The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Mission of Devotion

[ 1 ] You are all familiar with the words with which Goethe concluded his great life's work, *Faust*:

All that is fleeting
Is but a parable;
That which is inadequate
Here becomes an achievement;
That which is indescribable
Here is accomplished;
The eternally feminine
Draws us upward.

[ 2 ] It should go without saying today that, in this case, the “eternal feminine” has nothing to do with men and women, but rather that Goethe is making use of an ancient linguistic convention. In all mystical worldviews—and Goethe specifically calls the sum of these words a *Chorus mysticus*—in all such mystical worldviews, it is pointed out that within the soul there lives an initially undefined impulse toward something the soul has not yet recognized, with which it has not yet united, and toward which it must strive. This which the soul initially intuits dimly in the spirit—toward which it strives, with which it wishes to unite—Goethe, in harmony with the mystics of various eras, calls the Eternal Feminine, and the entire meaning of the second part of *Faust* is a testament to this interpretation of the final words.

[ 3 ] Now, one could contrast this *Chorus mysticus*, with its succinct words, with a kind of “*Unio mystica*”; this is what was in turn referred to by those who thought mystically in the true sense, in the clear sense: the union attainable by human beings with the Eternal Feminine, which lies in spiritual distance.

[ 4 ] When one’s own soul ascends and feels at one with it, then what is known as “mystical union,” or “Unio mystica,” is present. This Unio mystica, this mystical union, is the highest pinnacle of what we will be discussing in this lecture. In the previous lectures—especially those on the mission of anger and the mission of truth—we have seen that the human soul is a being in the process of development. We have primarily discussed, on the one hand, qualities that the soul must strive to overcome—through which, for example, anger can become a teacher of the soul—and, on the other hand, we have explained what a unique teacher truth is for the human soul.

[ 5 ] The human soul is in the midst of a process of development whose end and goal it cannot always foresee. We can, if necessary, set before us that which has developed, and once it stands before us, we can be satisfied by saying: it has developed from something else to its present state. We cannot say this of a being such as the human soul, which stands in the midst of this development and is the active agent within it. Since it has developed thus far, this human soul must feel that it must continue to develop. And as a self-conscious soul, it must ask itself: How can I think not only about how I have developed, but also about how I will develop? — We have already spoken of this on several occasions: for the true student of spiritual science, this human soul, with its entire inner life, is divided into three parts. It is not possible to present this division of the human soul in detail again today; but it is good to draw attention to it so that the lecture can be processed independently. We distinguish three parts in the human soul: what we call the feeling soul, what we call the intellectual or emotional soul, and what we call the conscious soul. What we call the feeling soul can be present in life without being greatly permeated by thinking. The sensory soul is, first and foremost, that which receives external impressions. It is the aspect of the human soul that transmits sensory perceptions inward. It is also this sensory soul that then allows feelings of pleasure and displeasure, inner joy, and inner pain to arise within—feelings that are linked to what is brought in from the outside and observed. This sensory soul is, first and foremost, the source from which the drives, instincts, passions, and emotions of human nature arise. Human beings have developed out of this sensory soul; they have risen to greater heights; they have permeated this sensory soul with their thinking and with feeling guided by thinking. And in this intellectual or emotional soul, which we identified as the second link, we are not to seek that indeterminate feeling that seems to rise from the depths, but rather the feeling that gradually allows itself to be permeated by the inner light of thought. At the same time, in this intellectual or emotional soul we must see that from which gradually emerges what we call the human “I”; that center in our soul which can lead to the true self, which makes it possible for us to refine, purify, and transform the qualities of our soul from within, so that we become masters, leaders, and guides within our impulses of will, within our emotional and intellectual lives.

[ 6 ] As has already been mentioned, this “I” has two sides. One path of development is what a person should strive to achieve: that within themselves they have an ever-stronger center of their being, so that what they can become for their surroundings—what they can become for all life—radiates ever more powerfully from their inner self. The fulfillment of the soul with an inner substance that makes it more and more valuable to its surroundings and at the same time endows it with ever greater independence—that is one aspect of ego development.

[ 7 ] The flip side of this development of the self is selfishness, egoism. A self that is too weak loses itself in life, sinking, so to speak, into the external world. But such a self—which wants to absorb everything into itself, to desire it, to think it over, and to brood over it—such an “I” hardens into self-centeredness and egoism.

