hierarchy of primal forces are fully conscious of what is happening. They take in what we have unconsciously and develop it into a distinct thought of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with what we have done during the day. But what brings us into the right relationship with these primal forces, into the kind of relationship we achieve with the archangels through idealism in language?

There is nothing else that can bring us into the right relationship with the primal forces during sleep in relation to our ego than real, genuine, true love for humanity, unconditional love for humanity, universal love for humanity, genuine interest in every fellow human being with whom life brings us together, not sympathy or antipathy that arise from something we do not want to overcome. Genuine, true love for humanity while awake leads us between falling asleep and waking up into the bosom of the primal forces, the archai, in the right way. And there, while the ego rests in the bosom of the archai, karma, destiny, is formed. There the judgment arises: I am dissatisfied with what I have done with my arms and legs. And from what emerges as satisfaction or dissatisfaction, there arises not only what applies to the time shortly after death, but also to the next earthly life; there arises the power to form destiny correctly, so that the things we have experienced in an earthly life during sleep, in the ego, in connection with the primal forces, are truly balanced.

If you consider this, you will see clearly into this remarkable connection between the ego and destiny, between karma. While we observe, as it were, the astral body, how, when a person is an idealist, it offers language as a sacrifice to the archangels, so that they can then guide him in the right way between death and new birth, we see how the ego weaves on the loom of destiny. There karma is worked out in connection with the primordial forces. And the primal forces in turn have the power to give us what we need, not only to pass through the time between death and new birth, but also to arrive at our next descent into the earthly realm with such strength that, when we are small children, we learn to walk in one way or another with the inheritance from our previous earthly life, learn to find balance, learn to differentiate between our feet and hands, arms and legs.

It is very remarkable to see how, when a child passes from crawling to walking, when it first acquires balance, this effort reflects the way in which, in its last earthly life, the ego, through general love for humanity, brought sleep into the right relationship with the primal forces. This is expressed in learning to walk. This can be traced in detail. When a child repeatedly falls over, one can see that this stems from the fact that in a previous life the child developed strong feelings of hatred toward people. The child only came into contact with the primal forces and did not find the right connection with them, and it is precisely in learning to walk, in the constant falling over, that the effect becomes apparent. Anyone who would acquire the right insight into this, who would decide, for example, “I want to become a good educator by observing children closely as they learn to walk,” would see from the way the child learns to walk something truly astonishing about what one has to do as a teacher as an educator because it has been brought into this life from the previous earthly life through insufficient or sufficient but incorrectly applied human love.

Here you can see how the materialistic view remains with the physical. The materialistic view describes how the human organism, like a machine, stands up, learns to walk, and so on. But everything physical is connected to something spiritual, and those who understand the whole process learn to recognize that the child's previous life on earth plays a role in learning to walk. This means that learning to walk is the way in which human beings learn to control their physical bodies when they begin a new life on earth. And for those who have a complete overview of the matter, learning to walk is not limited to being able to raise one's legs and lift one's whole body, but goes so far as to involve inner processes in the human being, including how the human being gains inner control over his glandular activity and so on. For when the child has learned to walk, and even before that, it is not only walking that matters, but also whether, let us say, if it has a more phlegmatic or choleric character or an excess of one emotion or another, it learns to control its glandular activity or not. This in turn is connected with what has emerged during sleep from previous earthly lives, out of general love for humanity or not, as the relationship to the primordial forces.

If one thinks materialistically, one says: Man rests in sleep. But he does not merely rest. If he develops the right idealism while awake, he carries into sleep the possibility for his astral body to rise up to the hierarchy of the archangels, that is, to enter into such a relationship with the spiritual world during sleep that the time from death to a new birth can be lived in the right way. Of course, if we do not live this time correctly, we also carry weaknesses into our earthly life. But the way in which human beings place themselves in the right relationship to the primordial forces, to the archai, determines how we will be able to shape our next life. We can see, then, that universal love for humanity has a creative power. For what determines whether someone is strong and powerful in one life, able to place their physical body at the service of their soul and control their physical body? It depends on whether they developed love for humanity, something purely spiritual, in their previous life.

You remember how I said in earlier lectures: The soul of one earthly life lives out in the physical of the next earthly life, the spirit of one earthly life in the soul of the next earthly life. But this is how the things I have just explained are connected.

One cannot simply assert in general terms that there is such a thing as fate or karma. One can say quite specifically that we see how human beings work on their karma. They weave it during sleep, but they reap what they need for the fabric while they are awake. For what he weaves are the threads he must work from out of general love for humanity; or the threads that continually break and form bad karma for the next life are those woven from hatred of humanity. For karma, love and hatred of humanity are the creative forces that come into play above all else.

