The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. How Does One Defend Theosophy?

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! The lecture delivered here last Sunday, “How Does One Refute Theosophy?,” was intended, so to speak, to set the tone for the remarks that are to be presented to us today. That lecture was intended, in particular, to show that this fundamental attitude—which those who immerse themselves in theosophy should adopt—should contain nothing, absolutely nothing, of fanaticism or the fanatical defense of any assumptions, assertions, hypotheses, or the like. It may have become clear from the overall tone of the last lecture that the arguments raised against Theosophy should not be taken to mean that they are now to be refuted, piece by piece, in today’s lecture. Rather, they should be regarded as representing a part—admittedly only a part—of those considerations, impressions, and feelings that are bound to arise in the soul of anyone who approaches theosophy from the perspective of our contemporary consciousness. In other words, the arguments raised against theosophy should not be regarded as unfounded, but rather, on the contrary, as highly valid in the context of our contemporary consciousness—as real, rather than merely supposed, difficulties that arise precisely when a person seeks the path to theosophy today with a scientific and moral conscience. From this, however, I would also like to derive, in a sense, the right to speak in today’s lecture in such a way that everything presented today in favor of theosophy is viewed in the same light as that which, to a certain extent, was brought about by the refutation of theosophy presented last Sunday, so to speak, “on a trial basis.”

[ 2 ] The content of Theosophy has been briefly characterized here in a few words, and it has been explained how one should view the sources of Theosophy—the actual origins of those insights that Theosophy is intended to convey. These sources do not reveal themselves to ordinary, normal consciousness, as it has developed in humanity’s present stage of evolution, but they reveal themselves only when the human soul subjects itself to certain inner exercises that lead beyond the experiences one can have within the normal horizon of consciousness.

[ 3 ] Now, as was already mentioned in the last lecture, it is particularly controversial in contemporary science that one seeks to ascend to a view of the world that arises only after certain inner experiences of the soul have been undergone—experiences in which, as it were, the human subject has distanced itself from external impressions, has emptied itself of the ordinary perceptions of the physical world and also of those thoughts that can be linked to these perceptions. When the human subject, as it were, artificially brings about the moment that otherwise occurs upon falling asleep—but in a radically different way—so that all other impressions fall silent, as do all thoughts and sensations that these external impressions have evoked, and when, through the processes of inner soul life, not the unconsciousness of sleep sets in, but rather such powerful inner forces are unleashed that consciousness remains, and when forces are drawn up from the soul that otherwise slumber beneath the surface of consciousness, then what arises in the soul is what one might call a higher power of perception, which may be described, in Goethe’s words, as “spiritual eyes” and “spiritual ears.” Such a soul then finds itself on a higher level in the same situation as a person born blind who has the good fortune to regain sight through an operation and before whom the world of light and colors now opens up. Just as the realities of light and color were present around the person born blind even before he underwent surgery, so too are all the things and beings of the spiritual world—of which theosophy or spiritual science speaks—present around us; but we can only become consciously aware of them when our spiritual eyes and ears are, as it were, roused from their slumber by inner, soul-spiritual energies. Then a new world appears before us.

[ 4 ] It has been said that external science must take offense at this very thing precisely because this science strives, with the utmost seriousness and deep conscientiousness, to make the content of knowledge independent of the human subject—that is, of what we experience within ourselves. For it is rightly objected that what a person experiences within is nothing other than something subjective, which everyone experiences in a different way and which, therefore, can have for us only an individual, subjective validity. “Let a person, therefore,” an opponent of theosophy might say, “draw whatever convictions about a world other than the physical world from these subjective inner experiences—he may settle that for himself, for such things cannot be substantiated in the same way as those we gain through experimentation, scientific observation, or historical research.” – That is probably why many will come to terms with these matters and say: Certainly, external research has its limits; it cannot lead us into the realms that, according to the longings of our soul, may be the most valuable to us; but whatever leads beyond the realm of external research must be an intimate experience of the human soul; each person must come to terms with this for themselves, for everyone must have their own particular picture of what lies beyond sensory perception, based on the way in which their entire inner life has developed.

