The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The First, Second, and Third Logos

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[ 1 ] When the selfless current returns to its starting point in two cyclical outflows and matter dissolves once more, nothing has happened except that it returns to its origin, enriched. Only by absorbing and overcoming the self-centered current will the selfless current unfold such a powerfully oscillating force that it must swing beyond itself—that is, beyond the cosmic circle formed by the first meeting of the two currents. As selflessness flows apart, something new will be born from it—a new region: Paranirvana, the negative matter, because, in contrast to matter that is held within the cosmic circle by attraction, it spreads outward. One can understand this process by imagining the swing of a pendulum. The pendulum swinging forward will immediately swing back, and unless it is stopped by obstacles along its path, it must swing with such force that it goes beyond its starting point—just as a car rolling forward cannot stop suddenly but must continue rolling for a short distance.

[ 2 ] With this preparation and gradual development of matter, the material components necessary for planetary formation would now have been created, but planetary life itself could not yet arise. Thus, the Logos could not remain in Paranirvana; he had to return, and on this return journey he formed the Mahaparanirvana region. From here, the Logos had to make the sacrifice and begin the cycle through matter once more, so that other life—separate from him, yet arising from him—could come into being.

[ 3 ] All life, in its manifold forms, has emerged from the Unity, the one Logos. Within it, all diversity still lies hidden, undivided and undifferentiated. As it becomes recognizable and perceives itself as the Self, it emerges from the Absolute, from the undifferentiated, and creates the non-Self—its mirror image, the second Logos. It animates and enlivens this mirror image; it is its third aspect, the third Logos.

[ 4 ] Thus, the first Logos—the undifferentiated, in which life and form rest undivided—should be regarded as the Father. Time begins with his existence; he separates his reflection from himself—the form, the feminine, which he fills with his life—the second Logos; and from this animation emerges the third Logos as the Son, as animated form. Thus, all religions have conceived of their God in a triune form: as Father, Mother, and Son. Thus Uranus and Gaia, the maternal Earth; and Cronus, Time, emerged from her womb as the Son; Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and so on.

[ 5 ] The sacrifice of the Logos is this: The Spirit descends into matter, animates its reflection, and thereby gives existence to the world of animated forms, all of which lead their own distinct lives and undergo the cycle of evolution in order to become one again with the Logos as highly developed individualities, through whom the Logos receives a wealth of experience. Had He not poured Himself out to animate all these forms, there would be no independent growth and development. All movement, all coming into being, would have no life of its own; it would merely stir and move under the direction of God.

[ 6 ] Just as human beings are interested only in what is unknown and unique about other people, and remain indifferent to everything they can calculate and understand, so too can the Logos find joy only in life that develops independently—life that springs from it, for which it sacrifices itself and devotes itself.

[ 7 ] The process of the development of matter begins, in which the qualities of the Being are reflected and active, until these reflections, as separate forms, begin their own activity and thus increasingly spiritualize and animate matter, until it becomes one again with the Being—Atma, Budhi, Manas ... [gap]

[ 8 ] First, the cosmic foundation was created through the convergence of the two qualities—selfhood and selflessness—of the First Logos. Through the second current of the same, guided by harmony, the atomistic essence took shape. This essence enveloped itself with the already existing mother substance, and atomic formation came about. These atoms, with their shells of varying degrees of density, now gradually formed the matter that could serve as a medium for the second Logos—who is the mirror image of the first—to project his own mirror image of that matter. The Second Logos now flows into this matter, which, at its first stage—the Nirvana stage—is of such a fine nature that it can flow through it unhindered and unchanged. He now enters the Budhi region; here he is held back, and although selflessness in this region is so strong that it does not wish to retain the Logos for its own realm, it nevertheless claims him for its entire cosmos. Here the sacrifice of the Logos begins; the voice, the sound, emanates from him: he seeks to animate matter with his spirit so that his thoughts may exist as independent forms. Here, where the divine thought becomes sound and voice, in the Budhi sphere, lies the divine kingdom as conceived in the Middle Ages. Enveloped by Budhi, the Logos now flows into the mental region, which is divided into the Arupa and Rupa levels; here the divine world of thought pours forth, and the archetypal ideas surge together. What will later become a distinct being—and which in the Budhi sphere still rests enclosed within the Logos—is called into existence here as an archetypal idea. This Arupa stage of the mental sphere is Plato’s world of ideas, the medieval world of reason. On the Arupa stage, these ideas take on their first forms. As divine genii, they begin their separate existence and float intermingled, still interpenetrating one another as spiritual beings of the same kind. It is the heavenly kingdom of the Middle Ages.

