The Rudolf Steiner Archive

34. Ways to Attain Knowledge and Will

[ 1 ] The inventor has an idea—for example, a clock—in his mind, then he looks for the necessary tools. Once the clock is finished, he knows how it is made; he has knowledge of the clock. The idea came first, [followed by] its realization in physical reality. The idea was drawn from the mental plane and then transposed into the physical plane. Let’s assume the watchmaker has died. Another person, in order to replicate the watch, must take it piece by piece and then study the principles to create others. So first comes observation, then the idea is derived in order to create. There are thus two ways to gain insight: where the idea is original, or where it is derived from observation.

[ 2 ] In the Cosmic realm, the Idea underlies everything. We call it “Mahat,” the universal Spirit from which all physical reality is composed. The beings who act as the “watchmaker” cannot yet operate on the physical plane. “Dhyanis”—they possess the ideas for the physical plane; they would instruct others, just as the inventor would have done had he not died so soon.

[ 3 ] Two Types of Instruction: The original method of instruction, in which purely spiritual beings—the Dhyanis—directly implanted ideas into the mental plane of the preceding race; a form of instruction through the direct transmission of intuition. The first humans were thus taught as one is taught by the Creators; later, as by those who had learned from objects of the physical plane. A remnant of this mode of direct infusion is also preserved in nature. Just as the beaver builds its dam today, constructing it in such a way that an engineer, with all his intellectual skill, could not design the angle any better. The beaver possesses this mode of reception in a degenerate state. There was a time when humans likewise received wisdom and constructed their structures accordingly. Lake Moeris, no longer in existence but once artificially constructed in Egypt, featured a canal system that could not be invented today. Humanity once possessed greater skill, but in a different way—one that could not be recorded in abstract mathematical forms, but only in symbolic forms. A direct inflow of Mahat; a withdrawal of Manas from the physical plane out of Mahat.

[ 4 ] Today, one must carefully calculate how beams should be laid; back then, he felt his way and was able to do more in terms of teaching; the direct telepathy between people—a flow of will into the pineal gland. Among ancient peoples, there were still similar practices that seem senseless: [Couvade,] the man’s childbirth. The belief that this has a correspondingly beneficial effect on the child dates back to a time when psychic forces were still actively at work, so that the man’s psychic processes had just as much of an effect as the woman’s physical ones. [Couvade:] a state of rest, a concentration of the father’s psychic forces for the good of the child.

[ 5 ] A descent is taking place—a different kind of transmission of knowledge and will—and it must be reclaimed from the bottom up. At that time, no sensory perception was necessary to receive Mahat; the leader of the race therefore needs not a refined intellectual faculty, but the third eye. This is the constitution of the human-lion. He is more differentiated: spirituality on the one hand, animal nature on the other.

[ 6 ] The method of teaching from below begins—spirituality has become more rudimentary. It begins with sensation; Mahat begins to penetrate from the outside. Worldly understanding flows in through the senses. As a result, external impressions become an occasion for him to reflect. His understanding is still very limited—a first stirrings; the person who then stands at the highest level, the leader, will read the scripture of the World Spirit everywhere, but he does not yet have memory. This dwarf-like spirit, gazing up at the firmament—deriving astrology from sensory impressions—is symbolized as an avatar by the dwarf: the first beholding of Mahat from within the intellect. One forgot immediately, but looked to the core—not pondering, not conceiving, but simply beholding.

[ 7 ] Astrology and alchemy: looking beyond the object to the laws that govern it.

[ 8 ] 1. So first comes Mahat from the outside through sensation, which then develops within.

[ 9 ] 2. Through the idea of where he holds the sensation in his memory; a person will only receive Mahat when he approaches him through the idea.

[ 10 ] This has two stages, namely the merging of Mahat into the mind.

[ 11 ] The development of Rama: first, the Rama of the center, and second, that of the developed life of the imagination.

[ 12 ] The next point is that humans are already forming concepts.

[ 13 ] For example, belladonna; the concept is formed based on external experience. Belladonna is not edible; concept: Where such a substance is present, the object is not edible.

[ 14 ] Avatar—Krishna, who fills the world with ideas that apply to the physical plane, are universally applicable, and are tailored to him, even though they soar far above him.

[ 15 ] Once a person has matured to the point of forming ideas, wisdom—the primordial source of ideas from which the world sprang—reveals itself once more. The person perceives the idea itself: the Buddha as a guide, suitable for a humanity that lives entirely on the physical plane but is already ascending toward spirituality.

[ 16 ] Mythology—the starry sky as viewed by the sage, populated with deities—degenerates into idolatry and, on the other hand, rises to the level of a philosophy of ideas.

[ 17 ] The purity of the Bhagavad Gita, imbued with ideas and leaving mythology behind, degenerates into mysticism on the one hand and rises to wisdom on the other—descending into complete materialism and mechanism, ascending to Christianity.