[ 5 ] If it were true that everyone must have their own particular conception of what lies beyond sensory observation, then theosophy would indeed be untenable; then everything we seek to draw from the sources of spiritual science would be merely something that each individual would hold as their own subjective conviction, and it could not possibly claim any kind of objective validity. But that is not the case. And the fact that this is not the case can only be demonstrated to a person by undergoing the soul exercises themselves; it can only be demonstrated by the inner experiment that a person undertakes in order to reach such sources of supersensory knowledge.

[ 6 ] Now, in an introductory lecture such as this, one can only sketch out in broad strokes what this is all about. A comparison of the waking state—which conveys to us external impressions and the thoughts associated with them—with the sleeping state, in which external impressions fall silent, reveals that our inner soul life, as it exists in the waking state, weakens in its own powers as we fall asleep and is no longer able to draw up powers of cognition from its depths; hence, as we fall asleep, the darkness and gloom of unconsciousness spread. For this reason, anyone who wishes to consciously undergo this state must artificially bring about moments of seclusion from the external world in which they nevertheless have an inner experience; they must awaken strong inner forces. This is achieved through that mental process called meditation and through the concentration of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. If we do not merely use what the external world offers us as a means of gaining knowledge or as impulses for our everyday actions—including moral actions—but if we begin to powerful impressions from the external world by first immersing ourselves in them inwardly—by detaching these strong impressions from the external world so that we do not use them immediately, but rather look beyond the immediate external experience and allow the impressions to take effect in our soul, separated from everything external—then this gradually leads us to the unfolding of forces that lie dormant within the soul. Let this be illustrated with an example.

[ 7 ] We can see in the world how one person helps another, how one acts charitably toward another. This can evoke such a strong impulse of compassion in our souls that this impulse brings tears to our eyes. We may be so inclined that every time we witness such an act, we experience this impulse of compassion. This can be so intensified within us that, when another’s distress comes before us, we ourselves act charitably—putting ourselves in the other’s place and allowing ourselves to be moved by the impression of the outside world to an act of compassion. We may perhaps be able to develop this to the point where we can evoke the same inner mood—which is expressed in the shedding of tears—even when we have merely an image of such an act before us. There are people—and they are very numerous—who, for example, when reading a novel and coming to a passage where merely the image of human misery and human compassion is conjured up before their minds, get tears in their eyes. They are so moved by what is merely an image of external reality that a similar impulse is triggered in their soul as one that can otherwise only be triggered by an external impression of physical reality.

[ 8 ] But let us now suppose that, in our ordinary, normal state of consciousness, we simply think of such an act; then we will already sense how infinitely weaker this impulse is, how we cannot heighten it to the point where it brings tears to our eyes. If, through inner spiritual exercises, we come to think a thought connected with human compassion, with a willingness to help, with putting one soul in the place of another—without being prompted in any way by the outside world—if we allow such a thought to rise freely within our soul purely from inner impulses and can immerse ourselves in this thought to the point of identifying completely with it, we may still be able to conjure up the image of external reality before our eyes, and if we allow this image to grow so strong that it stirs our soul as deeply as an external impression otherwise would, then we have made a start on what might be called “meditation on sensation.” If one then has the patience to actively engage in such a meditation of sensation not just once, not fifty times, but again and again within the soul, one will notice that immersing oneself in such sensations—derived from external reality—conjures up forces from our soul that nurture it from within. To those who practice such exercises, these images appear far more vivid than, for example, the images of the imagination we conjure up in ordinary life. When one immerses oneself in such meditations again and again, one actually experiences oneself as if one were completely filled with inner life, with inner penetration—a state one otherwise feels only when one has imprinted this inner life upon one’s outer body. Indeed, through this engagement of the soul, through this imbuing of the soul with what radiates from meditation—as something that enters our consciousness directly—one experiences something that makes one say to oneself: “With all that through which you have otherwise separated yourself from your physical body in sleep, you now live so intensely and vividly as you are otherwise only able to live when you are present with your soul in your physical body and your eyes, ears, and other sense organs convey external impressions and sensations to you.”