Now one must look at this matter in the right way. It is basically a convenient view of karma to say: I am sick—well, that is my karma. This misfortune has befallen me—that is my karma. I do not want to say that it is particularly comforting as a wisdom of life, but it is a convenient theoretical view to attribute everything to karma in a fatalistic way. However, this is not at all correct. For suppose you are not looking at this earthly life, but at the third next one, then in the third next earthly life you will be able to look back on this present one. Then you will say: It is my karma. But what is your karma points back to this earthly life; that is where it arose. That means there is constantly arising karma.

We do not have to push everything back into the past. We must be clear that taking the right attitude toward karma leads us to say: An illness that strikes me now does not necessarily have to be the result of previous spiritual weaknesses, but can occur for the first time. But karma still applies. If I am struck by an illness or misfortune in this earthly life, compensation will come, or this misfortune, this illness, can be the compensation.

This means that one must always take the future into account when speaking of karma. The relationship one has to karma is that one becomes unshakable in the recognition of universal justice, that one knows: Everything balances itself out, but not in such a way that one simply breaks the chain of earthly lives through the present and shifts everything onto the past.

Those who know that there is compensation place themselves in a lively way in the karmic course of life events. But the essential thing in the view of karma is the mood of the soul that comes from this view. And the mood of the soul that must come from the concept of karma is that, in the event that something, let us say misfortune, is the compensation for a former weakness of the soul, we find in it the reason to say to ourselves: If you had not experienced this misfortune now, you would have retained the weakness. If you look into the depths of your soul, you must say: It is right that this misfortune has come upon me, for through it a weakness has been eliminated, a weakness has been removed.

Anyone who wishes away such misfortune, which is compensation for a previous weakness or transgression of the soul, does not actually take the standpoint of complete human dignity. He says, in a sense: Oh, it is all the same to me whether I remain weak or attain a certain strength! Only those who say, “If it was for a previous weakness, it is good that it has happened to me,” understand misfortune in the right way. For I will feel this weakness that I had, which may have expressed itself in a transgression, through the misfortune. In this way, I erase the weakness and become strong again.

And if misfortune comes as the first step in karma, the right attitude toward it is to say to oneself: If people were to experience only what they desire, they would become very weak precisely because of such a course of life. We might live comfortably and well in one or two earthly lives because only what we desire comes to us, but in the third or fourth earthly life we would be completely paralyzed spiritually and mentally because we would not make any effort to overcome obstacles. Resistance can only be overcome when the unexpected, the undesirable, comes along. But if we develop the right strength in the face of resistance, if we take enough love for humanity into our sleep, then what is woven by the ego in connection with the primordial forces, with the archai, as karma, will be such that the right balance will be achieved in the next earthly life.

All anthroposophical truths must not be merely theoretical truths through which one gains knowledge, but they are all such that they pass into the mood, into the state of mind. And those in whom they do not pass into the state of mind have not yet grasped them completely; they have grasped them merely as theoretical truths. The right understanding of karma, of destiny, leads precisely to the fact that, when faced with life, human beings become even more finely receptive to happiness and unhappiness than they otherwise are — they experience happiness and unhappiness strongly — but he also finds the possibility of placing himself in his soul, as it were, in that mood toward the spiritual world which now comes not from a creed but from the observation of what the I and the astral body do while they are withdrawn from daily life. From the recognition of this, he enters into a mood of holding fast to world justice. To understand karma means to view world justice in the right way. It does not mean becoming phlegmatic toward happiness or unhappiness, toward joy and pain, but it means placing joy and pain, happiness and unhappiness in their proper place in life.

Now we can say: When we see people during their daily lives, we actually see only the ego and the astral body at work in the physical body, and then we know only something about the activity of the physical body, not about the spiritual-soul life in the ego and the astral body. When I speak to someone, I pay attention to the words they say to me, and if I am a materialist, I explain it to myself as follows: The lungs, larynx, and so on work, causing the air to vibrate, which strikes my ear, and so on. But if I look at the matter correctly, I see vibrating in what forms as words, what develops in language, its astral body. But then I find connected with this astral body the human being's relationship to the divine-spiritual world. I say to myself: if the astral body is within the physical body during waking hours, then it is hidden in speech and similar activities. During the night, it participates in the life of the higher hierarchies. And this is also the case with the I.

