The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. Inner Development

[ 1 ] Today I would like to speak to you again about inner development. Those of you who attend these lectures regularly will recall that I have already given several talks on this topic. I will therefore only touch on what has been discussed previously and add what goes beyond that.

[ 2 ] There has been repeated discussion of the facts concerning the phenomena of the higher worlds, and the question naturally arises: How do we arrive at such insights? — Well, the path to these insights is not so straightforward that it could be described, even in a very superficial way, in just one or two hours. But every now and then, a hint must be given as to how one should conceive of this development. You all know that we are not speaking here only of the ordinary physical world, but also of the world of the soul and the world of the spirit, which we have come to know as the astral world and Devachan. Human beings live in all these worlds. They do not belong to one, but to three worlds. In fact, they belong to many more worlds still, but knowledge of even higher worlds lies so far beyond the ordinary level of human understanding today that it is difficult to speak of these worlds here.

[ 3 ] The question we must now ask ourselves is this: How does a human being ascend to the astral and spiritual worlds? — These are the worlds in which a human being lives here, though he is initially unaware of them, and in which he will live once he is no longer clothed in a physical body. Everything that exists as the physical world around us will therefore no longer have any significance for us. But the other worlds, which are attained through higher knowledge, will indeed have a higher significance for us. People often ask: Why does a person actually need knowledge of worlds other than the one in which they live? If a person does good for their fellow human beings, why should they concern themselves with higher worlds? — This is an objection that must very quickly be recognized as groundless. For the forces, facts, and beings that a person encounters in the higher worlds are not only active in those worlds but also exert their influence into our physical world. For things are not created by themselves, but have come into being through the forces of the spiritual world. We also perceive ourselves only superficially when we know ourselves solely through the senses. Through the senses, we perceive only what takes place between birth and death. At birth, a whole range of predispositions and abilities enters the world with the human being. Only a superficial judgment would claim that a person’s entire range of predispositions begins only at the moment of birth or embryonic development.

[ 4 ] In occultism, which deals with worlds unknown to the senses, it is said that the ordinary person lacks the discernment to grasp the most important facts; he does not observe with nearly enough intensity how awkwardly a person enters the world, how a person gradually learns to use the faculties that are initially only latent as organs of spiritual life. We see one person who knows very little how to use the organs of his spirit, whereas another not only masters all his limbs in a very special way but also learns to use the tools of his brain in a very special way. The materialist, in particular, ought to say: I believe in the significance of the human organs; but why do these organs correspond to the feelings and sensations of one person and also to the feelings and sensations of another? — Everyone admits that a hammer, which a person uses for some rational purpose, must first have come into being through rational thought. Everyone believes this about the hammer. But the materialist does not believe this about the body or about living beings in general. Therefore, anyone who studies the marvelous structure of the human brain, who comes to know the marvelous structure of the human heart, can never believe that all these things could have come into being through some blind chance or some spiritless process. But these things manifest themselves differently in every human being than they do in animals. Animals are all imprints of a general pattern; the specific differences are of lesser importance. The word “individuality” makes this difference clear to us at once. Because every human being is an individuality, each individual is of much greater significance. Every human being, every individuality, prepares their body in their own unique way. For this body must fit the particular constitution that every human being possesses. When a human being enters existence through birth, they were already there spiritually, and it is they themselves who have prepared their organs for their individual use—not to the very end, for a human being is also an animal creature—but the higher they develop, the more control they have over the structure of their own organs. One might at most believe that a human being standing entirely at the lowest level began to exist at birth; but no rational thinker can assume that a thinking being did not already exist before birth. Anyone can perform the tasks of a hammer, but no one can perform the tasks of the brain on behalf of another. Therefore, human beings cannot be understood without the assumption that they extend beyond birth and death, but only when one acknowledges the forces that have already laid the groundwork for the organs of human thought.

[ 5 ] Ascension into the astral and spiritual worlds involves certain difficulties for the individual, as well as sacrifices that he must make, and also certain dangers. Human beings are accustomed to the world of the senses, but they are not so accustomed to the other worlds. Above all, we must be clear that the causes of much that remains invisible to us in this world become apparent in the higher worlds; this surprises and unsettles us. And the exercises through which we seek to ascend also tax us in a certain way. Because there are dangers, some say that one can attain the highest knowledge of the divine world forces even without knowing anything about these spiritual and astral forces hidden behind the sensory world. It is even claimed today that human beings can rise to the knowledge of God without first truly passing through the worlds that separate them from the Most High.

