The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Anthroposophy and World Development from a Geographical Perspective

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Just as one can describe the conditions on Earth according to the principles of physical geography, so too can the spiritual impulses that act upon the Earth—which have already been more or less characterized in these lectures—be described in a kind of spiritual geography—in particular, the interplay of the Eastern and Western impulses of humanity’s spiritual life with all its various distinctions. What is to be said today in this regard can, of course, only be done in a very sketchy manner; but the aim is more to find a particular perspective on various aspects that have already been characterized here than to provide a thoroughly detailed description.

[ 2 ] When one looks toward the East—whose relationship to the West is so often described by the symbolic saying that “light comes from the East”—then the Westerner, indeed the person of modern civilization in general, does gain the impression of a dreamlike spiritual life. In contrast to the modern spiritual life’s habituation to sharply defined, clearly contoured concepts—concepts that are closely based on what external observation can yield—the often fluid, fluctuating ideas of the East, which are not so directly based on external phenomena with sharp contours, appear dreamlike. It must be said, however, that out of this dreamlike spiritual life—which found its fullest expression in the most magnificent poetry, the Vedas—the precise concepts of a comprehensive philosophy, such as Vedanta, have in turn developed; concepts that were not derived through the comparison of external facts or through analysis; concepts that, I would say, were born out of an inner spiritual life—experienced and grasped from within.

[ 3 ] But when this dreamlike spiritual life takes effect on us—when we surrender ourselves to it with a certain inner love and, at first, do not pay attention to how much it differs from our own—then we do receive a peculiar impression. For with this spiritual life—if one allows it, so to speak, to take effect broadly upon one’s soul in its various forms—one cannot remain static. One cannot simply absorb the concepts and ideas one receives there. By receiving such concepts, such ideas—whether from poetry, from Eastern philosophy, or even from the forms of this poetry and philosophy that have been preserved in the East to this day as time-honored traditions—one develops an inner spiritual need to go beyond these images, these ideas, and these concepts; and then something emerges before the gaze of the soul. Often we simply cannot help but, when such an Eastern idea arises concerning the way in which human beings approach the mystery and the mysterious workings of nature and the world, we cannot help but, as we allow this image to take effect upon us, let arise within our minds what is also a symbol in the East for such a concept: the lotus flower, as it wraps its petals around that which is to be mysteriously concealed. And when we immerse ourselves with some affection in these multifaceted, fluid concepts—concepts that are better suited to delicately touching external things and enveloping them as if in a wisp of mist than to grasping them in sharp contours— we cannot help but see, as we immerse ourselves in the ramifications of these concepts, in this intertwining, the entire intertwining, branching vegetation of the Orient emerge before our soul—as well as everything that the human hand, the human spirit, and culture have then brought forth from stones and other products of labor in the spirit of these flowing, branching concepts. One might say: when the soul immerses itself in these ideas, in these concepts, it cannot help but see a nature unfolding before it that, in its life, in its entire diversity, and in its imaginative workings, resembles what the soul experiences in the concepts and ideas of this Oriental spiritual creation.

[ 4 ] It seems to me that there is no external reason to shift from this intellectual creation to a “faithful observation of nature”; rather, it seems to me that the impulses for this lie within the Eastern concepts and ideas themselves—not simply to accept them, but to apply them to the external world. And if Europeans perhaps feel that not all of this can be applied to the external world—precisely because of its vagueness, because of its character, which often seems fantastical to them—then one may ask: Well, how is one supposed to follow the fluctuating cloud formations, which appear to change rapidly in the most diverse forms, using sharply defined concepts? Yet one must also follow such formations in relation to the workings of nature if one wishes to observe these workings in their immediate manifestation, as they present themselves to the human senses and the human soul.

[ 5 ] Why is this so? It seems to me that there can be no other reason for it than that there is simply an element alive in what resonates to us from this Eastern spiritual creation—an element from which it was once directly created.

