The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] It was a realization that traces its origins entirely to the spiritual sources of existence—the teaching proclaimed by the holy Rishis during the first cultural epoch of the post-Atlantean era. And what is significant about this teaching, about this research from the dawn of our post-Atlantean era, is that it penetrated so deeply into all natural processes that it was able to recognize the spiritual forces at work within them. Fundamentally, we are always surrounded by spiritual events and spiritual beings. Everything that happens in the material world is, after all, merely the expression of spiritual realities, and all things that appear to us in the material world are merely the outer shell of spiritual beings. When the aforementioned ancient sacred teaching spoke of the phenomena surrounding us that we perceive in our environment, it always drew particular attention to one phenomenon—the most important, the most significant natural phenomenon surrounding human beings on Earth. And this most significant natural phenomenon was regarded by that spiritual science as the reality of fire. In all explanations of what takes place on Earth, spiritual research into fire was placed at the center. But if we wish to understand this, we might say, Eastern teaching about fire—which was so far-reaching in ancient times for all knowledge and indeed for all life—if we wish to understand this teaching about fire, then we must look a little more closely at the other natural phenomena and natural objects, as they were viewed by that ancient teaching, which remains entirely valid for spiritual science even today.

[ 2 ] At that time, everything that initially surrounded human beings in the physical world was traced back to the so-called four elements. Today, however, these four elements are no longer recognized by our modern materialistic science. As you all know, these four elements are: earth, water, air, and fire. However, in the spiritual science of the past, the term “earth” did not refer to what we understand by that word today. “Earth” was used to describe a state of material existence—the state of the solid. Everything that we call solid today was called “earth” in spiritual science. So, whether we have solid farmland or a piece of rock crystal, a piece of lead, or gold—everything that is solid was designated as earth. Everything that is liquid—not just what we today call water—was referred to as watery or as water. So if, for example, you have iron and you heat it until it glows, so that it gradually melts and flows away due to the heat, then what flows away as iron is, in spiritual science, water. All metals, when they are liquid, were referred to as water. Everything that we today call air-like—this state that we also refer to today as gaseous—was, regardless of the substance in question, whether oxygen gas, hydrogen gas, or other gases, was all referred to as air.

[ 3 ] Fire was regarded as the fourth element. Modern science—as those who recall the basic concepts of physics will know—does not view fire as a substance comparable to earth, air, or water; rather, modern physics sees in it merely a state of motion. Spiritual science sees in heat or fire nothing other than something that possesses an even finer substantiality than air. Just as earth or the solid transforms into the liquid, so does the gaseous gradually transition, according to spiritual science, into the state of fire, and fire is such a fine element that it permeates all the other elements. Fire permeates the air and warms it, as well as water and earth. While the other three elements are, so to speak, distributed, we see the element of fire permeating everything, everything.

[ 4 ] Now the old spiritual science—and with it the new—said: There is yet another, significant difference between what we call earth, water, and air, and what we call fire or heat. — How can earth or the solid be perceived? Well, let’s say, by touching it. We perceive the solid by touching it and feeling its resistance. The same is true of the liquid. Although it yields more easily—the resistance is not as great—we still perceive it as something external to us, as a resistance. And so it is with the element of air. We perceive it, too, only externally. It is different with heat. Something must be emphasized here that today’s worldview does not regard as significant, but which must be regarded as significant if one wishes to look into the real mysteries of existence. For we also perceive heat without touching it externally. This is the essential point: we can perceive heat by touching a body that has a certain degree of heat; we can perceive heat externally like the other three elements, but we also feel heat in our own inner states. Hence, ancient science, even among the Indians, emphasized: Earth, water, and air you perceive solely in the external world; heat is the first element that can also be perceived internally. Heat or fire thus has, so to speak, two sides: an external side that reveals itself to us when we perceive it externally, and an internal side when we feel ourselves in a certain state of warmth. Isn’t it true that a person feels their inner state of warmth—they feel hot, they feel cold—but, on the other hand, they consciously pay little attention to what within them are airy, watery, and solid substances, that is, what air, water, and earth are within them. They only begin, so to speak, to feel themselves within the element of warmth. The element of warmth has an inner and an outer aspect. That is why ancient spiritual science, and with it modern spiritual science, says: Warmth or fire is that in which the material begins to become spiritual. We can therefore speak, in the true sense of the word, of an outer fire, which we perceive just like the other elements, and of an inner, spiritual fire within us.