So we may say: When a person sleeps, they are not merely resting for daily life. They are working in the spiritual world, just as they work with their physical body and speak here in the physical world. And just as materialism denies that the I and the astral body exist as real beings during sleep, so must materialism admit that it cannot understand the whole world. For what is the moral world for materialism? The moral world is for it what man sets himself in thought, but which has nothing to do with the world-creating forces. For those who truly and genuinely look into human life, the moral world order is that in which human beings live just as strongly in their sleep as they do awake in air and light.

There is something else that is essential to note. When we die, we take language with us – the same applies to karma – we die, and throughout our lives we have been connected to the world of the archangels in a right or more or less imperfect way. This has been repeated in every sleep. Through the gate of death, we carry into the spiritual world what the archangel beings have given us in sleep. There we can then find our way into the spiritual world, which is the Logos, which consists of the cosmic elements that are reflected in the words of language. There we can find our way into the spiritual world for life between death and a new birth.

But it is not that simple. When we pass through death, we no longer have a physical body. What the archangels have given us from each state of sleep is sufficient to work and be utilized between death and new birth. But when we wake up as physical human beings on earth, we must once again immerse ourselves in the physical body. The archangels cannot convey this to us. Higher hierarchies must also be involved: those beings whom I have described in my “Secret Science” as the Exusiai and the Kyriotetes. They must bring what we have initially attained in union with the archangels through the spirituality of language into the instincts and desires of the physical body, which otherwise resists us. There it flares up as the voice of conscience. But as what we carry from sleep into the body flares up as the voice of conscience, what is given in the hierarchy of the Exusiai and the Kyriotetes, as a higher hierarchy than that of the archangels, works in this voice of conscience.

So when we look around in the physical world and find that one person or another has developed their conscience so strongly that their physical body acquires better drives and better instincts, then Kyriotetes and Exusiai have worked on them in the right way as a result of the idealism of their language.

And again, when a person comes into the right relationship with the Archai, with the primal forces, through general love for humanity, he works out his karma in such a way that in the next earthly life, in the very earliest childhood, it fits into the body as learning to walk, learning to balance, becoming skilled with the arms, mastering the glandular system, and so on. when we sleep our way into earthly life and it fits into the body. For we have acquired the ability to work, so to speak, in union with the primordial forces, with the archai, between death and new birth. But in order for human beings here on earth to acquire a fine sense and a keen awareness of their own actions in the right way, it is necessary that the hierarchy which I have described to you in The Secret Science as the dynamis works in conjunction with the archai, that is, with beings of a higher hierarchy.

If human beings lack general love for humanity, a genuine interest in their human environment, they cannot find the right connection to the archai. This spoils their opportunity to weave their karma for the next life on earth in the right way, and further lives on earth are necessary to compensate for this. But for this earthly life, they have the additional disadvantage that they have less and less power to carry out the judgments they form, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with what their legs and hands do, into the physical body. For we cannot do this ourselves; we must come together with the dynamis in the right way through increased love for humanity. They then bring the power that carries out what is right into our physical body in the right way. Otherwise, we collapse, even though we understand what is right.

We can become free in our thoughts. But in order to be able to use this freedom in the right way in our physical life, we must establish the right balance between waking and sleeping, because we must come together in the right way not only with the primordial forces, but also with the dynamis.

The highest hierarchy, seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, want to carry out what we do in the world. Exusiai, dynamis, and kyriotetes carry what we grasp in our thoughts out of sleep as a moral force into our physical being. The seraphim, cherubim, and thrones carry this out into the world so that our own moral forces become world-creating forces.

So when the earth passes into the Jupiter state and our moral forces perform their proper functions during this transformation, the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones will of course only have something to do with it if we give them the necessary information. If we hand them over destructive forces by becoming weaker and weaker, then we are working toward the destruction of the earth, not the building of Jupiter.

You see, the structure of the spiritual world in anthroposophy is truly not just there so that we have names for individual stages, but so that we can gradually enter into the whole context of the world and see the connection between human beings and the spiritual world in the same way that we see the connection between human beings and the physical world. And that is what will give human beings the right strength for a constructive life, when they find the way in this manner to understand their connection with the spiritual world, when they do not merely believe that sleep is there to rest, but gain the conviction that sleep is there to bring them into the right connection with the spiritual world under the after-effects of physical life.

Yes, it is true that human beings can deny the spiritual-moral world because they initially sleep through it in this earthly stage. But a real science must emerge about what human beings sleep through. For they sleep through that which extends into earthly life as a heavenly existence. Human beings have sleep so that they can actually draw the necessary strength from the spiritual world for their physical life.