[ 6 ] At a time when the Easterners were just developing the most magnificent aspects of their worldview—which were then passed down to their descendants, often in a decadent state—the East created everything with devoted love. Love lives in each of its ideas, in each of its concepts and images, and we feel that love in these ideas, concepts, and images. Love seeks to flow out into objects. And it flows out naturally, conjuring before the eye of our soul whatever symbols the people of the East might have created—with a deep understanding of much that appears supernatural—when they sought to express what they perceived as the spiritual essence within things. Of course, this is not to claim that such a spiritual configuration, were it to spread across the entire earth, could be a complete blessing for the world’s development. But since it has emerged in one part of the world and has frequently exerted its influence on other areas of earthly life, it must be viewed impartially, especially in an age when understanding among people is to be fostered.

[ 7 ] Let us contrast this with what has developed—certainly with no less justification, but in a completely different form, more toward the West—and in this regard, too, we live in many ways right in the midst of this West—as a particular worldview. There we see how it is regarded—and must be regarded—as an ideal to withdraw precisely from what the senses immediately perceive, from what lies spread out out there in space and time, and that one examines what nature presents—what is meant to lead to the mystery of the world—in terms of spatial arrangement, movement, measure, and weight; that one dissects what presents itself directly to the eye, examines it under the microscope, and then forms conceptions that can arise only under the microscope.

[ 8 ] Let’s just imagine ourselves in our laboratories for a moment: how we are then equipped with these concepts, which are, in essence, derived entirely apart from direct observation. How do we view the light flooding through the world today! How we view it through abstract concepts! They must exist, of course; otherwise, we would not be able to understand. But how far removed is what we find recorded time and again in our intellectual work concerning light and colors from what meets us in forests and meadows, in cloud formations, and in the sun? We can say that what we develop through our sharply defined concepts—using scales, rulers, various types of counting devices, and so on—which leads us into certain depths of natural existence and solves many a mystery, does not, at first, bring us closer to direct observation of nature. One might well say that human beings turn their attention to sensory observation and then attempt to derive their worldview from that observation. But that is, in fact, not the case at all. What we establish as a scientific worldview is far removed from what the senses observe.

[ 9 ] We must actually say: When we, equipped with the tools of our science—with which we have perhaps just reaped the finest fruits of our current natural science—base our understanding, then, if we wish to approach nature once again, we must first make a shift in our souls. If we are botanists, if we have spent much time looking through a microscope, if we have come to know the life of cells, if we have formed concepts based on today’s atomistic approach, then we must shift something within our souls in order to once again feel love for the immediate, blooming, and verdant plant world. Once we have formed a scientific conception of the structure of animals and humans, we must shift something within ourselves again if we wish to proceed to the direct observation of the animal’s form and activity; if we are to take joy in watching an animal frolic in a meadow, or when it turns its melancholic or vacant gaze toward us, or looks at us trustingly. Likewise, we must shift something within our soul if we wish to immerse ourselves in what the eye can perceive—by directing our gaze toward the human form, tracing the contours of the body with an artistic eye, and so on. The Oriental does not need to shift his focus. What he called his science led him—as he experienced it imbued with love—outward to direct perception. This was the very direct echo of what he experienced in his soul.

[ 10 ] These are differences in outlook on the world and on life between the East and the West. And these differences in mood interact in the person of the Middle in the most varied ways. For in what we experience in our souls—scientifically, artistically, and religiously—much is infused with that mood which I have just attempted to characterize somewhat as that which blows over from the East. In another respect, however, there is also within us something of the experience of the world that is kindled by that scientific spirit which the West has developed—a spirit that, I would say, is a young scientific spirit and insight compared to the aged one of the East. And in every soul of the middle civilization, these two currents flow together. Essentially, the life that surrounds us, especially in Europe, is a confluence—such a confluence that we today have a very great need to look into it with full understanding.

[ 11 ] There are other ways to describe how the moods of the East and the West intersect in our contemporary intellectual life.