[ 8 ] We have thus briefly described what constitutes the content of the intellectual or emotional soul. We have seen, in a certain sense, that the wild impulses—which include, for example, anger—become educators for the soul with regard to the development of the “I” when they are overcome and conquered.

[ 9 ] We have seen that the intellectual or emotional soul educates itself in a positive way through truth, when truth is understood as something one should possess entirely within oneself, something one should be accountable for at every moment, and which—although it is one’s innermost possession—at the same time leads us outward, expands the self, and makes the self stronger and stronger and more selfless, precisely through itself.

[ 10 ] We have thus seen what educational resources and means of self-education are available for the soul of feeling and the soul of understanding.

[ 11 ] Our question must now be: Is there also such a means for the conscious soul, the highest component of the human soul? We might also ask: What, so to speak, develops within the conscious soul without its own intervention, corresponding to the drives and desires in the sensory soul? What develops within it that corresponds, so to speak, to human predispositions, such that a person can actually only acquire it to a limited extent unless it comes to them as if by predisposition? There is something that extends from the intellectual soul into the conscious soul: that is thinking. It is the strength and wisdom of thinking. But the soul of consciousness can develop only when a person becomes a thinker; for the soul of self-consciousness is meant to know—to know about the world and about itself. It can develop only through the highest instrument of knowledge, namely, thinking. With regard to the external world—the sensory world—external sensation and perception are what convey knowledge to us, in that they provide the stimulus to learn about the things of the external sensory world around us. This requires that we open ourselves to it and not remain indifferent to it. But it is the sensory external world itself that stimulates us and can also satisfy our external thirst for knowledge through the observation of itself. The situation is different, however, with regard to that which will be discussed time and again in these lectures on spiritual science. It is different with regard to knowledge of the non-sensory, of the supersensible. The non-sensory realm is not initially present for human beings. But if they wish to incorporate it into their knowledge, if they wish to let it permeate their conscious soul, then—because the object of knowledge is not present externally—they must receive an impulse from within; the impulse must originate from within. This impulse, which originates from within, must stimulate thinking; it must flow through and permeate thinking. But if such an impulse is to emanate from the soul, it can only come from the forces within the soul, namely feeling and will, in addition to thinking. And if thinking cannot be stimulated by these two, it will never be driven into a supersensible world. This does not mean that what is supersensible is merely a feeling, but rather that the guide leading us from within ourselves into the supersensible must be feeling and will. That which guides us is not that which we seek. Human beings must seek the supersensible world because it is, at first, unknown to them. From the very beginning, they must have a guide within themselves in the form of feeling and will. But what qualities must feeling and will take on if they are to become guides into the spiritual world, into the supersensible world?

[ 12 ] At first glance, one might take offense at the very idea that feeling is supposed to be a guide to knowledge. A simple consideration, however, can show us that feeling must, under all circumstances, be a guide to knowledge. Anyone who takes knowledge seriously will undoubtedly admit that, when it comes to acquiring knowledge, a person should proceed logically; that logic should prevail and guide them. Logic is meant to prove the things we incorporate into our knowledge. We use logic as an instrument to prove what we incorporate into our knowledge. But if logic is this instrument, by what means can logic itself be proven? One might say: it can be proven by itself. But then there must at least be a possibility, before one begins to prove logic with logic, to grasp it through feeling. Logical thinking cannot initially be proven through logical thinking, but only through feeling; and everything that constitutes logic is initially proven through feeling—through the infallible sense of truth inherent in the human soul. Thus, this classic example shows that logic itself is founded on feeling, that feeling provides the foundation for thinking. Feeling must provide the impetus for the verification of thought. What kind of feeling must it be if it is to provide not only the impetus for thought in general, but also for thinking about worlds that are initially unknown to human beings, worlds that human beings cannot initially comprehend?