[ 6 ] Only someone who has no real understanding of the higher worlds can make such a statement. A kind of higher knowledge, often referred to as “theosophical,” is nothing more than a very ordinary understanding of the human lower self; and no matter how much one may call the lower self “divine,” one finds nothing but one’s lower self. It is only outside oneself that a person finds their higher self, for we are born out of the external world. — There are some spiritual movements that turn people away from the external world; they say one should seek the higher self only within oneself. This viewpoint can never lead to true knowledge; it is both unchristian and anti-Christian. Only by turning toward the world that surrounds us do we find our higher self. We must seek God in the invisible worlds and in all external creatures, facts, and events. If someone tells us, “Deny the external world; this external matter does not exist,” then such a person is denying the divine world; and from a broader perspective, there is no worse insight than turning away from the external world. It is precisely immersion in the external world that leads to higher knowledge. Raised just a little above the earth, everything physical withers; raised just a little above the spiritual world, everything psychological withers. To live in the world from which a person is born, to which they belong—just as the hand belongs to the body—is part of the mindset that truly leads to higher development. Ask your own inner self where a person’s essence lies. Just as a person cannot turn away from the external world, so too is a person’s essence not confined within the skin. It belongs to the higher Self of the world, and as we explore the higher Self of the world, we explore our own higher Self. It is not possible to campaign for occultism. Only those who truly wish to do so, and who wish to fulfill the conditions for higher development, must also commit themselves to carrying out what occultism prescribes for such high development. The actual occult path within Theosophy should therefore not be confused with what is often superficially called Theosophy. These are methods that have been tested over the centuries. It is left to each person’s own free will to decide when they wish to reach the goal; therefore, no objection such as that they are an outsider can hold water.

[ 7 ] The higher level of development that every human being can attain proceeds slowly and gradually. The world that a person can then perceive is the one in which they always live. You do not live solely in the physical world; just as truly, you are surrounded here by soul and spiritual forces and spiritual events. And these spiritual and soul worlds are there for those whose spiritual and soul eyes are opened. The methods exist to open a person’s spiritual and soul eyes in the first place. Only then does a person truly live for these worlds; for there is a difference between living in these worlds and perceiving within them. A person also lives in these worlds at night, but does not perceive them because the necessary organs are still lacking. Higher development consists in the soul acquiring spiritual organs and thereby learning to perceive.

[ 8 ] All higher knowledge first arises at night. While darkness spreads at night for the person who perceives only through the senses, for the person who perceives through the soul, the darkness is illuminated. There is a light that can illuminate the world even when the sun is not present—a light that does not make the table visible, but does reveal spiritual realities. This is the astral light. If you have spiritual faculties—if your soul is not blind—then the astral light can also perceive a person’s soul where the eyes previously saw the physical form. The soul is then illuminated by the astral light, just as the body is illuminated by sunlight during the day. Everything that is to be developed in a human being is already present within them as a potential; just as the human embryo possesses the potential for eyes and ears, so too are the potentials for clairvoyance present in the soul that dwells within every human being; but just as the human embryo cannot yet see in the physical world, so too must the spiritual and soul capacities within the human being be developed. Thus, in the soul world, the human being is actually still at the embryonic stage. What does not yet perceive the spiritual and soul realms today will do so later. This is the starting point for the question: What, then, is this soul doing now during sleep? — There, the soul is not idle, even if it does not see. The physical human being’s forces are exhausted in the course of the day, but the human soul works during sleep to restore these physical forces. And because the soul is occupied with itself, it has no energy left to develop new organs. But these forces must be used to form something new; as a result, something is then drawn away from the human body. The human spirit has gradually built up this physical body, and the soul itself gradually builds up the tools that the human being uses; the soul works in the same way when the physical body becomes worn out. During sleep, it restores everything to order.

[ 9 ] If you now choose to use the forces of sleep in a different way, you must find a way to compensate for it. Everything that is lost in the struggle between these forces can be replaced by the harmony of these forces. When people today—constantly working, following every impulse of the will, in their professions, in pursuit of every sensation, feeling, willing, and thinking in a disorderly manner—their forces are worn down by this struggle. When they then consider withdrawing certain forces of the soul from their bodies, they must offer the body compensation through certain activities of harmonious action. Therefore, inner development prescribes very specific virtues at the outset, so that the strength now withdrawn from the body may be replaced by rhythm. These virtues are: control of thoughts and actions, impartiality, resilience, equanimity in life, and trust in one’s entire surroundings.