[ 12 ] One thing emerges for the Oriental from what has just been described regarding the East. As he immerses himself in his spiritual life, he experiences this spiritual life as an immediate reality; he carries it directly within his soul as a reality that is self-evident to him. Then external nature—indeed, the entire external world, all the way up to the constellations—appears to him as an echo, which is, however, essentially the same as what he carries within himself. Yet what resounds back to him like an echo, what appears to him as a reflection, he cannot regard as reality in the same sense that he regards what he experiences directly within his soul as reality. He is connected to what he experiences in his inner life; of that he says: “It is,” because he perceives its existence as his own, and therefore knows what kind of existence belongs to it. When he looks out and sees the reflection of this being shining back at him, he knows in his own way: This does not have reality in the same sense; this is not reality in the same sense. If I did not illuminate it with the light that streams from my own inner being, it would be silent and dark. And as he senses this more and more, he arrives at the state of mind that says: Truth and reality live in what the soul experiences directly. What shines back at you out there as a reflection is merely an illusion—it is Maya; it is not full reality. It only becomes reality when it is touched by that which must first reveal itself through the innermost depths of one’s own human soul.

[ 13 ] Thus we see how, in the East, the view is taking shape that the spiritual world is reality, while the external world—the external sensory world—is the illusory world, the great delusion, Maya. One must not, however, believe that the Eastern person—as in the pre-Buddhist era—simply turns his gaze away from this external world. He accepts it, even though, in a higher sense, he must admit to himself, in his own way, that what lies spread out in space and time is not full reality, but an illusion, the great non-being, Maya. This, in turn, imbues the spiritual life of the East with a particular mood—a mood through which the soul feels connected to a spiritual world and through which it comes to see, in everything that lives in the outer sensory world, a reflection, as it were, of the true archetype of the world that exists in the spirit. This, in turn, ultimately expands into the view that one’s own human sensory existence is also an image of a human being that originates in the spiritual world. And one might say: In a thoroughly unified way, the Oriental views the external world as a world of images of a spiritual world, just as he regards himself as an image of what he was before he descended into the physical-sensory world. From his point of view, both his view of humanity and his view of nature are in perfect harmony.

[ 14 ] How, however, this harmony is possible—how, although it no longer corresponds to our perceptions, it nevertheless expresses a truth, albeit in a somewhat one-sided way—this can become clear to us once again if we approach the contemplation of this Eastern attitude toward knowledge ourselves, using the methods of spiritual scientific research that I have described here over the past few days.

[ 15 ] I have, in fact, explored how, by awakening the forces slumbering within the soul, one can attain a perception of the spiritual world in a way that is appropriate for today’s modern human being; how, in turn, one can look into a spiritual world; and how a spiritual world begins to unfold for the human being, to unfold before the eye of the spirit just as the physical-sensory world unfolds before the physical eye. If, however, one develops this perception further, the spiritual world does not remain merely a pantheistic, nebulous construct of a general spirituality; rather, the spiritual world becomes as concrete in its individual forms as the sensory world is concrete in the individual forms of the natural kingdoms. This then gives rise to a perception of the human being, which I would like to characterize today, for the time being, in comparative terms.

[ 16 ] Let us consider the fact that presents itself to us at every moment of our lives: that we have an external experience, an external occurrence. We are, first of all, immersed in this external experience, this external occurrence; we are immersed in it through our sensory perception, and we may also experience it by setting our will in motion, by taking action. We live in harmony with the facts of the external world. For us, this is an immediately present experience. Human existence on earth is, in essence, composed of such experiences. From these experiences, we retain mental images, which then become our memories. We look back on our experiences by carrying within us the faded, shadowy—in short, the mental—images of those experiences.

