The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Christ in the Twentieth Century

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Once again this year, I would like to express my deep regret that I am unable to deliver the remarks I will be making today in your language. However, that is not possible, and so I ask for your forgiveness if I am forced to speak in a language unfamiliar to you about the topic that is the subject of today’s lecture.

[ 2 ] This subject is to be discussed from the perspective of spiritual science and spiritual research. This already suggests that the entire approach, the presentation, and the perspective through which Christ is to be considered in the twentieth century belong to a field that is still not very popular today, for spiritual science or theosophy is not only unpopular but also quite unknown in the broadest circles of our contemporary educational world. Yet it is precisely spiritual science that bears the mission of addressing the most important matters—the innermost realities of the human heart—in our time and the age to come. A brief consideration of what follows can make this clear to us—especially in relation to our topic today.

[ 3 ] Since I had the opportunity to speak here last year on a similar topic, a heated debate has taken place in Germany. In recent months, the words “Did Jesus Live?” could be seen on billboards in all of Germany’s major cities. Numerous lectures have been given—both for and against—addressing the question of whether Jesus ever lived at all. It is significant that there is absolutely no [external] evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was truly a historical figure—he whom millions of people have looked up to as the bearer of their greatest hopes, as the source of comfort in their deepest suffering. It is a significant fact that modern scholarship must raise the question of whether this universally beloved and revered figure ever lived at all, and that there is no historical evidence to confirm whether he actually lived.

[ 4 ] Just as it is significant that science has arrived at this position in its investigation of external facts, so it is also significant that in our time—though little acknowledged by the prevailing spirit of our age—a spiritual movement is asserting itself that, based purely on the findings of spiritual research, must declare: These facts of spiritual research establish the reality of Jesus with a certainty that no external document or tradition can provide. Where external research into facts loses the ability to prove the historical Jesus, spiritual research steps in, which will be increasingly able to prove with absolute certainty the reality of Christ Jesus as a historical fact.

[ 5 ] Our age has achieved great and monumental things in the field of external, physical research, and it is rightly proud of this. Spiritual research, however, has a duty to point out that it is possible to create still other instruments, still other tools—ones that cannot be made with the physical hands or seen with the physical eyes, but which can be produced by human beings if they develop the powers already present in their ordinary soul life—the powers of thinking, feeling, and willing—beyond the normal measure. Spiritual science must point out that the powers of thinking, feeling, and willing—as human beings initially possess them in the course of normal development—can be enhanced, and that even today, just as has always been the case since time immemorial, there are spiritual researchers who, in their research, use not only external instruments and tools but also develop those inner powers that lie dormant in the human soul.

[ 6 ] Anyone who sets out on this path as a researcher gains new organs of perception that reveal to them something that would otherwise have remained hidden —organs through which, on a higher level, the same thing occurs as happens on a lower level to a person born blind when he undergoes surgery [and thereby regains his sight], and who can then see the colors and shapes around him, which he previously knew only from the accounts of others. So it is with the spiritual world: it is reality, but only when a person is able to raise the powers slumbering within them to the level of clairvoyance—true clairvoyance, not pathological clairvoyance—does it become a fact they can experience for themselves.

[ 7 ] The same principle applies to spiritual research as to any other form of research: Just as a person in everyday life cannot always step into a laboratory and work with test tubes and other tools to extract nature’s secrets, so too, of course, can the average person not engage with everything that a spiritual researcher does. You can find more on this in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. But it must always be emphasized that this is similar to what the chemist investigates in his laboratory: One learns what he has discovered using his tools, and what has been discovered can then be understood through the natural will to truth. The same is true in spiritual science or theosophy: Individuals can become researchers and develop their powers of clairvoyance; they can then report on what can be perceived in the spiritual world, and this can then be understood through reason, through natural [rational] thinking. Today we shall consider one such result of spiritual research—and I ask you to receive it as you would if a chemist were telling you what he has discovered in his laboratory.

