The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Essence of Eternity and the Nature of the Human Soul in the Light of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] [Humanity’s longing to answer the question of eternity stems] not only [a fearful] desire for existence, nor merely [a petty] longing for one’s own immortality, but—[as a deeper look into the human soul teaches us—it] corresponds to the human soul’s need for eternity; [it springs] from a profound [spiritual] and moral need for human perfection. [There is no moment in the soul when it does not must be filled with the striving for perfection.] The question of the nature of eternity corresponds to the question at the heart of all deeper contemplation. [It constitutes one of the fundamental questions of all profound human inquiry.

[ 2 ] But there was also a certain reluctance in the human soul to approach these questions.] Hence the belief in immortality: It is only through religious feeling that one arrives [at a conception of eternity], at a sense of the immortality of the human soul.

[ 3 ] The task of Theosophy is to show that research—[true science]—is also possible in the realm of the spirit. [For decades, it has always been its aim to awaken awareness in certain circles that research in spiritual spheres is possible.] This contradicts today’s habits of thought and people’s perceptions [indeed, very much so; it is only too understandable that Theosophy must still be regarded as fantasy, as wild daydreaming]. But the entirely logical approach to spiritual research [the basic methods] meets the strictest requirements of natural science, even if this is not acknowledged.

[ 4 ] [But all of this confronts us in a very special way when we raise the fundamental question of eternity and the nature of the human soul, which is connected to it.]

[ 5 ] The soul-spiritual core of the human being already reveals itself in everyday life and will do so more and more in spiritual science. [Spiritual science must point to what actually governs human life [?], namely the soul-spiritual, and how this core relates to the realm of transience.] – I have been to this city many times. Today, spiritual science is still not very popular in academic circles, where it is treated with irony and derision.

[ 6 ] The idea of repeated lives is a concept from the spiritual sciences, as is the principle of the development of the human soul and the human spirit. [Most of you are already familiar with facts that can be observed in everyday life.] Goethe said: “Consider the ‘what,’ but consider the ‘how’ even more.” The “what” is known, but what can enlighten us arises from the “how.” It is believed that the human soul is exhausted by conscious thinking, feeling, and willing. [Not enough consideration is given to the factors constantly at work in the depths of the soul. How little does a person know about their own temperament and nature.]

[ 7 ] But just as the depths of the sea are unknown to those who observe only the play of the waves on the surface, so too is the subconscious—in which ordinary life is rooted—unknown. [A fleeting glance at life reminds us how constantly unconscious factors come into play.] An injustice, for example, experienced as a child and repeated in the student’s life, can lead to suicide. [The teacher had directed reproaches and the like at the student. Well, that happens to other children, too. But only in this child’s case did it lead to suicide. It was the experiences of the fifth year that had so deeply unsettled his soul in hidden depths that they led to the act.) The conscious part of the soul points everywhere to hidden depths of the soul. Where consciousness fades, one is surrounded by darkness—in sleep or in dreams. [If we listen in on human consciousness there, we can discover many things.] There is a well-developed science of dreams, even if it is not widely known. An example: A student was given a difficult drawing assignment. After a whole year, he still had not finished it. This gave rise to anxiety in the student toward the end of the year, when the drawing was still not complete. Later in life, the following happened: He repeatedly had a very specific dream in which he saw himself as a student with the same anxiety; but each time, this was followed by greater manual dexterity. — The latter is merely an expression of the abilities developing throughout his entire being. At first, this process worked in the lower depths of his soul life, and as a transitional phase, it manifests in the semi-conscious state of dream awareness. It is not enough to say: There is a transformation of natural processes. Humanity will have to come to terms with the fact that there is also a transformation of forces in the spiritual realm. Before they become conscious, they dwell in the hidden depths of the soul, in the subconscious. Humanity would have destroyed these soul forces had it already consciously delved into them earlier. At first, the soul force works in the subconscious, in the core of the soul; nor is its work limited to the soul—it also works in the subconscious upon the human body. The body thus reveals the effect of its shaping by the soul-spiritual.

[ 8 ] In a child, we first observe uncoordinated movements, an expressionless gaze, and so on; yet the soul and spirit work their way into the physical body, and gradually the child’s features change. Memory does not develop until the age of three. [Jean Paul’s words are true]: During that time—[in the first three years of life, which the child does not remember]—the child has learned more than in three years of academic study and has also undergone much more profound processes in the brain. [When we enter existence through birth, our brain is in many respects not yet differentiated.] Consciousness is still dull, still sleeping, still dreaming. Thus, we find the work of this dream-conscious soul-spiritual aspect throughout the whole human being, first in the lower parts of the physical organization, then in the finer formation of the human body. Does this activity ever cease? As long as the human being is physically present, from conception onward, the physical is shaped by the spiritual. [From the moment the subconscious achieves its goal, it can penetrate into human consciousness. It must first work within the subconscious of the organism, on the fine structure of the human body.