[ 17 ] In this regard, one should simply be completely honest with oneself and ask one’s present consciousness whether, at any moment in life, there is much more to it in terms of content than memories of external, actual sensory experiences. Certainly, many a nebulous mystic supposes that he is drawing all manner of eternal things up from the depths of his soul. If he were to look more closely, if he were in a position to truly examine these soul-formations that he is drawing up, he would find that they are, as a rule, nothing more than transformed external perceptions. Within a person, memories are not only faithfully preserved; they are often transformed, and then the person no longer recognizes them. As a mystic, he believes he is drawing something forth from the depths of his soul, whereas he has merely retrieved a transformed external experience from his memory.

[ 18 ] Certainly, we need only recall mathematical truths to realize that all manner of inner structures are woven into the fabric of what constitutes the life of the soul. But the mystic generally does not seek these inner structures. However, anyone who wishes to accept everyday soul life impartially, as it presents itself in ordinary consciousness, must say: This soul life is the sum of images that are the remnants of our experiences—experiences that have come about through perceptions and other experiences within the external sensory world of facts; so that when we look at our inner life and also at the spiritual that permeates this inner life—as we initially experience it in physical earthly life—we can say: Out there, spread out in space, is the physical world, the world that unfolds its causes and effects in time—in other words, the world of facts. Here within is the world of soul-shadows, which we do indeed experience as a whole as something soul-like and living, but in terms of its content, it is nothing more than a reflection of a world of facts, a sensory world. Now, as paradoxical as this may still sound to today’s perspective in many ways: for the perspective I have developed here in recent days, the reverse is also true. When the spiritual is truly experienced in the world—the spiritual within natural phenomena, as it reveals itself to the empty consciousness arising from meditation—when the spiritual is observed as the spiritual-soul aspect of the human being himself, as he is before he descended into his physical existence from a spiritual world, when the concrete spiritual is thus truly observed through the awakened spiritual organ, when the world around us becomes just as spiritual as it is sensory and physical to our senses, then we also begin—as if recalling the times when we lived as spiritual-soul beings in the purely spiritual-soul worlds—to perceive our physical organization: how, in its details, it is a reflection of what surrounds us as the spiritual world. After all, through physiology and anatomy, we can regard our lungs, our heart, and our other organs only as external entities; but when we are able to perceive the spiritual environment around us, then what is actually within us—as lungs, as a heart—becomes the physical image of that which is preformed spiritually. Just as in our ordinary consciousness the world outside is physical and our soul creates the images and experiences them, so we come to realize that there is a spiritual world out there and that the images of this spiritual world are present in our own organs. We only begin to understand the human being in terms of its structure when we come to know the spiritual world. And then what is commonly called “matter” also ceases to have the same meaning it has assumed in modern civilization, just as the spirit ceases to have the meaning of the abstract—that is, what it has become within modern civilization. Then we see how, in fact, what works organically within us contains a reflection of what we were before we descended into earthly existence.

[ 19 ] And now we find that even materialism—insofar as it is justified, and it has indeed brought us many benefits and countless insights—no longer frightens us. We look at the human brain, at the human nervous system in its physical functioning. We do admit, of course, that ordinary, everyday thinking is a function of these physical organs. We are fully in agreement with what rigorous science must assert today regarding these matters. But we also know, on the other hand, that what is at work within us in material forms is precisely the transformed reflection of the spiritual. It may be material because the material is a transformation of the spiritual; because the spiritual, having transformed itself within the earthly human being, has sought out the material capacity of the brain and the nerves in order to carry out in the material image what has been preformed spiritually.

[ 20 ] This comes to the mind’s eye of modern humanity through the development of those powers of cognition of which I have spoken in recent days. But I would like to say that a dreamlike model of this exists in that Eastern worldview, which I was able to sketch in a few strokes—a worldview that has now become old and antiquated, yet still exerts an influence, with certain peculiarities, on the formation of our hearts and souls. In its instinctive clairvoyance, this ancient Orient sensed that the spiritual world is a reality with which it felt connected, and that nature—along with that which is nature within human beings themselves—is a reflection of the spiritual, so that through nature, as an outer appearance, that which is inwardly spiritual is revealed.