[ 13 ] The quality that a feeling must take on in order to lead to the unknown must be a force that strives from within toward the unknown, toward that which is not yet known. When the human soul strives toward something else, when this human soul seeks to embrace something else with feeling—such a feeling is called love. One can feel love for something known, and one must feel love for many known things in the world. But since love is a feeling, and feeling must be the foundation for thinking in the broadest sense of the word, we must be clear—if the supersensible is to be discovered through thinking—that the embrace of the unknown, of the supersensible, through feeling must first be possible before it can be thought. This means: it must be possible for a person—and unbiased observation proves that it is possible—to develop love for the unknown, for the supersensible, before he can think of this supersensible realm. Love for the supersensible, before one is able to penetrate it with the light of thought, is possible; it is necessary. But the will, too, can be filled with a force that reaches out toward the unknown supernatural before thought can approach it. That quality of the will through which a person seeks to carry out the goals and intentions of the unknown within their will—before they can grasp this unknown with the light of thought—is devotion to the supernatural. Thus, the will can develop devotion to the unknown, and feeling can develop love for the unknown; and when both unite—the will’s devotion to the unknown and love for this unknown—then their union gives rise to what we call, in the true sense of the word, devotion. And if devotion is the union, the interpenetration, the mutual enrichment of love for the unknown and devotion to the unknown, then this devotion will be the united impulse that can lead us into this unknown, so that thought may take hold of it. Thus, devotion becomes the educator of the conscious soul. For when this soul of consciousness strives toward what is initially hidden from it, one can speak of devotion even in ordinary life. When a person faces something unknown that they cannot yet grasp, that their thoughts cannot yet reach—even though it is an outward reality—one can say that they are approaching the unknown with love and devotion. The soul of consciousness will never attain knowledge—even of an external thing—if it does not approach that thing with love and devotion, for our soul passes by those things it does not approach with love and devotion, or, in other words, with reverence. This reverence is the guide to insight, to knowledge of the unknown. Love and devotion are essential even in ordinary life; they are especially so when the world of the supersensible comes into play.

[ 14 ] But wherever the soul is to be educated, the point is that this soul educates, helps to educate, and allows itself to be educated by what we have called the center of the soul: the “I,” through which human beings possess self-consciousness. Once we have seen that the “I” increasingly asserts itself and grows ever stronger through the overcoming of certain qualities of the soul—such as anger—and through the cultivation of other qualities, such as a sense of truth, we must acknowledge that the self-education of the “I” does not end with these qualities; this is where education through devotion begins. Anger must be overcome and cast off; the sense of truth should flow through the “I.” Devotion is to flow out from the “I” and toward the object to be known. Just as the “I” rises above the sensory and intellectual souls by overcoming anger and other emotions and by cultivating the sense of truth, so it draws itself ever closer to the conscious soul through devotion. If this devotion grows ever greater and greater and more powerful and more powerful, then one can say that this devotion becomes a powerful impulse toward what Goethe characterizes with the words:

All that is fleeting
Is but a parable;
That which is inadequate
Here becomes an achievement;
That which is indescribable
Here is accomplished;
The eternal feminine
Draws us upward.

[ 15 ] The soul feels powerfully drawn toward the Eternal—toward that with which it seeks ever greater union—through the power of devotion within itself. But the “I” has two sides. The “I” has the need to increase its self-strength and self-activity more and more, to become more and more a self of substance. Its task is to become a self that does not degenerate into self-centeredness or harden into egoism. When it comes to advancing further toward knowledge of the unknown and the supersensible, when devotion is made the teacher of the self, there is a grave danger that this “I,” this human self, might lose itself. Above all, it can lose itself when the human will confronts the world in constant surrender. Ultimately, when submission takes over more and more, it causes the “I” to step outside of itself, to be completely absorbed in the other to whom it is devoted, to lose itself in the other. Thus, the “I” can no longer find itself in the other; for one must push the “I” out into the other if one wishes to find it there. Surrender, through which the self would lose itself, could be compared to what one might call a spiritual fainting spell, as opposed to a physical one. In the latter, the self sinks into an indeterminate darkness through a physical loss of self; in psychological fainting, the self loses itself merely psychologically, even though it may remain physically intact, even though it can perceive the external world. The self can lose itself psychologically when it no longer has the strength, when it is no longer powerful enough to direct its own will and to infuse its own essence into that will, when it loses itself in the other through surrender. This, in particular, would be the extreme of what is called the mortification of one’s own will. When the will of one’s own self is mortified, then the person no longer wills for themselves; they have brought their will to the point of renouncing their own action; then it is the other—or the one to whom one is devoted—who wills; then one has lost oneself. And if this state gets out of hand, it can—in contrast to physical powerlessness—become a permanent state of powerlessness of the soul. Only the feeling of devotion that is permeated by the “I”—the devotion into which one immerses oneself and which carries the “I” along—only that can be a source of healing for the human soul. But by what means can devotion carry the “I” along with it everywhere? — The “I,” the human self, can be led nowhere as a human self unless it preserves the knowledge—the thinking knowledge—of itself. In the conscious soul, thinking is initially developed as a natural gift. It is thinking alone that can protect the “I” from losing itself when it goes out into the world through devotion. If the will can be the guide for the human soul to step outside of itself, then this human soul—once it has been led by the will to something outside itself—must insist that, where it crosses the boundary of this external realm, it be illuminated by the light of thought. Thinking cannot lead one out from within; the leading out occurs through devotion; then thinking must immediately come into play and, as soon as the will has led one out, must strive to penetrate with the light of thought that to which the soul is devoted. In other words, there must be a will to think about that to which one is devoted. Indeed, the moment the will to devotion loses the will to think, it is in danger of losing itself; a will that, from the outset, would in principle refrain from thinking about the object of its devotion could lead to an extreme—the permanent powerlessness of the human soul.