[ 9 ] What I am describing here cannot be proven theoretically in any way; rather, it can only be experienced. But when it is experienced, it is present in our consciousness as an immediate inner feeling: You are now free from your outer body; yet you are not living in nothingness, but in a spiritual-soul nature that is just as real to you as the experiences of the physical body usually are. – Such a state of consciousness must precede research and understanding in the spiritual world. And whoever has managed to develop such a state of consciousness within themselves is then about as far along as someone who has gathered and prepared everything for an external experiment, so that they need only set all the relevant factors in motion to discover a law of nature through this experiment. He has then reached the point where he can penetrate to the sources of the spiritual world, which are always around us, just as light and colors are always around one born blind, but can only be seen by him once he has regained his sight through an operation.

[ 10 ] It must, however, be emphasized time and again that such spiritual exercises are necessary only for research and for experiencing the spiritual world, but that they are not necessary for understanding what the spiritual researcher—who has prepared himself in this way—brings down from the spiritual worlds and presents as the results of spiritual research. For what is communicated in Theosophy can be fully understood through the natural sense of truth and through sound human logic. Thus, while the facts and beings of the spiritual world can be investigated only by the spiritual researcher, they can be rationally understood by any person with a natural sense of truth and sound logic who is not biased by any preconceptions.

[ 11 ] So we must say: The sources of this worldview, which we call “Theosophy,” are attained only through the development of the soul. Now, if someone were to object: Everything that human beings produce as insights that are unchecked by external reality is the opposite of scientific rigor in the modern sense, because it is, after all, something individual, and each person must arrive at a different conclusion—then it must be emphasized, on the other hand, that while what is said is certainly true, it applies only to certain preparatory stages of spiritual development. If a person wishes to advance to such insight, he must struggle through all manner of difficult and serious inner conflicts—through much that has subjective meaning only for him—and he comes to realize how difficult it is to isolate himself, in a certain sense, from the world with which we are, after all, so deeply interwoven, through these subjective inner experiences. This gives rise to a whole series of truly immense difficulties. For there is much within us that holds significance only for ourselves. But then a point is reached in the development of the soul where one knows directly through one’s consciousness: Now you have gone beyond the subjective; now you experience in your soul truths and essential realities that are free from everything that interferes with your insights from within yourself. Now one has the immediate feeling that one has entered the world of spiritual-soul realities.

[ 12 ] A simple reflection shows that even within our ordinary sciences there is one that stands out in a very special way, in which knowledge is attained in precisely the manner just described: mathematics. Even with the simplest mathematical operations, you can see for yourself that truths are attained in complete isolation of the soul. But anyone who has discovered such a truth knows that anyone who performs the same operations must inevitably arrive at the same results. No one can understand the Pythagorean theorem—even when the mental operations are visualized on the blackboard—other than by internally experiencing the relationships in question. Anyone who has once worked out the Pythagorean theorem inwardly knows that everyone else must arrive at the same result. This is true of all mathematical knowledge. And we can now say that the method of spiritual research proceeds according to the same principle as mathematics, which is considered the most certain of the sciences. Millions of people may think differently about a mathematical theorem, but whoever has once experienced it inwardly knows that it is true. And so it is with the insights gained in the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] Anyone wishing to raise epistemological objections might say: It is true that, as you say, mathematical knowledge works this way. Mathematical truths are attained in the deepest recesses of the soul, but they cannot be directly applied to being. We can use mathematical insights—as someone might say—to understand relationships within being and within reality, but no mathematics can determine whether real entities that embody these mathematical laws actually exist; reality itself must be experienced in a way other than through mathematical judgments.

