The Rudolf Steiner Archive

38. The Transient and the Eternal

[ 1 ] Our thoughts, feelings, and longings move in two directions and lead us to two conceptions of what is constantly around us—the transitory—and of that which human beings yearn for—the eternal—which they hope to understand and seek to unravel, because it appears to them as the mystery of life.

[ 2 ] The truth that humanity seeks has always been the same; but people are not always the same; and so, depending on the development of humanity, the answers to questions about truth have varied throughout the ages. The school of thought that today seeks to provide an answer to the question of the Eternal in a manner appropriate to our times is called theosophy. It has come into its own over the past four decades. “Theosophy literally means ‘the wisdom of God.’ However, the present movement does not mean that we wish to receive wisdom from God; the Divinity toward which we look is, even for the theosophist, that which he continually seeks to approach, but which he cannot grasp with concepts; for there will come times when we will have entirely different, much higher insights into the concept of God, into that toward which we look. It would therefore be presumptuous to attempt to comprehend the Divine with our present capabilities. Nor can we say that the future will do so. Theosophy seeks to spread the wisdom of God; it aims to usher in a different kind of knowledge. What a person can perceive with the senses and synthesize with the intellect, they call knowledge. But let us now consider how much more still exists in the soul when we set aside everything we experience in a single day at this particular place—Lugano—and at this particular time—today. We would feel quite differently if, instead of living in Lugano, we lived in Moscow—or if, instead of today, we lived a hundred years ago. So let us cast aside what is bound to place and time and see how much then remains in the soul.

[ 3 ] What people generally understand by “knowledge” is tied to place and time; and it is the mortal human being who accepts this. The deeper essence within the human being, however, does not perceive through the senses. It perceives that which is valid everywhere and at all times. Religions seek to impart to human beings knowledge of this reality, which is not bound by place or time. And the meaning of religion is the connection between the human and the eternal. Theosophy is the knowledge of this inner human being, of his essential core. Theosophy is not knowledge of anything other than what surrounds us, but only of another aspect of the same reality. Suppose a person born blind had undergone a successful operation in this room. The same objects are still there as before, but now they reveal themselves to him in an entirely different way. In a similar way, through theosophy, a person experiences the same things as before—people, plants, animals, and minerals—but he perceives different qualities in them. Just as the operation serves to make the same object visible to the blind person’s eye, so does theosophy serve to point out a different aspect of things—namely, their new spiritual and psychological qualities. Through this, they appear to him in different, closer relationships to people and the rest of the world. In this way, the human being is elevated, and things take on new meaning for him. Theosophy is a knowledge of the imperishable part within the human being. We can gauge what the imperishable core of the human being is, what the essence of the God-man is, from Goethe’s words:

If the eye were not like the sun,
How could the sun see it?
If God’s power did not dwell within us,
How could the divine delight us?

[ 4 ] The eye must reach out toward the sunbeam; likewise, the inner power of the soul must reach out toward the flowing power of the Divine. The mystics have expressed this in their own way; for example, Angelus Silesius, with the words:

Even if Christ were born a thousand times in Bethlehem but not within you, you would still remain lost forever.

[ 5 ] Knowledge gained through the eternal essence is a different kind of knowledge than that gained through our senses and intellect. We therefore distinguish between different kinds of human nature, depending on whether a person is eternal or transitory. Usually, human beings are viewed as very uniform. You can see a person with your eyes; they are perceptible to your senses just like a mineral. But—even if an anatomist dissects a corpse, he still experiences only what he can see with his eyes and grasp with his hands. The human being he observes is exactly like the lifeless nature that surrounds him. Physical and chemical processes take place in his body just as they do elsewhere. This human being is the same as minerals are; somewhat more complex, certainly, but still the same as the rest of the physical world, uniting it within himself.