[ 16 ] Can love, the other element of human devotion, also fall prey to such a fate? Something must flow into love—something that radiates from the human self toward the unknown—so that the maintenance of the self is never lacking, even for a moment. The “I” must wish to enter into everything that is to become the object of its devotion; and it must wish to maintain itself in the face of all that is to be embraced in love—in the face of the unknown, the supernatural, and the external. What, specifically, becomes of love when the “I” does not maintain itself up to the boundary where we encounter the unknown, when it does not wish to allow the unknown to be illuminated by the light of thought and the light of rational judgment? Such love becomes what is called infatuation. But since the “I” lives in the intellectual soul, this human “I” can begin its journey toward the external unknown, proceeding from the intellectual and emotional souls; yet it can no longer completely extinguish itself. The will can subdue itself; but when the “I”—when the soul—seeks to embrace the external world through feeling, it cannot subdue itself: the “I” always remains present in feeling; but because it is not supported by thought and will, it rushes out unchecked. And this rushing out of the “I,” unaware of itself, leads to a love of the unknown that lacks the will for vigorous thinking, causing the soul to fall ever more deeply into fanaticism. There is something in this that can be described—just as one can similarly describe devotion, when it loses itself, as spiritual powerlessness or spiritual sleepwalking, just as one can speak of physical sleepwalking. An enthusiast is one who does not take his vigorous “I” with him into the unknown, who seeks to penetrate the external world only with the subordinate powers of the “I”; and since such a person does not allow the full power of his “I” to flow out of consciousness, he will seek to grasp the unknown in the same way one grasps the unknown in the world of dreams. As this enthusiasm increasingly takes hold of the soul, it becomes what might be called a persistent dream state or sleepwalking of the soul. Where the soul is unable to establish a proper relationship with the world and with other people, where it rushes headlong into life because it shies away from making use of the light of thought, and fails to establish a proper relationship with the things and beings around it: such a soul, such a “self” that “slips into a state of spiritual sleepwalking,” must go astray; it must wander through the world like a will-o’-the-wisp.