[ 9 ] In this way, by methodically observing our inner life, we can trace the activity of the core of our being in its own physicality.

[ 10 ] The first thing spiritual research teaches us is that the spirit connects with the hereditary line. Two possibilities exist here: that the spiritual-soul aspect is doing this for the first time, or that it is doing so repeatedly. [Now the task will be to determine whether what is at work in a person was already there, and whether it provides us with evidence that it existed in previous lives.]

[ 11 ] A person would have to view himself as a mayfly if he had no memory of past days. [How, then, does a person recognize themselves as a unified being throughout their life, since their consciousness is severed every day? Without memory, that would not be possible.] They have no memory of past earthly lives, but they do have a sense of them.

[ 12 ] [We must develop the ability to observe how this process works in human beings, year by year, in relation to their physical nature.] The most important educational problems are solved when one understands how the abilities a child brings with them are adapted to what already exists on Earth. This is how temperament develops. In a person with a distinctly melancholic disposition, life takes on the underlying tone of a certain sadness. How does this come about? An experience of grief manifests itself quite differently in a melancholic than in a sanguine person. This underlying mood reaches into the depths of the soul. [The soul lives in the aftereffects of the grief it has once experienced, which can sometimes still be felt years later. The soul’s mood is the consequence of previous grief. In the melancholic, we find grief even in the most hidden depths of their being.] The mood of grief was already imprinted on the body because it was brought along from the core of the soul. This cannot stem from earthly experiences; it is brought along from previous earthly lives. [During the formation of the human body, the human being’s spiritual core incorporated the mood of grief into it.] For the mood of grief could only have been brought from there—not from the spiritual world, where there is no grief. Here it becomes abundantly clear what the human being has acquired in previous lives. It is revealed just as precisely as the findings of natural science. This, then, is what ordinary life consists of.

[ 13 ] Only through one instrument can a person look into the spiritual world; that instrument is the person himself, as he stands before us in his spiritual-soul life. [With this instrument, a person can perceive the essential core in their work on the human organism.] Through concentration and meditation, they can work their way up into the spiritual world. A different kind of soul life must be developed. [A radical transformation of the soul life in order to gain this instrument]—this is necessary for higher knowledge. Then the human being feels: You are something other than what you were before, when you imagined yourself to be only in the physical body, [because your feeling ran parallel to certain external or physical processes.] Now they realize: Now you experience yourself as a reality outside the physical body; you can free yourself entirely from the physical body.

[ 14 ] In a spiritual sense, such a person conducts an experiment as if in a laboratory. The first experience that arises is a kind of idiocy. One experiences oneself as a new being. No concept can make this clear to a person. It cannot be grasped in concepts; it seems “idiotic” because the brain cannot comprehend these experiences, [because nothing exists in the physical world that can provide clarity about it]. At a higher level, [as the soul forces grow ever stronger, concepts begin to emerge]; at this point, the brain—[which feels like a coarse block]—must be consciously worked on, just as it happens unconsciously in a child. Then we can look at what we in ordinary life can only grasp logically.

[ 15 ] [Humanity would decline in the future if it did not gain knowledge of its spiritual and mental powers.]

[ 16 ] At the age of thirty-five, [as is well known], the ascending line transforms into the descending one. On the descending line, the forces from earlier lives are exhausted, but forces from new experiences are accumulated—[those we have acquired in this life]. These never attain the strength necessary to work into the physical organism. One will accumulate body-forming forces, but one’s own physicality stands in the way.

[ 17 ] [But at the same time, a person will feel forces entering them that can shape a new life for them.

[ 18 ] For many people, the joy of life fades by the age of thirty-five because they did not keep their sense of life’s richness open during their youth; but deep within the soul, forces develop—a feeling that one carries within oneself the strength for a new core of being—and then the sadness of old age does not follow.]

[ 19 ] When raising a child, one should never lose sight of the “school of life.” An open, healthy outlook will develop the human soul from youth onward in such a way that the person remains open to spiritual science. We must cultivate the sense that every human being carries within themselves a spiritual-soul core that freely builds a new body after death. [Spiritual science gives us security and confidence through the moral forces it bestows upon us.]

[ 20 ] In this way, one can experience the triumph of the imperishable—the triumph of eternity over transience. Forms are transitory, but what unfolds in eternity is something imperishable, says Giordano Bruno. [The spirit is the creator of the transitory, and through this we recognize its imperishability.] Immortality does not begin only after death; human beings can already experience it now.