[ 6 ] But that is not the whole human being; it is only the very first part of the human being. Thus, there is a difference between other physical bodies and the human body. If we create a replica of a human being and cut off the hand of this replica, it remains a hand; if we cut it off from the real human being, it withers away; my hand can only exist in connection with me. Separated from me, it ceases to be a hand. A doctor might object: “That is only natural, since blood no longer circulates through it.” But the question is: Why does my hand need blood and the other one does not?

[ 7 ] And thus we come to the second aspect of the human being; the entire body is a living entity, unlike a crystal. Such beings, from which a piece, if removed, no longer remains the same, are called “living beings.” We humans, then, still possess this life-body, which holds the individual parts together; and we call this life-body the etheric body. For the theosophist, it is just as real as the physical body. And just as we share the physical body with all minerals, we share the etheric body with all plants. Human beings are plants; they grow and reproduce, for these characteristics are inherent in the etheric body.

[ 8 ] Even more essential than this is the third component. In the same space as the physical body and the etheric body lies a sum of pleasure and suffering—a sum of instincts and drives, thoughts and ideas—that can be cut through with a sword just as easily as the physical and etheric bodies. For centuries, this third body has been called the astral body. We share it with all animals. Human beings are thus beings that unite all three kingdoms of nature—minerals, plants, and animals—within themselves. Goethe recognized this, and Schiller documented it in the most beautiful words in his first letter to Goethe:

For a long time now, though from a considerable distance, I have been observing the course of your mind and noting the path you have charted for yourself with ever-renewed admiration. You seek the essence of nature, but you seek it by the most arduous path, one that any weaker mind would surely avoid. You take nature as a whole in order to shed light on the individual; in the totality of its manifestations, you seek the basis for explaining the individual. [Letter of August 23, 1794]

[ 9 ] A naturalist from the early nineteenth century—Lorenz Oken—describes human beings as a harmonized extract of all the characteristics of the animal kingdom. Paracelsus, the great physician of the Middle Ages, says: “What is spread out in individual letters is united in human beings; one must spell out the whole of nature, and then one can assemble the human being.”

[ 10 ] Thus, we have the human being in terms of his threefold nature: mineral, plant, and animal, in the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body.

[ 11 ] Those with a subtle nature recognize a fourth as well; so says Jean Paul, who recounts: “As a young boy, I once stood in front of a barn. Suddenly, a completely new thought occurred to me: ‘You are an “I,”’ and it seemed to me then as if I had looked into the past of my being.

[ 12 ] When we name things, we find that every thing has its own specific name—such as table, chair, bench—a name by which everyone can refer to it. Only human beings have a name that they can utter only for themselves; a name they can bestow upon themselves. The profound thinkers of the religions have always explored this sentiment. That is why the Jews called it the unpronounceable name of God, Yahweh, the “I.” I cannot grasp my “I” from the outside, but only from my deepest inner self. Within me, God reveals Himself in my soul. This “I” holds everything else together, and the work of the “I” on the other three bodies is the evolution of the world. The “I” governs the entire animal nature within itself and ennobles it.

[ 13 ] When Darwin once came to a region inhabited by cannibals, he told them it was wrong to eat people. They replied, “How can you possibly know that?” Since he had never tasted human flesh, they argued, he could not judge whether it was good or bad. By “good” and “bad,” the savage meant only what was pleasant and what was unpleasant. The realization that cannibalism is something improper has developed through the ego’s work on the astral body. At first, the desires are raw; the ego refines them, working through the astral body—the body of desire—so that it becomes a creation of the ego itself. I then no longer follow my instincts, but rather what my “I”—my duties—dictate to me. We call such an astral body, which has been completely transformed, the fifth member: Manas. Modern humans have partially reached this stage. Once they have worked through the entire astral body, they become ready to work through their etheric body as well. Once they have succeeded in this, they have attained Budhi as the sixth stage and can finally work on the physical body from the Budhi plane. When they have mastered the physical body, their entire being—Atma—is awakened within them.