[ 17 ] The reason for this lies in the fact that such enthusiasm—which, in its love for the unknown, is not infused with the self—shies away from gaining full clarity of thought and full, bright light upon its own self, and that it refrains from carrying its own self along everywhere in intense thought and in strong self-awareness. The weaker the self-awareness, the easier it is for enthusiasm to take hold; only because the soul falls into intellectual inertia—because the soul lacks the will, when encountering the unknown, to allow itself to be illuminated by the light of thought—only in this way is it possible for such a soul to acquire qualities that can be called superstition in all its forms. The fanciful soul, which wanders along in a dream of romantic feeling, passing through life as if in sleep; the intellectually sluggish soul, which does not wish to carry full self-awareness out into the world—such a soul is prone to believing everything blindly, because it must necessarily have a tendency to penetrate things not through one’s own inner effort—which thinking requires—nor through the self-directed activity of thought, but rather to allow truth and knowledge about things to be dictated to it. For this, one need not think creatively and independently from within. In order to perceive the external world presented to us through the senses, we do not need self-creative thinking; but in order to perceive the supersensible—and whatever form our knowledge of the supersensible may take—the supersensible must never be sought to be known by us in any way that excludes thinking. The moment we attempt to grasp it through mere observation, we are exposed to all manner of deceptions and errors regarding the supersensible. And all errors, all superstition, and everything through which one can be led into the supersensible in any way that is incorrect or deceptive—all of this can ultimately be based only on the fact that, with regard to their self-consciousness, people do not allow themselves to be illuminated by self-creative thinking. No one can be deceived when receiving anything intended to convey a message from the spiritual world if they have the will to think independently. But this is also the only true means; there is no other sufficient means whatsoever. Every spiritual researcher can and will say this, and the stronger the will to independent, creative thinking, the greater the possibility of recognizing the supersensible world in its truth, clarity, and infallibility. Thus we see at the same time that we need something for the self-education of the “I,” which leads ever higher and higher into the conscious soul—that which serves as the soul’s guide in the education of the conscious soul in the face of all unknown physical and unknown supersensible realities: devotion, composed of love and surrender. When love and devotion are permeated and inflamed by the right sense of self, they become steps that guide us higher and higher and lead us ever upward. True devotion, in whatever form it permeates and inflames the soul—whether in prayer or in some other form—can never lead one astray; one comes to know best that which first kindled one’s devotion, that is, one’s love and devotion. — And a sound upbringing must take particular account of the power that the impulse of devotion can impart to the soul’s development. Much of the world is unknown to a child; if one wishes to guide the child in the best possible way toward recognizing and judging what is unknown to him, one awakens devotion to this unknown; and one will never be mistaken in believing that properly guided devotion truly leads to what in the world can be called true life experience in all areas.

[ 18 ] Oh, it is something significant for this human soul, even in later life, when it can look back on its childhood and recall having felt deep, deep reverence—even devotion. That soul which, during its childhood, was able to look up time and again to revered figures—to gaze with deep devotion at things that were impossible for it to comprehend with its still limited intellect—provides a positive impetus for the further, higher development of life. One always looks back on the course of events with gratitude when, for example, one recalls that during one’s childhood one was able to hear within the family about an outstanding person of whom everyone spoke with devotion and reverence. A sacred awe descends upon the soul, which can make devotion particularly intimate. With feelings stirred only by devotion, one recounts how, with a trembling hand, one touched the doorknob and, with shy reverence, entered the room of the revered figure—whom one was able to see for the first time after hearing so much spoken of them with awe and reverence. To have stood face to face, to have spoken and heard just a few words after such devotion had preceded the encounter—that is one of the best impulses toward it. This devotion can guide us especially when we seek to explore the highest questions, the mysteries of existence. It can be our guide as we strive to solve these most important tasks of the soul, seeking that toward which we aspire and with which we wish to unite. Here, devotional prayer is precisely a force that draws us upward, and by drawing us toward it, it has a strengthening and stabilizing effect on the human soul. How is this possible? Try to understand, from the outward expression of devotional prayer, how it works precisely through a person’s outward gestures. It works precisely where the most significant human capacity develops—as an outward expression. What does the devout person do in their outward expression? They bend the knee, fold their hands, and turn their head toward the being or object being venerated in devotion.

[ 19 ] These are the human organs through which the “I”—and above all that which we call the higher soul elements of the human being—can express itself most intensely. Physically, a person stands upright in life through his or her firmly held legs. A person becomes a source of blessing in life—that is, he or she radiates the essence of his or her own “I” through his or her hands—and becomes one who observes heaven and earth through what is within his or her head by moving his or her head. Observation of human beings, however, further teaches us that our legs are best extended in self-confident energy when they have first learned to bend the knees before that which is truly worthy of reverence. For in the act of kneeling lies the reception of a force that strives to enter our organism. Those knees that straighten without ever having learned to kneel in reverence merely spread what they have always had; they spread their own insignificance, to which they have added nothing. But the legs that have accustomed themselves to kneeling absorb a new power as they straighten, and now it is not insignificance that is displayed, but rather what has been newly absorbed. Those hands that wish to bless, that wish to comfort, without having first clasped themselves in reverence and devotion, can offer little in the way of love and blessing other than their own insignificance. But the hand that has learned to fold itself has, through that act of folding in devotion, absorbed a power that can now flow through the hand; and it has become a hand powerfully imbued with that power. For the path of that power, which is absorbed through folded hands, passes through the human heart—before pouring into the hands—and kindles love; and the devotion of the clasped hands, as it passes through the heart and flows into the hands, becomes a blessing. The mind that surveys the entire world, directing its eyes everywhere and pricking up its ears, may take in as much as it will with eyes and ears, yet everywhere it can only confront things with its own emptiness. But that mind which has bowed in devotion toward things will, in turn, draw from that devotion a power that flows through it; it will offer to things not its own emptiness, but the feelings it has absorbed through devotion.