[ 10 ] Today, people are at the mercy of every whim; yet they must be the ones to hold the reins over their own thoughts. Then they bring rhythm into their lives. Carrying out actions on one’s own initiative, undertaking each action in such a way that it is truly one’s own—this brings a sense of calm that is necessary for the soul. Endurance: standing firm and steady, allowing suffering and joy to pass over oneself; becoming resilient: not being thrown off course by joy any more than by pain. Furthermore, a person must cultivate the greatest possible impartiality. Nothing wears a person down more than approaching the negative aspects of things; this creates disharmony and, at the same time, exhausts the person. This is illustrated by that Persian legend which tells us how Jesus Christ and his disciples once saw a decaying dead dog lying by the roadside. The disciples begged the Master not to concern himself with the dog, saying the animal was too ugly. But Christ looked at the dog and said, “What beautiful teeth this animal has.” Here he sought the beauty in what was, after all, an ugly thing. All affirmation enlivens; all negation exhausts and kills. Not only because it takes moral strength to turn toward the positive side of a matter, but because every act of affirmation enlivens and sets the soul’s powers free and secure.

[ 11 ] In an age like today’s, nervousness also prevails. Nervousness and a tendency to criticize go hand in hand. The prescribed virtues are meant to unlock higher powers within the human being. Such virtues, which are intended to bring rhythm to the entire lower life, give the soul the strength to devote itself to higher development. This inner development takes place in complete stillness.

[ 12 ] I would like to list a few of the things that are part of this. These things used to be the secret of the occult schools, but now they are being revealed for certain reasons. Once a person has prepared his soul through such practice, he will be guided by a teacher whom he will find when the time is right. He then passes through various stages of discipleship and must use the powers he has unlocked to attain a higher spiritual life.

[ 13 ] The first is that a single opinion is, in essence, worth nothing at all. The personal opinion—the expression, “I believe this or that about it”—is something that a person, as an advanced student, must thoroughly overcome. Now, however, the advanced student must not only recognize the folly of the materialist but also work through the valid reasons the materialist may have for his position, in order to understand how someone could have come to be a materialist. He will find that whenever people say “yes” to things—that is, affirm the positive side—they are usually right; whenever they say “no,” that is where what the advanced student must learn to overcome begins. He must not only have come to know the reasons and substance of every worldview logically, but he must also have lived them. He must put himself in the shoes of every doubter. Unless the student knows what can be objected to in each case, the higher powers will not awaken. Whoever has gone through this process will also awaken powers within his own soul that are sure to emerge.

[ 14 ] Then he must overcome all superstition—not only the superstition of the African fetish worshipper, but also that of the enlightened European. Everyone is familiar with the effects of hypnosis; our European professors—Wundt, for example—explained hypnotism by claiming that certain parts of the brain are not well supplied with blood. But this is nothing other than the superstition of the African. In this way, you could essentially refute all materialistic theories that speak only of certain parts of the brain. As great as Haeckel is as a naturalist, it must be clear to everyone that what this naturalist claims about these matters is sheer superstition. The student must overcome all forms of superstition.

[ 15 ] The third is the realization of the illusion of the personal self, whereby a person convinces himself that he can find the higher life within himself. Once a person has achieved this, he is ready for the second stage. One must pass through the illusion of the personal self; one must recognize its validity in order to free oneself from it. The next step is that everything must become a parable for one: “Everything transitory is merely a parable.” One must take every thing for what it is—a parable for what it expresses. A single flower, even a single human being, must become a parable for a person; then they will already feel how this awakens powers within their soul. — Once a person has spent some time learning to view things as parables, they must then learn that a human being is a small world, that there is nothing within them that does not correspond to the world outside. There is a deep meaning in Germanic mythology, which tells how the entire world was formed from the giant Ymir. A person must come to understand how each organ is connected to the world; then they will be able to bring their own organism into the proper relationship with it. As a person goes through the world, they are not aware of how their organs are connected to the world. They must learn this. The Eastern occultist even teaches this by having the student assume a very specific sitting posture, so that he may also be in the correct relationship to the world outwardly.