[ 8 ] Today, with regard to the conception of Christ—and with regard to our entire stance on the Christ problem—we find ourselves in a crucial, a truly exceptional epoch in human development. Believe me, anyone who stands on the ground of spiritual science is not quick to use the phrase: “We are in a transitional era.” — They know that this phrase has already been used for every age. They use it only when the spiritual context of events demands it, when something quite special is taking place in a particular era. We live in a time that spiritual research can compare only to the even more significant era of the last few centuries before the inception of Christianity, when people’s expectations were at their highest for an event that was bound to come and found expression in the words of John the Baptist: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven—the spiritual world—is at hand.” The spiritual researcher today lives with a similar sense of anticipation, and in a similar way we may speak to present-day humanity: We are on the threshold of a new revelation of Christ. However, it will be of a completely different nature than it was 1,900 years ago.

[ 9 ] What, then, does spiritual science mean by “Christ” when it speaks of the new revelation of Christ in the twentieth century? For spiritual science, Christ is the highest impulse that has entered into the development of humanity. All those who have ever been able to perceive the spiritual life of humanity with a clairvoyant eye have always spoken of the Christ, though they used different names. Even the great teachers of ancient India, who are usually referred to as the holy Rishis, spoke of the Christ. But how did they speak of him? They spoke in such a way that all who understood them could know: When they spoke of “Vishvakarman”—that was the name by which they designated Christ—they were speaking of the highest spiritual power to which a human being can rise when he immerses himself in his own soul forces—setting aside all that constitutes external, sensory perception—and looks out upon the great realities of the world or looks inward into his own inner being. When a person looks out into the world and perceives what unfolds in space and unfolds in time as Maya, as illusion, and sees, as it were, what underlies the sensory world spreading out behind this veil of Maya, the Vedic teaching calls this “Brahman.” When a person looks inward, toward their true self—which is a part of that which weaves and lives in the world—this is called “Atman.” Thus, the ancient Vedic teaching of Vishvakarman refers to that which weaves through space and time as “Brahman” and that which appears as inner revelation as “Atman.” But there was one thing the Vedic teachers repeatedly emphasized to their listeners: that only when a person frees themselves from all sensory perception—when they free themselves from everything visible in outer space—can they gain insight into the nature of Vishvakarman, Brahman, and Atman.

[ 10 ] Then came the time when another great leader in the development of humanity pointed to the Christ. Anyone who can look beyond names and labels knows that the great Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, spoke of the Christ revelation. What did Zarathustra say, drawing on his clairvoyance—which he had acquired in the same way that clairvoyance has been described here today—when he directed his listeners’ attention to the sun shining in the outer space? How did he speak of the sun? [He spoke thus:] When you look up at the sun and see the physical light of the sun, this physical light is only the garment of the spiritual being. This body of the spiritual being relates to what truly lives in the sun just as the outer human physicality relates to what, as the soul, spiritually permeates, interweaves, and animates the human body. – But he called this—the exact word is not important now—“aura” or “Ahura Mazdao.” To the inner eye, it is perceptible as an inner light in contrast to the outer physical body. To the clairvoyant eye, an aura is that which permeates the human being spiritually. Thus Zarathustra directed people’s gaze upward toward the sun: The outer light of the sun is the physical form of the sun spirit, which he—in contrast to the small inner light within the human being—called the “great aura.” For Zarathustra, the great solar aura was that which lives and works throughout the development of all humanity. For him, this was also what a person strives toward when they grasp the inner power of the soul, when they immerse themselves within themselves. Thus Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, spoke of the great sun spirit, but he spoke of it in such a way that it is a real, tangible spirituality that permeates and animates the world.

[ 11 ] Natural science studies the matter that makes up human beings and also exerts its influence out there in the universe. With regard to physicality, it views human beings as part of the macrocosm. But the longing within human beings has never ceased—not only to recognize their belonging to the vast universe in a material and sensory way, but also to find the connection between the spiritual that permeates them and fills them with life and the spiritual in the world. Today, many people harbor a longing for what Zoroaster proclaimed as the solar aura, the great aura. He spoke of the spirit that flows into the human heart just as sunlight flows onto the earth and brings plants to life. He expressed this particularly powerfully with the following words:

[ 12 ] I will speak; now come and listen to me, all of you who have come from near and far, longing for this. I will speak of the One who can be revealed to the spirit. And no longer shall the deceptive mind confuse those who are bound to material things and to the lower nature. I wish to speak of that which is the first and greatest in the world, that which He has revealed to me—the great Spirit of the Sun, Ahura Mazda.

[ 13 ] In this way, Zarathustra sought to suggest that it is possible to recognize spiritual realities just as one recognizes material ones, which fill space and unfold over time.