[ 5 ] Thus, for spiritual science, fire has always served as the bridge between the external material world and the soul, which can only be perceived inwardly by human beings. Fire or heat was placed at the center of all observation of nature because fire is, so to speak, the gateway through which we penetrate from the outside to the inside. It is truly this fire that is like a door before which one can stand; one looks at it from the outside, opens it, and can look at it from the inside. Such is fire among the phenomena of nature. One touches an external object and comes to know the fire that flows in from the outside like the other three elements; one perceives the inner warmth and feels it as something that belongs to oneself: one stands within the gate, one steps into the soul. Thus the science of fire was articulated. But for this reason, too, one saw in fire something in which the soul and the material interact.

[ 6 ] What we now wish to present to our souls is truly a fundamental lesson of the earliest human wisdom. The teachers used to say something like this: Look at a burning object being consumed by fire! You see two things in this burning object. One was called, in those ancient times—and could still be called today—smoke, and the other was called light. For these two natural phenomena appear before us when an object is consumed by fire: light on one side, smoke on the other. Thus the spiritual scientist saw the fire standing right in the middle, between light and smoke. The teacher said: As it were, light is born from the flame on one side, and smoke on the other.

[ 7 ] Now, however, we must clearly bear in mind a very simple yet far-reaching fact regarding the light produced by fire. It is highly likely that if one were to ask a great many people, “Do you see the light?” they would reply, “Of course I see the light!” — Yet this answer is as wrong as can be, for in truth no physical eye sees the light. It is absolutely incorrect to say that one sees the light. One sees through the light the objects that are solid, liquid, or gaseous, but one does not see the light itself. Imagine the entire universe illuminated by light, and the source of the light were somewhere you could not see it, behind you, and you were now looking into the universe, which is illuminated by the light—would you see the light? You would see nothing at all. You would only see something if some object were placed within the illuminated space. One does not see the light, but only solids, liquids, and gases through the light. So in truth, physical light is not seen at all with the physical eyes. This is something that presents itself with particular clarity before the spiritual eye. Spiritual science therefore says: Light does indeed make everything visible, but the light itself is invisible. And this is an important statement: Light is imperceptible. It cannot be perceived through the external senses. One can perceive solids, liquids, and gases; one can just barely perceive heat or fire as the last element externally; but one can also begin to perceive this internally. Light itself, however, can no longer be perceived externally. If, for example, you believe that when you see the sun, you are seeing light, that is incorrect: you are seeing a flaming body, a burning substance from which light emanates. If you were to examine it, you would see that it consists of gaseous, liquid, and earthy elements. You do not see the light, but rather that which is burning.

[ 8 ] So, according to spiritual science, as we ascend, we pass from earth through water, through air, to fire, and then to light; we move from what is externally perceptible and visible into the invisible, into the ethereal-spiritual realm. Or, as one might also say: Fire stands at the boundary between the externally perceptible, material world and that which is ethereal-spiritual, which is no longer externally perceptible. So what happens to a body consumed by the flame, that is, by fire? What happens when something burns? When something burns, we see light arising on the one hand. The first thing that is imperceptible externally—that which works into the spiritual world, that which is no longer merely externally material, so to speak—gives off heat when it is strong enough to become a source of light. It imparts something to the invisible, to that which can no longer be perceived externally, but it must pay for this with smoke. It must allow the opaque, the smoky, to form out of what was previously transparent and illuminated. And so we see how, in fact, heat or fire differentiates itself, divides itself. It divides itself on one side into light, and thereby opens a path into the supersensible world. In order to send something upward as light into the supersensible world, it must send something downward into the material world, into the world of the opaque but visible. Nothing arises unilaterally in the world. Everything that arises has two sides: When light arises through heat, opacity, dark matter, arises on the other side. This is an ancient spiritual-scientific teaching.