Now consider from this point of view the connection between what I have tried to outline to you today and my Philosophy of Freedom. You will find that I have expressly emphasized that it is not important to establish the theory that the will should be free, but rather that the thought should be free. The thought must control the will if one wants to be a free human being. But in order that the will does not offer impossible resistance to free thought, man must organize his life in a corresponding manner. We can make our thoughts free as human beings who have become what we are in the physical world. We can only make our mind and will free when we bring our mind into the right relationship with the archangels and our will into the right relationship with the archai.

But this also means that we allow that which lives in language to depart with the spiritual-soul life during the night. We also allow that which lives in our limbs to depart. The astral body and the I depart. The etheric body remains with the physical body. The thinking that is bound to the etheric body continues in the etheric body. Only in our ordinary consciousness we know nothing about how the etheric body thinks from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, because we are outside. It is not true at all that we do not think in the sleeping state; we think from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. Thoughts run continuously in our etheric body, but human beings know nothing about this. They only begin to know something again when they submerge; then thoughts become alive again for their consciousness. It is because thoughts are connected to physical earthly life through the etheric body that human beings can be free in their thoughts. For they have been placed on earth in order to become free. He can only draw the power of freedom from the spiritual world, the power of freedom in the mind, the power of freedom in the will.

This is the connection with the fact that human beings retain their actual basis of thought, the etheric body, throughout their entire earthly life. The etheric body does not go out into a cosmic world during earthly life. The astral body and the I go out. Only when death occurs does the etheric body also go out. Then comes the review of life through one, two, three days, during which the human being looks back over his entire life, similar to what I described yesterday for imagination, the first stage of supersensible knowledge. After death, under all circumstances, the human being looks back on his past earthly life. But while the whole sea of thoughts that he has gone through while sleeping and waking between birth and death is still there, while these lie in the first three days after death like a sea of interwoven thoughts, the cosmos immediately takes possession of these thoughts. They dissolve, and after two or three days the entire review has vanished into the cosmos. We say that the etheric body has also separated. In truth, the cosmos has taken up the etheric body, absorbed it. It has grown larger and larger until it has finally merged completely into the cosmos. There we are then taken up again as the I and the astral body into the bosom of the higher hierarchies. And only when we receive another etheric body can we descend to earthly life and continue our work on ourselves to become free human beings. For the goal of earthly life is to make human beings free. What lies in pure thinking as the foundation of freedom can be given to them on earth. That is why the etheric body remains connected to the physical body throughout earthly life, which means that with death it dissolves into worlds where freedom is not learned. Freedom is learned during earthly life; as you know, only during certain epochs of earthly life.

Thus we can see that freedom is indeed connected with karma, for freedom has to do with what remains in bed, what is connected with us even during sleep, what does not separate from us. Karma is woven by the I between falling asleep and waking up. Karma is woven apart from that in man in which freedom lies. Karma does not weave itself from free or unfree thoughts; karma weaves itself from the mind and the will. Karma arises from the depths of human nature, from the dreaming mind and the sleeping will. We can pour into this, that is, we can counteract it with that which lives in the freedom of thought, in pure thinking, in the ethical and moral impulses, as I have described in The Philosophy of Freedom; these must lie in pure thinking.

Thus everything really comes together. And it would be so necessary to become more and more aware of how, the further one advances in anthroposophy, the more all the details come together. Of course, when someone approaches something that represents this or that area, they can find contradiction after contradiction. This is inevitable, because in order to understand that something is as it is presented in a particular area, one must consider that area in relation to the whole. Otherwise, one judges like someone who judges a single planet and cannot understand why it moves in this way or that: one must consider the entire planetary system. And so, if one wants to know something about the world and life, one must try to grasp the connection, the physical, soul, and spiritual facts, and the details of the worlds of facts.

That is what I wanted to discuss with you today, now that we have the opportunity to be together again in this branch. I wanted to contribute something to helping you feel the mood that human beings can develop toward karma, that is, toward world justice, when they live themselves into anthroposophy in the right way. For it is the feelings we carry into life that matter, not merely theoretical understanding. May you truly succeed more and more in making what anthroposophy gives you not merely the content of your thoughts, but the content of your soul, or, as is rightly said, the content of your heart. And the more anthroposophy becomes the heart content of those who want to understand it, the more successful we will be in introducing anthroposophy into general cultural and spiritual life. We need this very much, otherwise humanity will not be able to move forward with the old traditions and the old ways. Try more and more to find the path of anthroposophy from the head to the heart. Anthroposophy will be well preserved in your hearts.