[ 14 ] This objection is entirely justified. In fact, it is one of those objections that I would like to see raised forcefully against the theosophist, so that he does not have an easy time defending theosophy. It is a weighty objection. But what must be considered in response is that when a person experiences mathematical judgments, they do not experience one thing that they do, however, experience when they ascend to a supersensible world as has been described. What no mathematical judgment can provide is the perception of one’s own “I,” the “I” becoming an object, the encountering of the self—as if we were to step outside ourselves with our personality and observe ourselves. No matter how many mathematical judgments we form—judgments that fill the horizon of our consciousness—we cannot find our “I” as an object. This is the essential thing that mathematics cannot give us: the intuitive experience of one’s own “I.” In mathematical judgments, we have remained within our personality; through them, we cannot penetrate into external reality. The moment we face ourselves, we have stepped out with a part of our being and entered into objectivity, and we feel ourselves to be within things, within reality. This is the difference: that while mathematics does lead to inner certainty, it does not pave the way to reality. Super-sensory knowledge, on the other hand, opens the path to reality. Therefore, those who advance along the path of spiritual research also gain a new concept, a new idea of reality. And with this new concept of reality—which is at the same time a form of intuition—human beings can once again approach the contemplation of human life. Let us illustrate this with an example.

[ 15 ] We see how human life unfolds from birth to death. As far as sensory perception is concerned, a human being comes into existence at birth and ends their life at death. As for the time before birth or conception and the time after death, external sensory perception—outward observation—can reveal nothing about the objective essence of the human being. But when a person turns their gaze inward and has learned to view humanity from the outside in the manner just described, it becomes evident to them at the same time that underlying this entire external development of the human being—which the senses can perceive—is a supersensible reality that is the true master craftsman, the builder, the shaper, and the organizer of this physical organism. And one becomes aware of how, from the very moment of birth—which appears so enigmatic to us—human development begins in a mysterious way. There we can see how, from a deep foundation of human existence, certain features gradually take shape in the child’s still indeterminate facial features over the course of the years, and how the child’s gestures and abilities manifest themselves ever more distinctly from the inside out. Even the brain, the instrument of our thinking, is far from having reached full development after birth; it is still being reshaped and structured. Yet the brain is the instrument of our spiritual experience. If we now continue to observe human life through the lens of spiritual science, we must ask ourselves: When, exactly, does the moment arrive in human life when the soul-spirit is fully capable of making use of its instrument, the brain? This is certainly not yet the case in the early years of childhood. Otherwise, the child would not need to acquire various things through impressions from the external world and through imitation, and we would not need to educate the child. Only in the course of our first years of life do we grow into the ability to use the brain as a tool. From a spiritual scientific perspective, we can express this as follows: Our brain only becomes capable of becoming the tool of the “I” in the course of our life.

[ 16 ] If we now look back from the point in life when we are around twenty years old—or perhaps even beyond our twenties, when we have fully learned to use our brain—to earlier stages of life, then spiritual scientific observation reveals that the brain, which our “I” uses as an instrument in later life, is first developed and shaped during the early years of childhood. It then becomes evident to the spiritual researcher, who observes human development with the open eye of the seer, that what later enables a person to use the brain is precisely the same as what worked on the formation and shaping of the brain through forces that no physical eye can see. Anyone who wishes to approach these matters with reason might say: “So you are telling us that you see, as it were, a childlike spiritual atmosphere surrounding the child’s head, and that through this childlike atmosphere—a kind of head aura—spiritual forces radiate out, working on the child’s brain to shape it in such a way that it can later become an instrument of the ‘I.’” Then, you say, this head-aura—this luminous formation visible only to the seer’s eye, which surrounds the child’s head like an astral formation—slips inward so that later, from within, it may use as an instrument that which it itself helped to shape during childhood. You therefore assert that what later makes use of the brain is, in fact, present in childhood as a spiritual formation—a brain aura—recognizable to the seer’s supersensible eye; that it thus advances from the outside toward the inside, first actively working on the human organism, then entering its interior, and now, as the “I,” observing and comprehending the world with the instrument that has come into being through its own power.