[ 16 ] Another thing that a person must then learn—and which can only be mentioned here in passing—is to consciously regulate something that is otherwise governed by a natural process of which they are unaware. This is, first and foremost, the respiratory system. If a person wishes to evolve to a higher level, their breathing must become commensurate with the great processes of evolution. They must inhale, hold their breath, and exhale in a precisely prescribed manner. When a person brings spiritual control to their breathing, they spiritualize their breath, their life-giving air. In this way, they ascend from Hatha Yoga to Raja Yoga, the royal yoga.

[ 17 ] Then comes the highest stage: the exercises in meditation and contemplation centered on one’s own inner life. When a person has prepared and trained themselves in this way, when they have advanced to the point of bringing rhythm to their life, then they are fully ready to lead an inner life. There are three stages of meditation. It can be organically integrated into the rhythmic breathing process. First, one must take the sensory world as the starting point, so that a person can detach themselves from the external world and the multitude of its external impressions. Taking full control of one’s own attention helps them in their higher development. Once they are able to master their attention in this way, they must be able to immerse themselves completely in the object of their attention, allowing nothing else in; only that one thought must live within them. It is best if the teacher assigns him very specific tasks tailored to his individuality. Once he has reached this stage, a cannon could be fired right next to him without distracting him. Then he must let go of the object of his contemplation itself, yet maintain the activity. This is what brings him into the highest worlds.

[ 18 ] If a person has progressed this far—having thoroughly contemplated the object, but then let it go and lives solely in the act—then he reaches the state known in occultism as that of Dhyana. And he can let go of this state immediately; then his inner eye is awakened.

[ 19 ] He learns to exercise the powers of his thinking on external objects. However, he does not yet get very far in this; he arrives at a world that appears to be a kind of skeletal framework for the higher world. He must now develop a feeling of very special intensity from the object itself, again while excluding everything else. Thus, he must be able to feel something very specific when he holds a crystal in his hand; he must feel something when he holds an octahedron in his hand. He develops a feeling that one can have toward the inanimate world. We then compare the lifeless rock with the living, blood-filled being and tell ourselves: That has sensuality, but the water-clear rock is devoid of desire. If I am able to feel how the stone has allowed its desire to die away, how it has become pure and chaste, and if I know how to immerse myself in this feeling so that the world around me fades away and I allow only this feeling to live within me—be it the feeling from the crystal, from the animal, or from the human being— and if I can then let go of the object, return in the same way as before, and enter the state of dhyana, then I realize that the feeling is not merely a feeling, but that it begins to grow bright, that the feeling begins to become a manifestation of light. Thus appears what is perceived as a thought-form, but which should more accurately be called a feeling-form.

[ 20 ] These are a few concepts I wanted to share with you today. There have always been teachers who provided guidance to individuals and assigned tasks suited to their individuality. Every person has their own name in the spiritual world; there, they are even more individual than in the physical world, and this unique individuality must be carefully taken into account, especially on the higher levels, where higher development is concerned. Therefore, only a teacher can provide what is necessary.

[ 21 ] What I have presented today are the first steps toward what is called “recognizing the self.” When a person learns to sense the objects around them and those objects take on colors that then crystallize into images, they see their emotional world unfolding around them. One must face oneself as an objective observer; then one crosses the threshold where one perceives oneself with all that one is and is not yet. The first guardian of the threshold stands there before us, showing us: “This is you!” — Everyone must learn to know themselves, for through self-knowledge one comes to knowledge of the world. However, no one should mistake self-knowledge for knowledge of God. That is why it was written at the gate of the Temple of Delphi: “Know thyself!” — And once one has passed through the gateway of self-knowledge, one enters the innermost sanctuary of the world, where divine forces reign and spiritual insights are bestowed. When one’s own inner being feels connected to the inner being of the world—where only then can one speak in the true sense of inner development—and when a person approaches this knowledge with dignity and not in a frivolous or base manner, then it will be granted to him. And he will be given that through which his humanity can be developed more and more, and he will become an ever more worthy member in the course of human development. But no one should seek to ascend to higher knowledge merely for their own sake. A person should develop themselves, increase their powers, and gather knowledge—that is, increase their powers—solely to become a servant of the entire universe.

[ 22 ] In this way, we become servants within the whole of the world, and it is in this sense alone that the journey toward higher knowledge should take place.