[ 9 ] These spiritual beings now enter the astral sphere; here, enveloped in a denser substance, sensation awakens through touch; only now do they perceive themselves as distinct beings; they feel the separation. This is the elemental realm, the world of the elemental. Having descended into the etheric sphere, this sensation is pushed outward from within; it swells, expands, and grows through the etheric vegetative force, only to be enclosed and crystallized by physical matter, for here the ego still strives with full force toward limitation. Thus, the sensation is enclosed in the mineral kingdom, and the divine ideas slumber in sublime tranquility within the chaste rock. The stone—a frozen thought of God: “The stones are silent. I have placed and hidden the eternal word of the Creator within them; chaste and modest, they keep it locked within themselves.” So goes an ancient Druidic saying, a prayer formula. In the Middle Ages, the etheric and physical realms—or the mineral kingdom—were called the microcosm or the small realm.

[ 10 ] As it flowed in, the Logos surrounded itself with increasingly dense shells until, within the rock, it learned to define its boundaries firmly. The stones, however, are mute; they cannot reveal the eternal Word of the Creator. The rigid physical shell must be cast off once more; it remains behind in its realm, while the crystalline forms, now within their soft etheric sheath, expand, grow from within—that is, are able to live, for life is growth; the stone becomes a plant. And ascending further, the Logos sheds this etheric sheath as well and enters the astral sphere of sensation. Here, through the interaction of contact and perception, activity unfolds; from sensation and will, the sentient animal existence takes on a living form. Thus, as external stimuli act inward as sensations, it gradually develops its organs of perception. The types take shape. Transitioning into the mental realm, this sensation perceives itself, and with the development of ego-consciousness, the human stage is reached.

[ 11 ] From a cosmic perspective, the Logos’s entry into the mineral kingdom would mark its deepest descent into matter, and its shedding of the first shell would mark the beginning of its ascent. Viewed from the human perspective, however—in the anthropocentric sense adopted, among others, by the ancient Druid priests—the spirit’s repose within the chaste rock would represent a sublime stage of existence. Untouched by selfish will, the stone obeys solely the laws of causality. For human beings on the lower mental level, where we now stand, the rock would be a symbol of higher development. Through lower kamic passions and errors, we evolve into an ethereal plant existence, living and growing from within with selfless naturalness, so that later we may live in our causal body, untouched by anything external, resting as pure spirit within ourselves, just as the crystallized spirit rests enclosed within the rock.

[ 12 ] The second Logos, as the mover and animator of the matter in which it is enclosed, has reached only as far as the lower mental sphere. Through self-consciousness, the sentient animal has reached the human level of existence. It is able to relate the external world to its own personality; it perceives itself. Nature has led and guided it this far; here it leaves it alone and free. Humanity’s further development now depends solely on its will. It must make itself into a vessel, shed the outer shell of the lower mental sphere, so that it may now receive the inflow of the First Logos, just as the seed opens itself and awaits fertilization, without which it cannot grow and bear fruit.

[ 13 ] The first Logos is the Eternal One in the universe, the unchanging law by which the celestial bodies move in their orbits, the foundation of all things. Individual forms are subject to destruction and change. With our sensory perception, we perceive colors that may appear differently to another form of perception. The external, solid object, held together by its parts in a specific form, may vanish at a certain temperature; its parts may dissolve, but the law by which it came into being remains and is eternal. Thus, the entire universe moves according to eternal laws; the First Logos flows throughout it. Man must rise to it through his will. He must develop within himself the selfless, lower soul-knowledge (Antahkarana). Through pure contemplation, he must perceive this eternal, unchanging law within the transitory; he must learn to distinguish between what is merely a temporary appearance in a specific form and what is its essential core; he must take in and preserve what he has seen as a thought within himself. In this way, he gradually comes to know the unreality of the world of appearances; the thought becomes the real for him; he gradually ascends to the arupa stage; he lives in the pure world of thought. The many dissolve for him and are subsumed into the One; he feels at one with the All. Thus he has elevated himself so high that he can receive the inflow from the First Logos directly as intuition. But such an individual soul does not flow into every single person; no, it is the Universal Soul—the soul of Plato and others—in which he shares, with whom he becomes one in thought. Step by step, the higher human being develops from the kamic stage.

[ 14 ] At this turning point, when he must strive upward of his own free will, he needs a teacher; and that is why, during the third race of the fourth round—the Lemurian era—the Sons of Manas descended and incarnated to serve as guides. Mental development began with simple counting and an understanding of numbers, and this distinguished thinking humans from animals that perceive only through the senses.