[ 21 ] Let no one say that the Oriental did not observe nature. He possessed keen faculties for observing nature. But from all that he faithfully observed as an image and revered with love, a spiritual reality shone forth to him. Nature revealed the spirit to him; the spirit shone forth to him from everywhere. And he called this spirit his reality. But that which spread out before him externally—that was Maya to him.

[ 22 ] But one can already see this in Buddhism, which has exerted a much greater influence on Eastern life than is generally believed, for it has taken on the most diverse forms in later life, how the direct immersion in the spiritual world has been tempered in the course of humanity’s and the Earth’s further development, how, in a sense, the gaze has been directed farther and farther toward Maya, and how the sense of the great illusion, of the great nothingness—of Maya—gradually became the central concern; how this gave rise to a sense of the need for salvation from what can be experienced within this Maya, experienced in particular in the sense of the Buddha, who indeed regarded the direct experiences of this Maya as a sum of sufferings that pour down upon human beings.

[ 23 ] This dampening of our direct experience of the spiritual world, however, justifies our view—when we return to modern spiritual insight—that the ancient Eastern worldview should be regarded as something instinctive, albeit one-sided, to which we must nevertheless return with full composure and clear consciousness. For it must not happen a second time in the course of world development that human activity becomes paralyzed in the face of the demands of the earthly external world. Humanity must not, a second time, take refuge in spiritual life in such a way that this refuge prevents it from intervening with full force in the earthly task—in all that which the Eastern person often perceives as “Maya,” even if, out of deference to modern concepts, he does not call it that, while he perceives as reality that which reveals itself within him. There, within him, is the light that is for him the immediate reflection of the divine-spiritual in the world.

[ 24 ] Now, I would like to contrast what I have just described—as a spiritual-geographical influx into our modern life—with another image, one that is likewise drawn from the development of the human spirit and the evolution of the world, but which belongs to our immediate present. Anyone who has spent much time in the spheres from which so much now rises into our civilization—a civilization that, in a certain respect, has grown old even for Europe—in the spheres from which social longings and social struggles arise, will have encountered something that I wish to characterize as follows.

[ 25 ] For a long time—and no one could accuse me of holding socialist views simply because that would be untrue—I was a teacher in socialist circles. I did so precisely to foster, within these circles—the time for this had not yet come back then; it was over twenty years ago—a spiritual life that could lead to more realistic forms than those sought through abstract Marxism or modified Marxism and so on, which are, after all, unrealistic in many respects. But when one observes in these circles a certain underlying mood—which one can recognize as a beginning, yet which is as deeply rooted in people’s souls as the Eastern majesty is rooted in the souls of people over in the East— then a certain word weighs heavily on one’s soul—a word that also expresses much of what lies in unconscious feelings, unconscious ideas and concepts, and unconscious longings; a word that one hears again and again, and which for decades one has had to recognize as characteristic within broad circles of humanity. Spread across millions of people is a mood expressed by this word: it is the word “ideology.” This word has emerged from the worldview that the proletarian class, in particular, has incorporated into its education. Out of a scientific outlook that has become increasingly materialistic, the view has emerged that historical reality actually consists solely of economic struggles, economic structures, class struggles—in short, of what constitutes the immediate, outwardly sensory, physical, and material aspects of human life and historical life—and that, therefore, economic forces are what is truly real and actual.

[ 26 ] This economic materialism, which is far more widespread than many people in the upper classes still believe today, is in a certain sense a result of the general materialistic worldview—a worldview that is today even believed to have been scientifically overcome, but which nevertheless continues to exert a profound influence on the moods and attitudes of people in the Western world.

[ 27 ] And ideology—what does that mean? It means: legal life, morality, that which lies in beauty, religious concepts, political concepts—in short, everything that constitutes spiritual life—is not true reality; it is merely foam and illusion rising from true reality, which lies in material struggles and forms. Ideology is meant to signify that what a person experiences within—be it art, science, law, political principles, or religious impulses—is a Maya, if I may now make use of the Eastern expression.