[ 9 ] However, the process we have just described is only the outer aspect, only the physical-material process. Underlying this physical-material process is something fundamentally different. If you have mere heat before you—that is, something that does not yet glow—then, in a certain sense, the heat itself that you perceive is the outwardly physical aspect, but there is a spiritual element within it. When this heat becomes so intense that a glow arises and smoke forms, then something of the spiritual element that was in the heat must pass into the smoke. And this spiritual element, which was in the heat and which passes into the smoke—into an air-like state, that is, into something that is subject to the heat—is now enchanted within the smoke, within what appears as a haze. Spiritual beings associated with heat must, so to speak, allow themselves to be drawn into the process of becoming dense, of becoming smoky. And so, everything that emerges from the heat—as it were, as a kind of cloudiness, as a materialization—is connected to an enchantment by spiritual beings. We can put this even more starkly. Let us imagine, as is already possible today, that we cause the air to liquefy. The air itself is nothing other than condensed warmth; it has arisen from warmth through the formation of smoke. That which belongs to the spiritual has been enchanted into the smoke—that which actually wishes to be in the fire. Spiritual beings, now also called elemental beings, are enchanted throughout the air, and they are further enchanted—banished, so to speak, to an even lower existence—when the air is transformed into water. Therefore, spiritual science sees in what is outwardly perceptible something that has emerged from a primordial state of fire or heat in such a way that it first became air or smoke or gas as heat condensed into gas, the gas into liquid, and the liquid into solid. Look back, says the esotericist, look at any solid object: It was once liquid; it only became solid in the course of development; and the liquid was once gaseous, and the gaseous form emerged as smoke from the fire. But this condensation, this process of becoming gaseous and solid, is always accompanied by an enchantment by spiritual beings.

[ 10 ] So let us now look at our surroundings, let us look at the solid stones, the streams of water flowing by, let us see what evaporates from the water and rises as mist, let us see the air, let us see everything solid, liquid, gaseous, and fire: thus, we have essentially nothing but fire. Everything is fire, just condensed fire. Gold, silver, and copper are condensed fire. Everything was once fire; everything is born of fire—but in all this condensed matter, everywhere, there is a spiritual element that rests enchanted within it!

[ 11 ] So how do the spiritual-divine beings around us bring about the formation of solids, liquids, and gases on our planet? They send down their elemental spirits, who live in fire, and confine them within air, water, and earth. These are the messengers, the elemental messengers of the spiritual, creative formative beings. At first, these elemental spirits are in fire. In fire, figuratively speaking, they still feel at home, and now they are, so to speak, condemned to live in enchantment. And we look around us and say to ourselves: These beings, to whom we owe everything that surrounds us, have had to descend from the element of fire; they are enchanted within things.

[ 12 ] Is there anything we, as human beings, can do for these elemental spirits? That is the great question the holy Rishis asked themselves. Can we do anything to liberate what is enchanted? Yes, we can do something! For what we humans do here in the physical world is nothing other than the outward expression of spiritual processes. Everything we do simultaneously has its significance in the spiritual world. Let us assume the following: A person stands before, say, a rock crystal or a piece of gold or something similar. He looks at it. What happens when a person simply stares, looks at some external object with their physical eye—what happens there? There is a constant interplay between the enchanted elemental spirit and the human being. That which is enchanted within the matter, and the human being—they have a connection with one another. Now let us suppose that the person merely stares at the object, so that they notice only what meets the eye; in that case, something from these elemental beings is always entering the person. Something from the enchanted elemental beings constantly enters the human being, from morning till night. As you perceive, a host of elemental beings—which was enchanted and is constantly being enchanted by the world’s processes of condensation—constantly emanates from your surroundings; such a host of beings constantly enters you. Let us now suppose that the person who stares at objects in this way has no inclination whatsoever to think about the objects, to allow anything of the spirit of things to live in his soul. He makes himself comfortable, simply goes through the world, but does not process it spiritually—not with ideas, not with feelings, with nothing at all; he remains, so to speak, a mere observer of what confronts him materially in the world. Then these elemental spirits enter into him and now sit within him; they are inside him and have gained nothing else in the world process except that they have entered from the external world into the human being. But let us suppose that the human being is one who processes the impressions of the external world spiritually, who forms conceptions of the spiritual foundations of the world with his ideas and concepts, who thus does not simply stare at a piece of metal but reflects on its essence, feels the beauty of the thing, who spiritualizes his impression; what does he do? Through his own spiritual process, he redeems the elemental being that flows from the external world to him; he raises it up to what it was; he liberates the elemental being from its enchantment. Thus, through our own spiritualization, we can take those beings that are enchanted in air, water, and earth; we can either lock them away within ourselves without altering them, or, by spiritualizing ourselves more and more, we can liberate them, redeem them, and lead them back to their own elements. Throughout his entire life on earth, man allows elemental spirits from the external world to flow into himself. To the same extent that he merely stares at things, to that same extent he simply allows these spirits to wander into himself and does not alter them; to the same extent that he seeks to process the things of the external world in his mind through ideas, concepts, feelings of beauty, and so on, to that same extent he redeems and liberates these spiritual elemental beings.