[ 14 ] Today, human beings feel the urge, the longing, to recognize that, in terms of their soul and spirit, they are born out of the world spirit. But there is no bridge that spans the chasm [between the sensory world and the supersensory world]. Spiritual science, however, seeks to build this bridge by developing the higher forces within the human soul. Spiritual science shows us how humanity evolves over time. The goal of this evolution is what the spiritual researcher, the scholar of spiritual science, attains by freeing himself from everything bound to external nature and external physicality. Humanity achieves this in a completely different way, slowly and gradually. It is precisely spiritual science that makes it so vividly clear to us that there is real progress, real development, with regard to the inner nature of the human being. Let us consider what the spiritual researcher is capable of: He is able to look into the spiritual world—not with ordinary, everyday perception, but only when, through a powerful inner act of will, he lifts his higher self out of his lower self, when he frees himself from ordinary, everyday perception; then he is able to see what, for example, is the subject of a contemplation such as today’s. For the spiritual scientist, it is necessary to bring about very special conditions. What is called clairvoyance and clairaudience—and which occurs spontaneously—is something entirely different from what the spiritual scientist brings about through a powerful act of will, by which he looks into the spiritual world independently of all physicality. But what the spiritual researcher attains at a higher level of spiritual research will gradually become a capacity of humanity’s natural powers. Humanity develops from epoch to epoch, from age to age. Ever higher powers of knowledge are acquired. That is why the spiritual researcher can speak of a new capacity for knowledge slowly developing within the progress of humanity. The spiritual researcher can—it must be said—in a certain sense also foresee something prophetically when he looks at the nature of souls in a particular epoch, at the forces that are striving toward a certain goal. And today these forces are striving toward a certain goal.

[ 15 ] When we look back at the way people have spoken of the Christ throughout the various ages, centuries, and millennia—albeit using different names—we find a vast difference compared to the way we must speak of him today. In all times before the beginning of our Christian era, those who truly understood spoke of the Christ as one who was to come, as one who in the future would reveal himself to humanity in an entirely different way. The spiritual researchers of that time said: Only those who can ascend into the higher worlds can now behold the Christ; they behold the Christ in the supersensible, in the spiritual sphere. — Just as the seers of India had beheld Vishvakarman, so had Zarathustra beheld Ahura Mazdao.

[ 16 ] Yet they always pointed out that the Christ would one day reveal Himself to other human faculties of perception as well—not merely to the heightened ones, but to ordinary human faculties of perception, to the natural human powers of cognition. Thus, all spiritual research speaks of the Christ not only as a spiritual force, a spiritual power that lives within humanity, but it speaks of the Christ in such a way that it is clear that the Christ — this being of whom it has been spoken at all times and of whom it will continue to be spoken in the field of spiritual science throughout the future — actually once took on human form, that he truly once lived as the historical Jesus.

[ 17 ] For spiritual science, Jesus of Nazareth is something very special. We can compare him to what the great engineer Archimedes once spoke of. He said: “Give me a fixed point for my lever, and I will move the Earth.” — He demanded a fixed point to which everything could be related. Something in space can only be understood if one has a fixed point to which it can be related. Likewise, for spiritual science, the course of events in time becomes understandable because there is a fixed point in historical development. And all the initiates, all the spiritual researchers before the beginning of our era, pointed to this fixed point as something that would come in the future. We, however, point to this fixed point as something that existed in the past, and we relate all events that will ever occur to this fixed point, to this hypomochlion. Therefore, within spiritual science—based on the facts and findings of that discipline—we speak of the historical Jesus as a reality. Spiritual science is also capable of understanding the Gospels in a new way by shedding light into their depths. As you delve deeper into spiritual science, you will see that it is precisely spiritual science that sheds new light on the understanding of the Gospels. But spiritual science does not base its knowledge of Christ Jesus on these documents. Everything it has to say, it says independently of all historical tradition. And it is only by comparing its findings with the Gospels that the Gospels themselves are illuminated more deeply.

[ 18 ] What, then, does the fact that the Christ walked among humanity in the physical body of Jesus—that he accomplished what we call the Mystery of Golgotha—teach us about how the spiritual always triumphs over the physical, and life always triumphs over death? What does this impulse mean for the further development of humanity? From the moment Christ dwelt in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth, human beings can now, when they descend into their own souls, experience within themselves as a spiritual force that which was previously merely cosmic—that which they could only attain when they were outside their bodies. Anyone whose worldview prevents them from acknowledging that a force from the cosmos has penetrated into individual human souls—that it has entered them to become a force continuing to work within these souls—will never be able to comprehend the Christ impulse.