[ 28 ] The word “ideology” refers to something—not when taken externally or abstractly—but when one can sense what millions of people are thinking, which must take on the most terrible dimensions if it is not steered into safe waters in time. What the soul experiences and shapes internally is not reality; true reality is only that which exists externally in tangible facts!

[ 29 ] And so, within Western civilization, a mindset has emerged that is the polar opposite of the one that long dominated the East—a mindset that today survives only as a vestige, more as a superficial facade than anything else. There: true reality, that which is experienced in the spirit—Maya, that which takes place externally in physical reality; here: Maya, ideology—which is actually the translation of the word Maya—but now, in the spiritual realm, refers to that which is experienced in the spirit—reality, that which is sensually perceived, spread out before us, and exists in the world as sensory reality.

[ 30 ] In its development, the world strives toward the full realization of its individual possibilities. Just as one form of one-sidedness took shape in the East, so too was humanity bound to be gripped by another form of one-sidedness. But if one wishes to shape the development of humanity—if one wishes to shape world development in a fruitful sense, in such a way that we may once again move from forces of decline to forces of ascent—one need only consider what this mood in ideology might actually signify. It is young; it is, therefore, a beginning.

[ 31 ] If we turn once more to what the modern spiritual-scientific perspective has to say, we will find that in the East there was an instinctive, obscure, dreamlike awareness that a spiritual reality exists, and that here in the physical world there is a sensory image of this spiritual reality. Because the soul’s attention was directed primarily toward spiritual reality, sensory reality became, in a sense, unreality—an outward appearance, Maya. But this Maya is not only significant for our outward work—the world may be Maya, but we must nevertheless direct our work, as a reality for us humans, toward this Maya in the first place—it also has significance for “know thyself,” for a truly human perspective. Why? Well, we can certainly elevate ourselves to a life in the spiritual world, as I have described it; we can perceive with sharply defined concepts and thereby understand what appeared dreamlike to the East. But we could never have arrived at the impulse toward freedom within the course of human development through the experience of such a world.

[ 32 ] Human beings had to develop their consciousness out of the spiritual world—with which they feel an inner connection, yet at the same time are inwardly governed by and dependent on it—and turn toward a world of mere reality for a temporary epoch of historical development in which we are fully immersed. When human beings confront this external reality, their inner life becomes a reflection of that reality. That which permeates this inner life as spirit becomes abstract concepts; it gradually becomes something that must be a mere reflection, something that must be recognized in its representational nature.

[ 33 ] I have already hinted at this: when we carry images within us, we can be free. Reflections do not define us. If we wish to guide ourselves by reflections that are powerless in and of themselves, then we must provide the impetus ourselves. The same is true of what becomes abstract concepts within us. And as the noblest aspect of what we carry within us—the moral-religious—emerges in us through pure thought, it becomes for us an impulse toward freedom. It is the most valuable content for human life. But it emerges in abstract thought during the epoch in which human beings find themselves directly confronted with physical reality in their perception.

[ 34 ] And the moment the moral appears as moral intuition in pure thought, the task of the epoch is fulfilled—an epoch that has developed from the spiritual-real into the spirit of the abstract and which, I would say, radicalizing this mood of the soul, now regards all that is spiritual as a maya, as a mere illusion, as ideology. We have a certain right to regard as ideology everything that is a reflection of external, natural existence. The moment the moral, as moral intuition, exerts its influence on this Maya-thinking, on this ideology, the first stage is reached, where we recognize once again: this ideology, which is experienced within us as mere imagery, must—by energizing ourselves, by allowing the inner life hidden within us to spring forth—be awakened to inner life. The content of the world first had to become ideology for humanity so that human beings could pour their reality into this content of the world.