[ 13 ] And so what happens now to these elemental beings, who have, so to speak, entered into human beings from the physical world—what happens to them? They remain within the human being for the time being. Even the redeemed must remain within the human being at first, but only until the human being’s physical death. When the human being passes through the gate of death, a distinction arises between those elemental beings who have merely migrated in and whom the human being has not in turn led up to a higher element, and those whom the human being has, through his own spiritualization, brought back to their former element. The elemental beings whom the human being has not transformed have, at first, gained nothing at all by having migrated from the physical world to the human being; the others, however, have gained the ability to return to their original world upon the human being’s death. In his life, man is a point of passage for these elemental beings. And when man has passed through the spiritual world and is reborn in a subsequent incarnation, at the time of his reincarnation—as he passes through the gate of birth—all the elemental beings whom man has not previously liberated return to the physical world; but those whom they have liberated, they do not bring back with them when they descend; those have returned to their original element.

[ 14 ] Thus we see how it is up to human beings, through their development and through the way they relate to the external natural world, either to liberate the elemental beings—who were necessarily enchanted for the creation of our earthly existence—or to bind them even more tightly to the earth than they were before. What does a human being do when he looks at any external object and, by explaining it, liberates the elemental spirit from it? Spiritually, he does the opposite of what happened in the past. Whereas in the past, smoke was formed from fire, so to speak, the human being in turn forms fire spiritually from the smoke; he releases this fire only after his death. Now imagine how infinitely profound and how infinitely spiritual ancient sacrificial customs are when you view them in the light of ancient, sacred spiritual science: Imagine the priest at the sacrificial altar in those times when religion was founded on a true understanding of spiritual laws; imagine the priest kindling the flame and smoke rising, and the rising of the smoke now truly being made into a sacrifice—that is, accompanied by prayers—what happens there? What happens to such a sacrifice at all? The priest stands at the altar where smoke is produced. Where the solid matter is released from the heat, a spirit is conjured; at the same time, however, because the human being accompanies the entire process with prayers, this spirit is received by the people as such, so that after death it ascends once more into the higher world. What, then, did the adherent of the ancient wisdom say to those who were to understand such things? He said: If you view the outer world in such a way that your spiritual process is not a lingering in the smoke, but a lifting of the spiritual up to the fire element, then after death you liberate the spirit enchanted in the smoke. — And now the person who understood this spoke of the spirit enchanted in the smoke that had passed into the human being: If you have left the spirit as it was in the smoke, then it must be reborn with you; then it cannot return to the spiritual world after your death; but if you have freed it, if you have led it back to the fire, then after your death it will ascend into the spiritual worlds and will not need to return to Earth with your birth.

[ 15 ] And now you have a portion of these profound passages from the Bhagavad Gita that were cited in the previous lecture. There is no mention at all of the human ego; rather, it speaks of those natural beings, those elemental beings, that enter into the human being from the external world, and it is said: Behold the fire, behold the smoke! That which the human being, through his spiritual processes, transforms into fire—these are spirits whom he liberates upon his death. That which he leaves behind, as it is in the smoke, must remain united with him at his death and must be reborn when he is born. The fate of the elemental spirits is thus initially characterized for us: Through the wisdom that a human being develops within themselves, they continually set elemental spirits free at their death; through ignorance, through mere material clinging to sensory appearances, they bind elemental spirits to themselves and force them to return again and again to this world, to be born with them again and again.