[ 17 ] When reason approaches this statement of the seer’s consciousness, it can conclude that every tool must have been created by forces akin to the forces that use that tool. No tool can be put to use in intelligent human culture that has not been produced by human intelligence itself. And reason can easily extend this line of thought to conclude that, in fact, the tool later utilized by “I”-forces must have been formed from these very same “I”-forces.

[ 18 ] Once one has progressed so far in spiritual contemplation that one can see the spiritual-soul aspect of the human being at work in the configuration of the human form as it develops into life, then one is not far from saying to oneself: So, fundamentally, it is the spiritual-soul aspect that is involved in what constitutes the physical body. – And then one can go on to say: So we must recognize the spiritual-soul aspect in such a way that it has an existence prior to the physical-bodily, because the physical-bodily must first be shaped! – However, one must now proceed further with observation and ask oneself: What has been formed within the human being through the human being’s own spiritual-soul aspect—what has developed as the brain—does this present itself to us in such a way that we must ask: Is that which works within the human being before birth the same for every human being? Or does it present itself to us in such a way that we must say it is individual to each human being?

[ 19 ] A genuine observation of life will, of course, have to acknowledge that every human being is uniquely constituted, that he therefore also possesses individual abilities which depend on the use of his external instruments and his external powers; and for this reason, he cannot be constructed solely on the basis of a general human nature, but must be built upon human individuality.

[ 20 ] This means that when we ascend to the Creator of the human form, who reveals Himself to the clairvoyant eye in the child’s aura, we must say: It is already individually shaped. And when we, as knowledgeable educators, observe the growing human being, we can see how certain human talents and abilities make their way into life—in one person in one way, in another in another way. And of these specific talents and abilities, we must say: They seek out what is present in a particular cultural region; for example, one talent develops toward the artistic, another toward the artisanal, a third more toward the intellectual, and so on, and this then becomes what exists on Earth in our present life.

[ 21 ] But where does what is present in our current life come from? What is it when we observe, in a developing child, the moment when it begins to strive toward the activities that are part of our culture? What the child seeks in these activities has, after all, developed entirely outside the child. The child possesses this or that specific ability, this or that very special talent. But if we wish to recognize this connection, we must go back in our culture to earlier stages. If such a childlike individuality were completely unrelated to what happens on Earth, it might indeed have an inclination toward something general, but not toward something specific that has grown out of our cultural life. Therefore, it will seem understandable that what appears as a child’s individuality must have acquired certain affinities in the past with what it seeks within culture for its ability. Therefore, we cannot help but think: The souls that descend and display this or that ability were once on Earth before and prepared themselves back then for what they are now developing such affinities toward.

[ 22 ] In normal consciousness, however, we only have the ability to think this. But then we see how spiritual science can rise from this mere possibility of thought to the direct perception of facts. And one might now ask: Where, then, does that which the spiritual researcher calls the “childlike aura”—which first sinks into the inner self in order to make use of the brain as its instrument—manifest itself to external observation?

[ 23 ] Yes, this moment stands out very clearly. It is remarkable in that every person who looks back, who tries to recall their earlier circumstances, can only go back to a certain point—then the memory breaks off, and at most, only their parents or those who were around them in their youth can tell them what came before. Nevertheless, every person must assume that their “I” already existed in the times they cannot recall. For the careful observer, the point in time to which a person’s memory extends coincides with the point at which the person, as a child, learns to say “I” to themselves—that is, when “I”-consciousness emerges. A person’s memory also extends back only to this point. What lies before the awakening of “I”-consciousness eludes recollection. Here we have a turning point in human life: the child who previously said, “Little Karl is here,” or “Little Marie is here,” now says, “I am here.” At the time when a person begins to feel themselves as “I,” clairvoyant consciousness perceives the emergence of what has been termed the “childhood aura.”