[ 35 ] This was necessary for humanity’s experience of freedom, which, after all, is first and foremost an experience of the West, of modern civilization. This was necessary in the sense that human beings initially perceived everything that is most precious to them—their art, their science, their moral concepts, in short, their entire spiritual life—as if it were unreal, and that everything that appears to them as transient seemed to be the only reality, because this reality, when properly understood, cannot impair his freedom at all, insofar as he is, after all, a spiritual being who creates in physical-sensual reality only an image of the spirit itself.

[ 36 ] In this way, we can sense that within what appears as ideology there is a radicalized sentiment—one that we must actually hold—toward the concepts of nature, which exists in circumstances, in motion, in measure, and in number. If nature were to bequeath us anything other than concepts, it would never allow us to become free human beings. Only by rising to concepts—which then appear merely as ideology to those who remain stuck at this stage—can a new, truly spiritual form of the higher world pour into these initially unreal concepts. This is the beginning from which a new form of the spiritual world must emerge for humankind. And if we are confronted one-sidedly with the experience of ideology, then those who today do not remain bound by immediate everyday perceptions, but who are able to look at the development of the world, must say to themselves: Since it was necessary for human beings to reach a stage of development where, by looking one-sidedly at the world and at themselves, they can speak of ideology, they must in turn arrive at the opinion, the conviction, the strength, and the courage to infuse this ideology with a world perceived and experienced spiritually. Otherwise, even if it is perhaps philosophically debated, ideology remains just ideology. And the forces of decline will—as we shall see in the second part of these lectures, which will deal with “Anthroposophy and Sociology”—take shape in a very real sense.

[ 37 ] Thus, two images stand before us: the spiritual world as reality and the sensory world as Maya; the sensory world as reality and the spiritual world as Maya. Only a worldview and philosophy of life that is capable of bringing spiritual intuition, spiritual imagination, and inspiration into the ideologically viewed spiritual world—so that what today appears unspeakably empty is once again filled with spiritual content— and which at the same time is able to recognize in what sense what the East perceives as an illusion, as Maya, is nevertheless a reality—a reality in the sense that it is indeed a true, faithful reflection, a transformation of the spiritual world that was necessary for the development of humanity in freedom—only and exclusively such a worldview and outlook on life that looks toward these two images in this way, so that it is able, as it were, to interweave them—a view that does not merely produce a dry, external sum, but which, through its own inner life, develops neither from one nor the other, but from the immediate human being in a spiritual upsurge—can bring about an understanding of what confronts us as two worldviews that are so polar opposites.

[ 38 ] And these world-pictures essentially play a role in everything we experience spiritually. It is certainly true that these moods influence the details of life and the details of human perspectives. As a Central European living in Central Europe, I would like to avoid offering my own judgment on this particular point here. I would like to share the assessment made a few years ago by an Englishman who compared Western and Central Europe with regard to a certain aspect of spiritual life. This Englishman sought to characterize how spiritual life manifested itself in specific phenomena. He pointed out how, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Buckle’s significant work, *The History of Civilization*, and how Buckle views historical life largely through the lens of economic impulses—not yet as radically as, for example, the Marxists, but still from such impulses—so that, fundamentally, spiritual life arises from economic forces in their interaction and conflict. One need not necessarily be critical of such a view; one can take a positive stance toward it; one can say: Since human beings are also economic beings, it has simply become necessary in the course of human development to view human life historically in this light as well. But then this Englishman points to another work that emerged in Central Europe at the same time Buckle was writing his *History of Civilization*—the work *The History of the Renaissance in Italy* by Jacob Burckhardt. The Englishman himself points out how a completely different spirit prevails in that work; for Jacob Burckhardt describes how people feel, how they relate to one another, and how the perceptions they have of one another lead them into certain relationships, which in turn determine the other events unfolding among them. And the Englishman then summarizes his judgment by saying—I am not passing judgment myself; I am merely quoting the Englishman’s judgment—: Buckle describes people as they eat and drink; Burckhardt describes people as they think and feel.