[ 20 ] Anyone who studies a person’s outward expression and gestures with sound judgment—and understands what is going on within that person, what is connected in a living way—will see, and will be able to discern from the outward physiognomy of devotion, how this devotion seizes our “I” and enhances our inner strength, and how this enhanced inner strength has the potential to penetrate into the unknown. If we wish to penetrate into the unknown, we must bring our abilities to bear upon it; and we do so when we approach it with love and devotion. Thus we see that the “I” is not weakened by devotion, but rather becomes stronger and more vigorous. Through this self-discipline, through devotion, a person’s dark feelings and impulses are elevated, as are their feelings of sympathy and antipathy toward things. Those feelings of sympathy and antipathy that enter our soul unconsciously or subconsciously, without our passing judgment on them, without being illuminated by the light—it is precisely these feelings that are purified as the “I” educates itself through devotion and advances ever more deeply into the higher faculties of the soul. Through this process, everything that constitutes sympathy and antipathy—which acts like a dark force capable of leading one astray—is permeated by the light of the soul. What was once unilluminated sympathy and antipathy becomes judgment, an emotional judgment, which takes the form of either aesthetic taste or a properly guided moral feeling. The soul that has disciplined itself in devotion will purify its dark sympathies and antipathies, its dark feelings of pleasure and displeasure, into what may be called a sense of beauty and a sense of goodness. The soul that has properly purified its will through devotion—and which, in doing so, has preserved its sense of self and self-awareness—will purify those dark drives and instincts that otherwise permeate human desires and impulses of the will, and will gradually develop from them those inner impulses that we call moral ideals. Devotion is the self-education of the soul—from the dark drives and instincts, from the desires and passions of life, toward the moral ideals of life. Devotion is something we sow into the soul like a seed: and it sprouts.

[ 21 ] Anyone who looks at life with an open mind can see this in another example as well. We see everywhere that human beings go through a phase of ascending development and a phase of descending development over the course of their lives. Childhood and adolescence represent a phase of ascending development; then development remains at a standstill for a while; then, in later life—in old age—a downward phase of development begins. In a certain sense, one could say that the downward phase at the end of life represents, in the opposite direction, what childhood and youth have developed; yet, in a peculiar way, the qualities absorbed during childhood and youth reappear in later life. Anyone who truly observes life can see that in children who have absorbed much from well-guided devotion, this seed blossoms in old age. Such devotion appears in old age as a force for acting in life. Strength is what appears in old age as the opposite of the devotion that was cultivated in youth. A youth devoid of devotion—a youth in which a properly guided surrender of the will and properly guided feelings of love were not developed—will develop into an old age that is weak and powerless. We attribute devotion to the human soul, which is meant to develop. But then it must be part of the very nature of this devotion that a soul in the process of development can and should be moved by it.

[ 22 ] What about the corresponding quality in that which we look up to in devotion? When we look upon another being with love, we can see reflected in that being’s love for us what might yet be developed within ourselves. Can we also speak of devotion in this reverse sense? That this would generally not be correct becomes clear when we consider that we must say to ourselves: When a person is devoted to God in love, he can know that God also inclines toward him in love. A person develops devotion toward what he always calls his God in the universe. We cannot, in turn, call the opposite of devotion “devotion.” We cannot speak of divine devotion toward human beings. What, in this context, is the exact opposite of devotion? What shines back toward devotion when it looks up to its Divine? That which it cannot itself encompass with its will or its power shines back toward it: the Mighty One and, when it comes to the Divine, the Almighty. What we have cultivated in devotion during our youth shines back at us in old age as a life-giving force, and what we call the divine—to which we have turned in devotion—radiates back to us as an experience of omnipotence. This is the sense of omnipotence, whether we gaze up at the starry sky in its infinite splendor—and our devotion blazes forth toward that which surrounds us on all sides and which we cannot comprehend—or whether we look up to that which, in this or that form, is our invisible God, who lives through and soars through this universe. From our devotion, we look up toward omnipotence; and from this sensation arises the realization that we cannot penetrate it, nor can we achieve union with that which stands above us, except by first rising up from below to meet it in devotion. We draw near to omnipotence by immersing ourselves in devotion. Therefore, strictly speaking, one can speak of such omnipotence, whereas, with a refined sense of language, one cannot actually speak of an “omnilove.” Power can grow and increase. If someone has power over two or three beings, he is twice or three times as powerful. Power grows in direct proportion to the number of beings over whom it extends. It is different with love. If a child is loved by a mother, this does not preclude the mother from loving a second child with the same degree of love, and likewise the third and fourth. Love does not need to double or triple at all. And it is a false expression when someone says: “I must divide my love because it is to extend to two beings.”—From the perspective of a refined sense of language, it is just as incorrect to speak of “omniscience” as it is to speak of an indefinite “universal love.” Love has no degree and cannot be defined by numbers.