[ 16 ] But such elemental beings are not linked solely to fire and all that is associated with it. These elemental beings serve as messengers for the higher divine-spiritual beings in everything that occurs externally in the physical world. For example, the interplay of those forces that bring about day and night could never have come into being in the world if such elemental beings had not worked in great multitudes to cause the planets to revolve around the world in the appropriate manner, precisely so that this alternation of day and night might occur. Everything that happens is brought about by multitudes of spiritual beings, both lower and higher, within the spiritual hierarchies. We are now dealing with the most subordinate beings, the messengers. When night turns into day and day into night, elemental beings are at work within this process. And so it is that human beings are once again in an intimate relationship with the beings of the elemental realms who are involved in bringing about day and night. When a person is sluggish, lazy, or lets themselves go, they affect these elemental beings—who are involved with day and night—differently than when they are energetic, hardworking, diligent, and productive. For when a person is sluggish, they connect with very specific elemental beings, just as when they are diligent, but in a quite peculiar way. Those of the second class of elemental beings just mentioned, who unfold their lives during the day, who, so to speak, turn the day over and over, are in turn in their higher element. But just as the elemental beings of the first class of fire are bound in air, water, and earth, so are certain elemental beings bound by darkness, and day could not be separated from night if these elemental beings were not, so to speak, imprisoned in the night. That human beings can enjoy the day, they owe to the fact that the divine-spiritual beings have driven out the elemental beings and bound them during the night. If a person is now sluggish, these elemental beings continually flow into him, but he leaves them as they are. The elemental beings that are chained to the darkness at night, these humans, through their laziness, leave as they are; the elemental beings that enter them when they are diligent, hardworking, and doing something—these they in turn lead back spiritually to the day. Thus they continually release these second-class elemental beings. Throughout our entire life, we carry within us all the elemental beings that have entered during our state of sloth and those that have entered during our state of diligence. As we pass through the gate of death, the beings we have brought back to the day can in turn enter the spiritual world; the beings we have left behind in the night through our inertia remain bound to us, and we bring them back with us in the new reincarnation. That which we allow to flow into us through mere sensory delusion regarding external elemental beings, that which we allow to flow into us through laziness and inertia from the night beings, is reborn with our reincarnation. And now you have the second point in the Bhagavad Gita. Again, it is not the human ego, but this kind of elemental being that is referred to with the words: “Observe day and night; what you yourself redeem by transforming it through your diligence from a night being into a day being: that which emerges from the day when you die enters the higher world; what you take with you as a night being, you condemn to be reborn with you.”

[ 17 ] And now you can probably guess how the story continues. Just as with the phenomena we have just discussed, so it is with more comprehensive natural phenomena, such as what gives rise to our 28-day lunar cycle: the waxing and waning of the moon. A whole host of elemental beings had to be involved to set the moon in motion in such a way that our lunar cycle could come into being, so that everything connected with the changing of the moon could truly unfold on our visible Earth. And for this, certain beings had to be enchanted, condemned, and bound by the higher beings. To the clairvoyant eye, it is always evident that when the moon waxes, spiritual beings from a lower realm always ascend to a higher realm. But to maintain order, other spiritual elemental beings must also be enchanted down into lower realms. These elemental beings of a third realm also interact with human beings. When a person is serene, when they are content with the world, when they understand the world in such a way that they embrace all things with a serene spirit, then they continually liberate the beings who are bound by the waning moon. The beings enter into him and are continually liberated by his peace of mind, by his inner contentment, by his harmonious perception of the world and his worldview. Those entities that enter the human being when he is discontented, when he is grumpy, when he is satisfied with nothing, when he is upset by all manner of things—they remain in the state of enchantment in which they were placed by the waning moon. Oh, there are people who, by having attained a harmonious perception of the world and a cheerful disposition, have an infinitely liberating effect on a very large number of elemental beings that have come into being precisely as described. Through a harmonious perception of the world and inner contentment with the world, the human being is a liberator of spiritual elemental beings. Through his grumpiness, his bad mood, and his discontent, a human being becomes a fetterer of elemental beings who could be liberated by his cheerfulness. Thus you see how a human being’s mood is significant not merely for that person himself, how a human being’s cheerfulness or grumpiness is something that radiates from his being as either liberation or bondage. Whatever a person does through their mere moods radiates out into the spiritual realm in all directions. Here we have the third point of that important teaching of the Bhagavad Gita: Observe that when a person acts through his mood in such a way that he liberates spirits, just as spirits are liberated during the waxing moon, then these liberated spirits can return to the higher world when the person passes through the gate of death. If a person, through his discontent and hypochondria, calls the spirits around him into himself and leaves them as they are, as they had to be there so that the order of the moon can be brought about, then these spirits remain bound to him and must be reborn when he enters a new existence. Thus we have a third class of elemental spirits who are either liberated upon the person’s death, returning to their homeland, or who must be reborn in this world with the person.