[ 19 ] It was not before then, but only beginning with the events in Palestine, that a new impulse arose within human souls themselves. Since that time, there has been something in human souls that was not there before. People easily understand that something new arises in external chemical mixtures when a new substance is added. They find this easier to grasp than the fact that, back when Jesus walked the earth, something happened to all of humanity through the entry of something new into human souls from the supersensible realms. Just as a new substance continues to exert an effect within a mixture of substances, so too has a completely new force been at work in human souls ever since—a force that now carries these human souls farther and farther. Spiritual science shows us that, in regard to their innermost being, human beings have in fact been predisposed to something entirely new since the appearance of Christ on Earth—to something to which they were not predisposed before. Spiritual science must emphasize this with the utmost clarity; one might say, with all idealism.

[ 20 ] Spiritual science, however, shows us that this impulse, which was planted in the souls of human beings at that time, can develop only slowly; that it was scarcely perceptible in the early days and will only gradually—extending into the distant future—lead humanity to ever higher and higher levels. To understand what is taking place within human beings, we must now consider another fact that spiritual science investigates. Speaking of it, however, is somewhat dangerous in our time, because only a few people today are inclined to accept what must be said here on the basis of spiritual science. It shows us—and here we will temporarily digress from our main topic—the following: It reveals the deeper aspects of human nature; it shows us something that evolving humanity will certainly come to understand in a relatively short time, but which is still regarded by many today as a fantasy, as utter nonsense. What spiritual science reveals to us can be compared, on a higher level, to something that humanity has only recently recognized as true on a deeper level—this must be emphasized again and again.

[ 21 ] In the seventeenth century, not only laypeople but also learned scholars firmly grounded in the natural sciences believed that worms, insects, and even fish could develop from river mud without any corresponding seed having been placed in it. And it was the great naturalist Francesco Redi who, in the seventeenth century, uttered the significant phrase: “Life can only come from life.”—In a text from the seventh century A.D., for example, you will find a detailed explanation of how living things develop without a seed—presented with the self-assurance with which such claims were made in some scientific writings of that time. There you will find it described: If you beat a horse carcass to a pulp, bees will emerge, and if you beat a donkey carcass to a pulp, wasps will emerge. All of this was presented in a schematic manner, just as is common in many respects today. And when, in the seventeenth century, Redi articulated what would not be scientifically proven until the nineteenth century—that life can only come from life—he was deemed a heretic and only narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. In those days, those who made such claims were burned at the stake; today, that is no longer the custom. But today, people who propagate the same truth in a higher realm—namely, the realm of the spiritual—and demonstrate that the spiritual-soul can come only from the spiritual-soul are regarded as terrible heretics.

[ 22 ] Today it is claimed that the spiritual-soul aspect of a human individuality—that which develops day by day as the qualities and characteristics of the soul—arises solely from the qualities of the father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and so on. Now, spiritual science shows that a spiritual-soul being from a spiritual past penetrates into what is inherited from the father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and so on—just as a seed must be planted in the soil and then unfolds within it— and that within what is inherited, the independent, individual self—which originates from a previous spiritual-soul existence—unfolds. It shows that the spiritual-soul aspect cannot be traced back to what lies within the physical line of inheritance, but rather to a spiritual-soul aspect that has nothing to do with the physical. Times have changed: Today, those who teach such things are punished by being branded as fools. Already today, anyone who says, “The living can only come from the living,” is regarded as an authority. — Likewise, the other truth—that the spiritual-psychic can come only from the spiritual-psychic—will, in the not-too-distant future, become common knowledge among humanity. But then people will be unable to comprehend how humanity could ever have believed otherwise.

[ 23 ] Now, however, this view, when taken to its ultimate consequences, is nothing other than what is called the doctrine of reincarnation, the doctrine of repeated earthly lives: That which lives as the spiritual-soul aspect in the present earthly life has already lived in a previous earthly life, and the present earthly life is the starting point for a future one. The spiritual-soul aspect of the past seeks out a fertile ground into which it can take root—the fertile ground of father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and so on. One is just as necessary as the other. For those who have developed clairvoyance and clairaudience, the concept of repeated earthly lives is self-evident.