[ 14 ] Thus we have the human being in its sevenfold nature: four lower members and, finally, three higher ones, which the human being develops on its own. The astral body, too, is in part the result of the work of the ego.

[ 15 ] What happens, then, when a person dies? We are left with the physical body before us. People have compared death to sleep; yet sleep is something else—a state in which a person is, for a time, not at all what he actually is. What is ordinary about a sleeping person? The physical and chemical processes—digestion and the other life processes—proceed just as they do when awake; pleasure and pain are forgotten. If we prick a sleeping person, they do not feel it until they wake up. In the sleeping person, the physical body and the etheric body—or life body—lie before you. The astral body—the body of desire—is not present; otherwise, the sleeper would also experience pleasure and pain. The “I” together with the astral body is absent. Sleep is thus a detachment of the astral body—the body of desire. Sleep is initially interrupted by dreams. Dreams, however, are not like waking experiences. We distinguish between three kinds of dreams:

[ 16 ] First: Memories of everyday life, reminiscences. Second: Perceptions of the surroundings, but in a special way. We might see the lamp, but not as it actually stands there. The ticking of a clock next to our bed might sound in a dream like the clopping of horses’ hooves—expressed symbolically. The dream is thus, secondly, a creator of symbols. A farmer’s wife, for example, dreams that she is walking from the village to the city and enters the church to hear the sermon. The pastor in the pulpit raises his hands. His hands turn into wings. Suddenly, instead of speaking, he begins to crow, and outside, the rooster has crowed. This is the figurative way in which the dream works and creates. The astral body is the great symbolist; it transformed the rooster’s crow into the symbolic image.

[ 17 ] Third: Dreams are characterized as remnants of the astral body’s experiences when it is detached from the physical body and resides in another world—the astral world. Dreams can be structured, rather than chaotic, and brought about with great regularity.

[ 18 ] Death: When a person dies, something else happens; not only does the astral body detach itself, but it also takes the etheric body with it. A sleeping person is alive, but a dead person is no longer alive because they have lost the etheric body—the body of life. After some time, the etheric body is returned to the rest of the etheric world. Then only the astral body remains, together with the “I.” It consists of two parts: that which has not yet been worked through, and that which the person has already worked into it. Everything that has been bestowed from outside must be relinquished after death; specifically, the animalic aspect is relinquished during the Kamaloka period—the astral world. There, the task is set to shed the shell that one has not cultivated; then one retains only what one has purely worked out within one’s “I.”

[ 19 ] The Kamaloka is followed by the Devachan, the place where all that is divine dwells—namely, the “I” and that which it has deified in its astral body. There, the human being matures to the point of returning to this Earth once more, and whatever he needs here, he must take upon himself in his new life. In his new life, he increasingly refines his astral body. He can do this only if he receives a new etheric body. This reclaiming of the lower members leads to reincarnation. What a person has worked into their astral body is eternal; what they must cast off—namely, what they have not yet worked through—is transitory. When they have reached the point where they have worked through their entire astral body, they must likewise—on a higher level—work through their etheric body. We call such a person a chela.

[ 20 ] The wisdom teachings distinguish between the mere cultured person and the chela. In ancient Greece, there were schools where not only was a high level of culture fostered, but chelas—initiates—were also trained. Such a person was expected to have undergone a catharsis—purification, refinement. Only then are the buddhi and the Christ awakened. The difference between the cultured person and the chela is as follows at the time of death: When a chela dies, his etheric body no longer dissolves into the world ether, but as much of it remains as the “I” has worked into it. The chela subsequently finds his etheric body again, in order to take it up upon reincarnation; whereas the cultured person receives a new one.

[ 21 ] For example, what religions prescribe—true piety—has an effect on the etheric body. Allowing inner wisdom to take effect preserves the etheric body. Books that offer inner wisdom include, among others: [“The Book of Divine Consolation”]; passages from *The Imitation of Christ*; in the *New Testament*, the Gospel of John, beginning with chapter thirteen, contains inspiring passages that awaken the inner being of the human being and the eternal power within. In *Light on the Path*—written by Mabel Collins—every sentence is inspiring. The following four passages in particular strengthen the etheric body:

Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.
Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must fade.
Before the voice can speak before the masters, the wound must unlearn it.
And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must wet its feet.