[ 24 ] From this fact, we may conclude that our retrospective memory is by no means decisive for the existence of our “I.” We may also emphasize that there is undoubtedly a time in our human life when the “I” exists, and yet a person cannot find this “I” in their retrospective memory. They can only go back to a certain point. But anyone who were to believe that the “I” only awakens then, or that it is imprinted on a person at the very moment when a child learns to say “I,” would be believing something absurd. If our “I” extends further back than our memory reaches, we need not be surprised when spiritual science states that it is possible to extend the “I” even further—beyond birth and into past lives. But precisely to gain insight into the “I” during those stages of development for which it cannot reach into consciousness in the course of normal development, one can gradually advance through very specific spiritual exercises, meditations, and so on. Only the most basic of such spiritual exercises will be described here.

[ 25 ] If a person wishes to look into the future, he must cultivate within himself a very specific state of mind, which can be described as “serenity.” If he can look into the future with serenity, with absolute equanimity, then he has made great strides toward attaining a higher level of insight. This state of mind can be described something like this: One says to oneself: Let the world praise us, let the world condemn us; let this or that be imposed upon us by the future—whether terrible or joyful—I will stand upright and accept whatever may come with equanimity, and face the future fearlessly. – This is easy to describe—but it can only be attained through long, meditative spiritual practice, as described at the beginning of today’s lecture. But when a person develops this state of mind within themselves, they first learn to break through the barrier that separates ordinary consciousness from the experiences of early childhood; then they learn to look back into those early years, and beyond. In short, they thus gain access to what we might call a retrospective view of past earthly lives. We can cite as a specific method for this the attainment of a fearless attitude toward the future. Through absolute serenity toward the future, we acquire the ability to trace the course of our “I” back to the point where “I”-consciousness emerges in normal consciousness during the life between birth and death. The spiritual researcher need not stop there, however; rather, he can expand his consciousness beyond the ordinary, and what we call repeated earthly lives can become a real vision for him.

[ 26 ] There are still many objections that can be raised against what has been suggested today. However, my intention was merely to point out the paths along which methods can be found to defend theosophy. I have only been able to make a tentative start in this regard, but following this path may gradually lead to a defense of theosophy against such attacks, which, viewed from the other side, are entirely justified.

[ 27 ] The situation is similar when these attacks pertain, for example, to the moral realm, as was also hinted at in the last lecture. There we had to admit that those who say the following have a certain justification: Your teaching about repeated earthly lives and the carryover of life from one existence into the next actually supports selfishness at first, for it allows people to say: I must do good; for if I do evil, I will have to reap the fruits of that evil in the next life; but if I do good, I will also reap the fruits of that good. What can be derived from the carryover of one life into another is therefore nothing more than a subtle form of selfishness. And this can also be extended, to the greatest extent, to what is referred to as the workings of karma.

[ 28 ] If we want to explore this idea further, we might say something like the following. Let us consider, for example, a person who says to himself: I want to do what is good, because doing good brings me good results, and it is disadvantageous to do what is bad, because I will have to bear the consequences of doing what is bad anyway, so I will refrain from doing it. – Let’s compare such a person with another who, in a not entirely unnoble way, reflects on the things he must do in life between birth and death—for example, parents who make it a principle to raise their children to be truly capable people. If we could now ask these parents, in all conscience, why they do this, we might receive the following answer: “When we grow old, we will have children who have become capable members of society, who will then be able to care for and support us, whereas children whom we have allowed to remain incapable would offer us no support in our old age.” – Here we have a case that shows us how good is done for the sake of the benefits that may one day be expected, for such upbringing on the part of the parents would undoubtedly also be undertaken from a self-interested perspective. But let us now ask: To what end can such a perspective—even if it is a self-interested one—nevertheless lead? For the fact that people have the perspective of raising their children to be capable individuals so that they may have support from them in old age is—viewed entirely objectively—a matter that cannot be achieved through moral declamations; rather, it is something captured by the philosopher’s statement: “Preaching morality is easy; justifying morality is difficult.” – However, the point is not to say that one should not raise one’s children out of such a mindset, but rather to recognize the facts and consider how people have turned out under such influences. If parents devote every effort to raising their children to be capable individuals, and the children then become capable in life, they not only help their parents but also become truly valuable members of human society. But we will also be able to see another effect. For when parents begin to raise their children in this way—even if their initial motive was still very selfish—something unselfish soon awakens under such upbringing. What was originally selfish in nature is transformed into something unselfish, and in fact, what is achieved is something that certainly could not be achieved through mere moralizing: life itself educates us from selfishness to altruism, to freedom from selfishness.