[ 24 ] You all know that the doctrine of repeated earthly lives is an ancient one and that it was once spread with particular vigor in the East by Buddha and the religious community he founded, finding its way into the hearts of millions upon millions of souls. But modern spiritual research does not derive its teaching from Buddhism—this must be expressly emphasized. It is a misrepresentation of the facts to say that modern theosophy or spiritual science has borrowed the doctrine of repeated earthly lives from Buddhism. There is no need to draw on an ancient teaching for this. Just as one does not need to refer to the writings of Euclid to prove that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees, so too does one not need to refer to Buddhism to prove reincarnation. Even today, the truth of repeated earthly lives can be investigated.

[ 25 ] For those who truly understand the Christ impulse, the truth of repeated earthly lives presents itself differently than it does for followers of the Buddha. The Buddha repeatedly emphasized the fact of repeated earthly lives. He presented his so-called “Four Noble Truths” to humanity: Birth is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, and separation from what one loves and union with what one does not love is suffering. – To be freed from the karma of having to descend again and again from the spiritual realm into an earthly body; to be freed as soon as possible from the urge to exist; to be freed from the impulse to incarnate: this is the impulse of the Buddha’s teaching. In the Buddha’s teaching, the doctrine of reincarnation is presented to us in a one-sided manner. The Buddha’s teachings do not have the impulse to instill in the human soul that which continues to work through successive reincarnations and awakens ever new forces in each individual. Spiritual science, however—modern theosophy— sees in the Christ impulse that which strikes the human soul, that which seizes, educates, and develops the will, that which works in the soul in such a way that, when it is touched by the Christ impulse in one incarnation, it revives in a new way in the next incarnation—so that the Christ impulse continues to work into the next incarnation. And because it works within, this soul can unfold its powers, which, enhanced by the power of the Christ impulse, are developed to even greater heights.

[ 26 ] Thus, in the Christ impulse, we see that which continues to work within the human soul from incarnation to incarnation, giving new meaning and new content to subsequent incarnations. That is why we do not speak of freeing ourselves from the wheel of reincarnation as soon as possible, but rather of wanting to imbue ourselves more and more with the living Christ impulse. Because the Christ descended to the physical plane, it has become possible for us to imbue ourselves with the Christ impulse as with a spiritual substance. The Buddhist religion is rightly called a religion of salvation. The Christian religion is not a religion of salvation, but a religion of resurrection. What Christ exemplified for us in the Mystery of Golgotha—the overcoming of death through the Spirit—is repeated anew each time we rise again in a new incarnation, enlivened by the Christ impulse.

[ 27 ] Must we not say to ourselves: There will come a time when the works of art that have delighted thousands upon thousands of human souls will crumble to dust? This is true of both the greatest and the smallest things that human beings can achieve in our physical world: they dissolve into dust. But when we view the matter in the light of rebirth—of repeated earthly lives—we tell ourselves: The artist has imbued the material with something from his soul; but through this, his soul, too, has become something different; his work has influenced the material, but it has also had a reciprocal effect on the soul. – This is true of every human being; it is simply most clearly evident in the artist. In a new incarnation, we continue to work with the forces we have acquired in the previous incarnation. These forces are reborn; they rise again; they are awakened to new life. Thus, it is no longer absurd to say: The entire Earth will one day be ground to dust. Just as the body of the individual human being decays into dust, so too will the entire Earth—the body of our planetary existence—decay. Human souls, however, will then have attained something that transitions into new stages of existence. The Earthly body falls away, and humanity transitions into new forms. And the impulse that lives within it is the Christ impulse.

[ 28 ] Spiritual science, with the clairvoyant eye of the spiritual researcher, looks upon an epoch that lies very close to our own in time, in which certain earlier events will bear fruit. All souls who, throughout the Middle Ages, have assimilated the Christ impulse within themselves—who have experienced the profound Christian mysteries of the Middle Ages—will then experience the Christ impulse in the spirit of Paul: “It is not I who live, it is not I who work; it is Christ.” – They will see their own inner being illuminated by the light of Christ. This is the crucial fact that must be emphasized. Spiritual science regards this fact as just as certain as an eclipse of the sun or moon is in astronomy. Those people who absorbed the Christ impulse into their souls back then—who imbued their willing, feeling, and thinking with it in the Pauline sense—will return. And the fruits of their rebirth will become evident as what they experienced back then is revived as a force within their souls. In what way will it be revived?