[ 18 ] And finally, we have a fourth type of elemental spirit. These are the ones that help govern the sun’s course throughout the year, so that the summer sun can shine down upon the earth, awakening and fertilizing it, and so that everything that flourishes from spring to autumn can indeed flourish. For this to happen, certain spirits must be bound during the winter, must be enchanted during the time of the winter sun. And in the same way, as described earlier, human beings influence the other levels of spiritual beings in the elemental realm. Consider a person who enters the winter season, who says to themselves: The nights are growing longer, the days are growing shorter; we are coming to that part of the sun’s annual course where, so to speak, the sun withdraws its fertilizing powers from the earth. The outer earth is dying, but with this dying earth I feel all the more compelled to come alive spiritually. I must now, so to speak, take the spirit more and more into myself. — Let us take a person who, as Christmas approaches, takes on an ever more devout festive mood within themselves, who learns to understand Christmas in the sense that the outer sensory world is most dead, and the spirit must therefore live most fully; let us suppose that this person lives through the winter season until Easter, remembering that the revival of the external is linked to the death of the spiritual, and experiences the Easter festival with understanding. Such a person has not merely an outward religion, but a religious understanding of natural processes, of the spirit that reigns in nature, and through this kind of piety, this spirituality, they liberate that fourth class of elemental beings that constantly flow in and out of the human being, beings connected to the course of the sun. And a person who is irreligious in this sense, who denies the spirit or does not perceive it, who wallows in materialistic chaos—into them the elemental spirits of this fourth stage flow and remain as they are. And through death, the process begins anew: these elemental spirits of the fourth stage are either liberated to return to their element, or they remain bound to the human being and must reappear when he proceeds to a new incarnation. Thus, if a human being connects with the winter spirits without transforming them into summer spirits, without redeeming them through his spirituality, he will condemn these spirits to be reborn, whereas otherwise they would not be reborn, would not have to return with him.

[ 19 ] Behold the fire and the smoke! If you connect with the outer world in such a way that your spiritual-soul process is like the arising of fire and smoke—that is, if you yourself spiritualize things in your process of cognition or perception—then you help certain spiritual elemental beings to ascend. If you connect with the smoke, you condemn them to rebirth. If you connect with the day, you in turn liberate the corresponding spirits of the day. Look to the light, look to the day, look to the waxing moon, to the sunny half of the year: If you act in such a way that you lead the elemental beings back to the light, to the day, to the waxing moon, to the summer season of the year, then you liberate these elemental beings, who are so necessary to you, through your death; they ascend into the spiritual world. If you connect with the smoke, if you merely stare at the feast, if you connect with the night through inertia, if you connect with the spirits of the waning moon through your discontent, if you connect with the spirits who have been bound during the winter solstice through your godlessness or spiritlessness, then you condemn these elemental beings to be reborn with you.

[ 20 ] Now we finally understand what this passage of the Bhagavad Gita is actually talking about. Anyone who believes it is speaking of human beings does not understand the Bhagavad Gita; but anyone who knows that all human life is a continuous interplay between oneself and spirits who live enchanted in our surroundings and must be disenchanted, perceives an ascent or a reincarnation of four groups of elemental beings. The secret of this lowest form of hierarchy has been preserved for us in this passage of the Bhagavad Gita. Indeed, when one must extract from primordial wisdom what has been handed down to us in the great religious texts, one realizes what greatness lies within these religious texts and how wrong are those who understand them superficially or who do not wish to understand them in their depth. One behaves correctly toward them only when one says to oneself: There is no wisdom high enough to fathom what is hidden within them. Only then do these texts become imbued with the magical breath of genuine pious feelings; only then do they become, in the true sense of the word, what they are meant to be: means of human development that ennoble and purify. They often still point us toward the immense abysses of human wisdom. And what can flow from the sources of the secret schools and the mysteries into the general humanity from now on—that alone will allow these reflections—for that is all they are—of the primordial wisdom to appear in their grandeur and in their light.

[ 21 ] We once had to use a relatively difficult example to show how ancient wisdom understood the interplay of all those spirits that surround us, that are everywhere, that flow in and out of human beings, and how it was also understood that human actions represent an interaction between the spiritual world and one’s own inner world. The mystery of the human being only becomes significant to us when we realize that everything we do—even our moods—has an effect on the entire cosmos, and that our small world has infinitely far-reaching significance for all becoming in the macrocosm. It is precisely this heightened sense of responsibility that is the most beautiful and significant thing we can gain from spiritual science. It teaches us to grasp life in its true sense and to take it so seriously that this life, which we must cast into the stream of life’s development, is cast in as something of significance.