[ 29 ] Just as with upbringing, so it is with the principle we might adopt: if we do good now and refrain from doing evil, we will reap the fruits of this present life in the next. This is, of course, selfish at first glance, but we must recognize that human nature possesses such selfishness. However, the point is not simply that this is the case, but rather the question: How is selfishness truly overcome through real life?

[ 30 ] Here we can see that a person may indeed accept the doctrine of karma in such a way that he tells himself: “I will refrain from doing evil because it brings me bad results, and I will do good because I will then reap good results”—but how, under the influence of this law, his selfish attitude is gradually transformed into a selfless one. And we see, in reality, the selfless gradually blossoming from selfishness.

[ 31 ] Therefore, we must say: No matter how beautiful the principles a set of ethics may establish, if it merely preaches the good, it is in fact like a person who stands in front of a stove and says: “Come on, dear stove, realize that it is in your nature to heat the room.” – You can stand there and preach for a long time; it won’t make the room any warmer. But if we spare ourselves the sermon and treat the stove in such a way that a combustion process can take place within it—that is, if we feed it coal—then it will warm the room, and in doing so we establish its “stove morality” without preaching. The same is true of human beings. It is clear to anyone familiar with psychology how little is accomplished in life by merely preaching morality. Morality must flow into human nature as a force. If we spare ourselves all preaching about lofty principles and can instead instill the doctrine of karma as a living force into the human soul—as it were, as fuel for the soul—then it may well be that this doctrine is initially accepted out of selfishness, but it will thereby set the soul’s forces ablaze, so that selfless action—arising from compassion—can then develop out of that self-interest.

[ 32 ] Thus, with regard to ethics, Theosophy is a reality that we do not merely assimilate as a doctrine, but that we absorb as a body of ideas that work within the soul and transform us into different people. And no one—unless they are abnormally inclined—will interpret the doctrine of karma in such a way as to say: “I still have many lives ahead of me; I still have time until my next life to become a decent person.”—No one can think that way. Whoever truly internalizes the doctrine of karma knows: You will experience the fruits of your present life in the next life; if you lay the foundation now for becoming a decent person, you can be one in the next life; but if you do not create the causes for becoming a decent person now, you cannot become one in the next life—and would thus lay the causes for becoming an indecent, perhaps even an evil person. – When the doctrine of karma is properly understood, it is impossible to take selfishness to the extreme; for, when correctly understood, it will always lead us not only to transform selfishness into altruism but also to realize that we must not rely in a fatalistic way on what fate imposes upon us. We recognize that we ourselves have set the causes in motion that then operate through karma.