[ 29 ] Spiritual science shows us that, in the relatively near future—and then increasingly into the coming millennium—a new spiritual power will develop within human beings as a general phenomenon; this power can be described only by pointing to the fact that it first manifested itself in Paul as a natural ability. Paul could not be convinced by anything he had heard on the physical plane in Palestine about the Christ Jesus. However, it became clear to him that the Christ had lived and risen from the dead when, through his opened supersensible organs of perception—through natural clairvoyance—he beheld what we call the Event at Damascus. There, through inner experience, the Christ became a reality for him—the Christ who had accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 30 ] Those who claim that the Damascus experience was merely a vision are thereby also claiming that the most important fact of Western culture—the religion of Christ—is based on an empty vision. Paul says that he has come to understand Christ inwardly and can therefore see something entirely new that underlies the world—something he had not been able to see before. At first, only a few individuals will develop the ability to see as Paul did on the road to Damascus. In the twentieth century, we stand before a new revelation of Christ emerging from the spiritual world. People will appear—at first a few, then more and more—who will see the spiritual, which is also within them, living and weaving out in space, just as they see matter, which is also within their physical bodies, living and weaving out in space. And for them, what Zarathustra taught will become truth when the event at Damascus reveals itself to them as an experience, when they look out into space and behold the origin of existence from which our soul and physical being themselves stem, when they see this in the light of the spirit.

[ 31 ] Thus we stand at the threshold of a new historical development, a new revelation of the Christ. The Christ impulse continues to work in such a way that, ultimately, the mysteries of the Christ’s existence will be experienced by souls as a lived reality. Physically, the Christ was in the world only once—as spiritual science shows us—and it is a misunderstanding of the very essence of the Christ to believe that a physical being could appear a second time that could be called the Christ. This is the Hypomochlion: The Christ impulse continually gives rise to new capacities in the human soul, and the Christ will reveal himself more and more to these newly awakened capacities. Christ did not give the impulse so that he would have to return again and again in physical form, leaving humanity stuck at the point where it had already been. The ability to perceive him spiritually has been awakened within humanity. He came so that humanity might grasp him spiritually and receive him in ever higher and higher ways.

[ 32 ] Thus, we are facing a spiritual revelation of Christ; this will send spiritual light to humankind and will give them the strength to understand Christ more and more. In particular, the Christ impulse gives us the certainty that, as we continue to incarnate into the future, we will no longer feel the need to free ourselves from existence, but rather to penetrate it more and more deeply. The Christ confession is a religion of resurrection—in contrast to Buddhism, which is a religion of salvation. This is the message that spiritual science, or theosophy, can offer to humanity in our time: that we are standing on the threshold of a new revelation of the Christ; that, little by little, new faculties of knowledge are coming into being within human souls; and that people will be able to look into the spiritual realm, see the Christ, and know: He is here! New faculties of perception will develop, through which the eternal, living Christ will reveal Himself—first to a few, then to more and more people, and ultimately to all who follow the appropriate paths.

[ 33 ] This is the message that spiritual science seeks to bring to the West. And, in essence, spiritual science is nothing other than an effort to draw attention to this great fact, which we must not overlook. People should understand what is to come. Modern theosophy—spiritual science—seeks to lay the groundwork for this new revelation, to prepare Western culture for the Christ of the twentieth century. It seeks to be a servant to evolving humanity. Just as the Forerunner of Christ had to say, “Change the state of your souls, for the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near—namely, into the human heart”—so must the spiritual science of the present say: “Change your attitude; pay attention to what is announcing itself in human souls as a newly emerging force, as the force of a new way of seeing.” Pay attention to this; change the state of your souls. — The person who allows the Christ impulse to permeate them will be able to penetrate into the realms of the eternal and the imperishable. And so we summarize our reflection:

Beings follow one another in the vastness of space,
Beings follow one another in the flow of time.
If you remain in the vastness of space, in the flow of time,
Then you, O human, are in the realm of transience.
But your soul rises mightily above them,
When, with intuition or knowledge, it beholds the Imperishable
Beyond the expanses of space, beyond the flow of time.