[ 39 ] And now I would like to add something: Once we have heard how the West views external reality and allows spiritual life to spring from it as a result, and how the Central European views what lives within the soul—but as a spiritual reality within earthly existence—we might add a third perspective: the Eastern person—in many respects already the Eastern European—describes human beings as they preach and make sacrifices.

[ 40 ] And so we might add to the Englishman’s assessment: In the West, man is portrayed as he eats and drinks—I do not say this in a derogatory sense; in the Middle World, as he thinks and feels; in the East, as he preaches and makes sacrifices. What I have described as the Eastern mood comes into play here, in preaching and making sacrifices. What I have described as the Western mood comes into play here, in the view of history that has become familiar to the widest circles today and is also reflected in the sentiment of ideology. But we must also see how, in what is described in the middle—where the human being is portrayed as he thinks and feels—the two currents converge, and how we are led today to understand this convergence in the proper way, starting from a point that must work its way up toward spirituality.

[ 41 ] And I would like to summarize in a single image what I have sought to depict as two states of mind, in order to show what actually needs to be communicated between East and West. I would like to summarize this in yet another image by pointing out how, in the time when in the Orient the physical-sensual world, but also human life were perceived as maya, how the one who was called the Buddha encountered the most diverse manifestations of human suffering on Earth during his wanderings, how among these manifestations there is also a corpse, how the Buddha is confronted with death, and how he arrives at his conclusion from this contemplation of human death: Life is suffering.

[ 42 ] This is how Eastern culture unfolded six hundred years before the founding of Christianity. Six hundred years later, Christianity was founded, and a significant symbol emerged: that of the crucifix—the raised cross bearing the Savior, with his lifeless body upon it. And countless people in the West gaze upon the corpse, upon the image of the corpse, just as countless people who became followers of Buddha gazed upon the corpse from which Buddha derived his teachings. Just as the East proclaimed: “Life is suffering; we long for salvation”—so the people of the West gazed upon the image of the corpse, yet they did not merely utter the words “Life is suffering!” in response to the sight of that corpse. — No, the sight of death became for them the symbol of a resurrection, of a resurrection of the spirit through inner human strength, the symbol that suffering can be redeemed precisely by overcoming the physical—and that it is overcome not by turning away from it ascetically, but by keeping it fully in view, by not regarding it as Maya, but by overcoming it through work, through activity, through the vigor of the will. From the contemplative life of the East sprang the contemplation of the corpse, with the conclusion: Life is suffering; humanity must be redeemed from life. From the Western way of life, which strives toward activity, the sight of the corpse gave rise to the insight: Life must develop strength within itself so that the forces of death, too, can be overcome and human labor can fulfill its task in the development of the world.

[ 43 ] One worldview is old and senile. But it contains something so great that, even when one describes it as senile, one stands before it as before something venerable. One reveres the elderly. But one does not expect them to embrace the views of the young. What confronts us in the West, however, bears the character of a beginning. We have shown what must come to be out of what appears as ideology in the prevailing mood. This is young; this is what youthful strength must develop within itself so that it may attain to the spirit in its own way, just as the East has attained to the spirit in its own natural way.

[ 44 ] While we revere the East for its spirituality, we must nevertheless be clear about one thing: we must develop our own spirituality from our Western roots. However, we must shape it in such a way that we can communicate across the entire globe with every existing worldview—especially time-honored ones. This will be possible when we, as people of the Middle and the West, become aware of what it means that our worldview and outlook on life have shortcomings—but these are the shortcomings of youth.

[ 45 ] If we understand this, it is a call to have the courage to draw on our strength. If we respond to what we must receive from the East—reverence, love, and admiration for its spirituality—not with passive reception, but with diligent work based on what may still be unspiritual in the West today yet carries within it the seed of spirituality; if we pair this reverence with strength, then we will be doing what is right for the development of humanity.