[ 33 ] Now we can address the objections that might be raised against theosophy from a religious standpoint. It can be said: Yes, the theosophist acknowledges that within the human being lives a Supreme Being, which is like a drop from the ocean of the Divine. Thus, what a person is meant to acquire—what they can attain—is, so to speak, placed within their own soul as a divine power; and with the mindset arising from such a disposition, one cannot then develop that devotion, that self-sacrificing merging into the Being that permeates and animates the world. The mood—one might say—that the truly religious person feels in the most selfless devotion to the divine Being that permeates the universe would be compromised by the theosophical mood, which locates a spark of the Divine within the human being himself as his “higher self,” which gradually fights its way up to the standpoint that Paul characterized when he said: “Not I—but Christ in me!”—where it becomes one with the Christ-essence or with what Theosophy generally recognizes as such an essence. And one must say: here, everything that a human being can recognize is isolated from what permeates and interweaves the entire universe. But is not another approach possible? If one takes what has been described in the best sense, one will be able to say to oneself: So a part of the divine power lives within you. You are not given merely to yourself, but you stand here endowed with a part of the divine power. And when you have gone on for a while—in this life or in the next—then consider what your duty was. It was your duty to nurture the germ, the seed of divine power, that has been placed within you—in other words, to make yourself more and more like what this power demands of you. Gradual development, gradual perfection, becomes a duty, so that the divine power within you may spring forth ever more vigorously. Theosophy does not call for a religious sentiment that consists solely in mere devotion to the Divine, but rather one that says to itself: I must work on my perfection, for if I do not, I leave the divine seed within me undeveloped, and I will then become not an image, but a caricature of the Divine. But I must not become that. I have a duty to my perfection.

[ 34 ] This is active, devoted surrender to the Divine. It is a religious disposition that calls upon people to do more and more to advance their understanding, to care more and more for their morality, and to strive more and more to develop those powers that are inherent in the soul as divine powers. Thus we live into the future with a religious disposition that does not merely impart a passive devotion to the Divine, but rather a disposition that calls upon us to make our “I” ever more divine. In the face of the Divine, which permeates and animates the world, it would be the greatest dereliction of duty if we were to leave our “I” imperfect. We must not leave the talent we have been given unused; we must put that talent to work. This most genuine, active spirit must be taken into account when speaking of the religious element that can arise from theosophy.

[ 35 ] Thus, one can see that there are many things that must first be mentioned in the elements to demonstrate that, on the one hand, theosophy can strengthen life, transform selfishness into altruism, and evoke a religious mood that can increasingly foster active religiosity for the future. This is the other side of the question we considered last time. We may therefore say: Certainly, the objections and refutations that can be raised against theosophy are valid, but then we can respond to these objections as has now been outlined, and we can consult our whole being—not merely our intellect and reason in a one-sided way—and we can say to ourselves: Perhaps it is true after all that there are things which are such that one must acknowledge they begin only where reason ends. Then we must set our whole being in motion, and it must decide. But this decision can be made by every single soul, by every individual. Thus, Theosophy is the spiritual element that speaks most intensely to human individuality, calling upon human individuality to make the highest decision even in the face of reason.

[ 36 ] When a person feels immersed in such living and sacred impulses, these impulses gradually lead them to the path that allows them to recognize: You stand here on this Earth; with everything in you that is physical and sensory, you belong to the physical and sensory world of earthly human beings, and with everything that can flow from the spiritual world into your spiritual and soul life, you belong to a spiritual world.

[ 37 ] You receive your mission from the spiritual world, and your task is to imprint upon the entire process of Earth’s evolution what you are able to bring down from the spiritual world. Your mission is to serve as a mediator between the earthly process and the spiritual forces that are pressing toward the Earth and seeking to flow into earthly existence. If, through deepening your understanding of theosophy, you come to recognize that this is so, and if you can transform this theosophical deepening into a mindset that gives you that infinitely blissful fulfillment of the spirit and the heart—which can express itself in the awareness of your connection both with the temporal, finite, as well as with the infinite, timeless—the eternal and the transitory—then you can say to yourself that your being is rooted in the eternal, that although you are bound to the earth as a physical human being, it is only so that you may realize the eternal in earthly form through your mission.

[ 38 ] Such a mindset can become theosophy when it is transformed within a person through an overall state of mind that can be artistically expressed with the words:

They speak to the human senses
The things in the vastness of space
They change with the passage of time
The human soul lives in awareness
Unlimited by the vastness of space
And undeterred by the passage of time
In the realm of spiritual eternity.