The Rudolf Steiner Archive

38. The Ideals of Humanity and the Ideals of the Initiates

[ 1 ] Those who have a certain inclination toward intellectual life—“who must choose their own heroes on the path up to Olympus”—will, over time, encounter many things they have absorbed from art and science that seemed to them to be ideals. Alongside this is the world of practical people, who associate the concepts of “ideal” and “idealism” with daydreaming and naivety.

[ 2 ] One of those who best captured the concept of the ideal is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He once said to a group of young people: “We know as well as anyone else—if not better—that ideals cannot be directly applied in real life. But those others who lack a sense of this may wait for now.” Ideals cannot be applied every day like eating and drinking; but for the idealist, ideals are the great, effective forces of human life—those forces that he draws down from the invisible realms to introduce into the visible world. It is true that the small, unimportant phenomena of external life can be experienced without significant ideals, but the great advances of humanity have been achieved only by those who are capable of rising from the realm of reality into the realm of ideals. It is not those who consider themselves practical who are the true agents of progress, but rather those whom the average person looks down upon as idealists.

[ 3 ] They say that idealists are people out of touch with reality. But in truth, the future is always out of touch with reality in the present. The idealist, however, is something entirely different from the pragmatist. The idealist is attuned to a completely different state of mind. He has entirely different spiritual experiences. We must cultivate a very specific way of feeling, and we cannot do a greater service for a child than to foster within them this state of mind, which constitutes not a dreamy but a practical idealism.

[ 4 ] This is the devotional state of mind. One must not come to understand certain ideals through the intellect; rather, it is the person who develops a reverent, devotional state of mind within themselves who comes to understand those ideals.

[ 5 ] In our youth, we possessed uncritical admiration, and there is nothing better we can do for ourselves than, for example, to cultivate the ability to admire a person so deeply that, when we hear about them—even before we have seen them—they appear to us as beautiful and worthy of admiration. Whoever has experienced many such feelings in their youth, whoever has learned to revere in this way, has truly cultivated a state of mind that gives them real power in life. The real is produced by the real. We gradually work our way toward generating real strength by learning to revere.

[ 6 ] This is a true lesson in life, and it aims to cultivate a devotional outlook on life. There is nothing better we can give to young people than this power to revere, this spirit of devotion, this sense of awe. We owe an infinite debt to that which we are able to revere uncritically. This is an inner experience that one must undergo in order to grasp its full significance. Through this, a person arrives at what is called the impersonal.

[ 7 ] Exerting effort selflessly in matters we have recognized as right, without any personal interest in them, enables us to develop powerful ideals.

[ 8 ] The great geniuses of world history became great by making matters that did not personally interest them their own. Furthermore, we attain this spirit of devotion when we do what we have recognized as right without regard for personal success. This does not contradict the pursuit of external results; but in the most important matters of our external lives, we should make decisions such that we can say: I almost certainly foresee that my first, second, or third attempt will fail, but I will undertake it nonetheless. — So do not focus on success. This is, of course, a radical statement, and many things will be different in real life; but what matters is the attitude.

[ 9 ] Ideas continue to have an impact on life. This can be seen in Herder’s *Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind*, the most beautiful introductory text on theosophy, whose ideas were absorbed by Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, and Schlegel. Of this work, Goethe said: “This is the most beautiful way in which ideas continue to have an effect in life, even though one so easily forgets their origin.” And with the great ideals of humanity’s spiritual leaders, forms also take shape. Even in the most mundane tasks of daily life, the geniuses of humanity transform people. To rise to the ideals, we must take spiritual creation into ourselves; we must revere that which soars above the mundane. It is a lack of discernment to see the mundane in the lives of the great geniuses, rather than seeing what transcends the mundane.

[ 10 ] Hegel says: Do you believe that any ideal is an abstraction? For me, an ideal is not an abstraction, but something quite concrete. — Idealism is not merely the recognition of ideals; rather, it is a mood, a feeling that must come alive within us, that must become a life force. The ideals of humanity are therefore the deepest forces at work within humanity. The great geniuses of humanity—the poets, composers, painters, sculptors—all these leaders of humanity are recorded in history, which some understand better and others less well. They stand at the forefront as the leaders of humanity; but those from whom they draw their strength stand behind them. Surveying and governing the ages are those who are little more than a name to humanity—namely, the “great Initiates.”

[ 11 ] The greatest among them—the founders of the major religions—have become known to humanity; but humanity does not know what they were truly like, deep within. The theosophical worldview is intended to make this knowledge popular once again.

[ 12 ] The one who imbued the entire Egyptian culture with the great wisdom of Egyptianism, who spiritually mastered it all—that is, in fact, the great Hermes, the Egyptian initiate!

[ 13 ] The figure to whom Indian culture traces its origins—Krishna—is actually a complete mystery in terms of his inner life.

[ 14 ] Only a few are granted the ability to look into the soul of the Buddha, and what went on in the soul of Zoroaster is visible to only a very few; the same is true of Pythagoras and Plato; then there is the incarnation of the Second Logos: Christ; then the great Initiate, the Unknown One from the Oberland—whom history does not even recognize—Master Jesus. Behind the greatest, we always find the greatest of all. Just as human beings are inspired by their leaders, so too are the leaders inspired by those who are even greater.