[ 23 ] Love is one part of devotion, and surrender is the other part of devotion. The nature of surrender is similar to that of love. We can be surrendered to one unknown entity and to another unknown entity, if we have this feeling of surrender at all. Devotion can intensify in degree, but it does not need to be divided or multiplied simply because it is directed toward a number of beings. Because these two—love and devotion—do not need to be divided, they do not require the “I,” which is meant to form a unity, to lose itself or become fragmented when it surrenders in love to an unknown being and turns in devotion toward another unknown being. Thus, love and devotion are the true guides upward toward the unknown, and the educators of the soul from the intellectual soul to the conscious soul. Just as the overcoming of anger educates the feeling soul, and the sense of truth and the pursuit of truth educate our intellectual soul, so does devotion educate our conscious soul. Through the education of the soul of consciousness in devotion, human beings attain ever more knowledge and ever richer insight. This devotion, however, must be guided and directed from the standpoint of a self-consciousness that does not shy away from the light of thought. When we let love flow forth, it is love’s own value that allows us to bring our true selves along; when we are inclined toward devotion, it is devotion’s own value that likewise allows us to bring our true selves along. We can, indeed, lose ourselves—but we need not. That is what matters; and this must not be forgotten, especially when the impulse of devotion is applied to education. No blind, unconsciously operating devotion may be employed. The cultivation of devotion must go hand in hand with the cultivation of a healthy sense of self.

[ 24 ] If mysticism throughout the ages—and Goethe—refers to that indefinable and unknown to which the soul is drawn as the Eternal Feminine, then we may call that which must constantly permeate devotion, without being misunderstood, the Eternal Masculine; for just as the Eternal Feminine, in the sense of mysticism and Goethe, is present in both men and women, so too is this Eternal Masculine—this healthy sense of self—present in all devotion, in both men and women. And when Goethe’s *Chorus mysticus* is presented to us in the spirit of mysticism, we may—having come to know the mission of devotion, which leads us toward the unknown—add that which must permeate devotion: the Eternal Masculine.

[ 25 ] Thus we can now correctly understand this experience of the human soul—in which all devotion converges, in which all devotion finds its expression and culminates—the union with the Unknown toward which we strive: this Unio mystica, this mystical union—we can now grasp it correctly in light of what we have heard about the mission of devotion.

[ 26 ] Any unio mystica leads to the ruin of the soul if the ego loses itself by seeking to unite with some unknown entity. The self also offers nothing of value to such an unknown entity if it has lost itself. To sacrifice oneself to the unknown—to offer one’s own self to the unknown in the Unio mystica—requires that one have something to sacrifice, that one has become something. If one unites a weak self—a self that is not strong in itself—with that which is above us, then our union has no value. The Unio mystica has value only when the strong “I” ascends to the regions of which the *Chorus mysticus* speaks to us. When Goethe speaks to us of the regions to which higher devotion can lead, in order to gain the highest insights there, his *Chorus mysticus* tells us with these beautiful words:

All that is fleeting
Is but a parable;
That which is inadequate
Here becomes an achievement;
That which is indescribable
Here is accomplished;
The eternally feminine
Draws us upward.

[ 27 ] Then the properly understood *Unio mystica* can respond: Yes

All that is fleeting
Is but a parable;
That which is inadequate
Here becomes an achievement;
That which is indescribable
Here is accomplished;
The eternally masculine
Draws us upward.