[ 15 ] So what is an initiate? It is someone who knows something about the hidden forces in the world—the deepest, most mysterious ones. As a rule, he possesses a great secret, and his mission is to make that secret effective in the world.

[ 16 ] True initiates will not deny that they are initiates, but they will say that it is impossible, at first, to reveal the deepest laws of existence, the hidden forces. An initiate may even speak of his secret in words, but the world will not take notice. Many among humanity are, in their outward profession, what one might call ordinary; he might be a shoemaker like Jakob Böhme, but he is not recognizable as an initiate to those around him. What he knows is a spiritual power—or a sum of powers—that must be introduced into humanity in the present by some means, and these powers work throughout the centuries, even if they do not take effect immediately.

[ 17 ] An initiate is one who knows what is to happen in the future, and who guides the course of human development in a grand, specific direction.

[ 18 ] Just as the chemist combines and controls certain substances, so does the initiate control spiritual powers.

[ 19 ] Anyone who wishes to attain a higher level of development must overcome the illusion of the personal self. As long as we retain even the mere appearance of individuality, we are still only a part of the organism. The hand, which withers when it is sawed off, is also merely a part of the organism—nothing in and of itself. Just as human beings are governed by the soul, so do those who recognize the laws of nature [of] the Earth speak of the Earth Spirit. This is the soul of the Earth, and all of us together with it are the body of the Earth Soul. We must not only recognize intellectually that the sense of self is an illusion; our innermost feelings and sensibilities must also recognize that we are parts of a whole.

[ 20 ] “My soul would be nothing without others,” says Angelus Silesius. When this illusion fades and a person is thus freed from his personality, able to surrender himself in this way, he becomes ready to receive a certain teaching, and this is a deeply inner experience of his soul. First and foremost, it is the greatest experience a person can have here on our earthly sphere.

[ 21 ] Even though we are part of a whole, we are still very special beings; we are a building block of the universe, which would collapse if we were removed.

[ 22 ] The initiate learns to recognize which letter he is in the universe, in the Book of the World; he comes to know his deepest, innermost being, which exists only once. He must recognize his letter, but everyone has a different letter that he must recognize for himself. All learning from the initiates consists in our being guided, in being shown the direction, but what we are, we must tell ourselves. No one else can understand this; no one else comprehends this deep mystery; only each person can understand it for themselves. Having reached the point where we possess the “inner word”—the letter—enables us to develop spiritual powers.

[ 23 ] And what is the value of all this? While it must be admitted that people argue about many, many things and are at odds over them, there is nevertheless a certain realm of truth where only inner experience is decisive. People argue because of their passions, their desires, their cravings, and their instincts—but wherever pure thought, passionless thought, reigns, there is no strife. But one must view thought in the pure heights of the ether.

[ 24 ] And very few are capable of that! This unified realm—the purified thought floating at the level of the ether—harmonizes people.

[ 25 ] This is Manas! Human ideals are thoughts, but they are still intertwined with desires, cravings, and passions. People can still argue about their ideals because one person’s passions, ideas, and prejudices differ from another’s.

[ 26 ] But let us ascend to the ideals of the Initiates!—Through the innermost education of the human being, one has attained a state in which one’s passions, desires, and wishes have been purified, just as the thinking person has purified his thoughts. Christ therefore says: Sanctify your thoughts! — If a group of people were to gather who had purified their passions, desires, and wishes in this way, they would be in harmony, just as the thoughts of these people are in harmony. Once a person has undergone this purification and refinement, people find themselves united in something common that encompasses them all; they are in harmony. What develops in this way is the budhi, which lies in embryonic form within all human beings.

[ 27 ] Only those of a manasic nature are united in their thoughts. But those who have developed budhi are united in their feelings.

[ 28 ] Thus we perceive something spiritual, something divine, at the very core of human nature. The ideals of the initiates have become enthusiasm; that is: “in God”!

[ 29 ] For once they have developed the budhi, they can preserve what constitutes their deepest self—their essence, their word; then human beings can allow their living ideals to flow into humanity. A thought becomes powerful when it is animated by desires. If it is imbued with divine power, then it can be planted in the seed of human development; then it can carry that development through the centuries.

[ 30 ] Thus, the great Initiates, working from the hidden and unseen realm, have infused humanity with the true forces of the soul and have created, in the unseen, the phenomena that then unfold as events in history.

[ 31 ] Schiller calls this “the Form.” Man then becomes aware of the essential, the hidden, the supernatural.

[ 32 ] Schiller’s beautiful words apply to him:

Only the body is subject to those powers,
That weave the dark fate;
But free from every power of time,
The companion of blissful natures
Wanders above in the realms of light
Divine among gods, her form.

[ 33 ] The great Initiates do not contradict one another; they express themselves differently because they speak to different stages of human development, just as if one were to present the same truth in the same form to an eight-year-old boy as to a young man of 20.

[ 34 ] The initiates know that they are initiates. Their goal is to instill the necessary powers within humanity so that it may continue to evolve upward.