[ 22 ] Another means is the pursuit of worldly truths. Knowledge and wisdom affect the astral body. — Immersing oneself in works of beauty—Raphael’s Madonnas. Allowing beauty to flow into oneself affects the astral body. The chela transforms this work into a conscious one. Once the chela has worked through his etheric body, he must then work to bring his physical body under his control.

[ 23 ] By cultivating my astral body, I become a nobler person—wiser and better—and, as such, can inspire others to better themselves. This is an effect from person to person; a good and wise person will exert a more beneficial influence than the opposite. The etheric body has its power not only in the physical world but also in the world of thought. Through imagination and through thoughts, one can influence others. I can send the thoughts of my soul to others. Speaking and admonishing are forms of action in the physical world. Similarly, effects can be exerted in the supersensible world to the extent that the etheric body is developed and dormant powers are awakened. By following thoughts all the way into the instrument, one transforms the powers of the physical body into supermundane ones. This ideal is Atma—or, as the Christian says: communion with the Father.

[ 24 ] Those who work on themselves in this way reach into the eternal. The stone crumbles and is absorbed by the earth; the plant, too, surrenders its physical body to the earth and its etheric body to the world ether. Like the mineral, the human being surrenders his physical body to physical matter—just as the plant surrenders its etheric body to the world ether.

[ 25 ] The astral body gradually dissolves in the Kamaloka, but not that which has been worked through. Something remains. A person becomes immortal through what they have worked into their body; they create a core of their being.

[ 26 ] The physical body is more than just the astral body; it has no part that is bad. Let us consider, for example, a thigh bone. It is not a compact mass, but—when viewed under a microscope—a marvelous framework that no engineer could ever design. No bone is stronger than it needs to be. No architect would build something like this—it is constructed out there in the cosmos. The human heart, with all its fibers, and the entire physical body are such products of the divine order.

[ 27 ] The astral body constantly launches attacks on the physical body. The heart is healthy. Then the astral body—the body of desire, fueled by wine, tea, and other stimulants—interferes with its normal rhythm. It takes a long time for the astral body to reach the point where it is as wise as the physical body. But then it can work on its etheric body. Once the etheric body, too, is wise, the physical body is transformed; in the future, it will strengthen the physical body. But who is at work in the physical body today? The Divine; it works on those parts of human nature that human beings themselves have not yet developed. Let us return to the example of the severed hand. The hand can exist only as part of the body; separated from it, it withers away. Likewise: If I were lifted just a few miles above the Earth, I would wither away like the severed hand. It follows, then, that as a physical human being, I am bound to the place where I am situated. Just as I cannot consider the hand in isolation, so I cannot consider the human being apart from the Earth. Human beings are not bodies in and of themselves, but rather a part of the entire Earth organism. They can exist only through the properties that the Earth organism provides. At a temperature of two hundred degrees, for example, they could not exist. Just as our organism is animated by the soul, so the entire Earth organism is animated by the Earth soul.

[ 28 ] The “Spirit of the Earth” in Goethe’s *Faust* is not just a phrase, but the truth. Anyone who awakens the etheric body within themselves can commune with higher spirits, just as Goethe did, to whom the Spirit of the Earth revealed itself:

In the torrents of life, in the storm of deeds
I surge back and forth,
Tossed this way and that!
Birth and grave,
An eternal sea,
A shifting weave,
A blazing life
Thus I toil at the whirring loom of time
And weave a living garment for the Deity.

[ 29 ] The physical body is a part of the planetary organism. The etheric body is a part of the planetary ether. The spirit, which is called Budhi or, in Christian terms, the “Son,” dwells in the etheric spirit; the “Father Spirit” dwells in the physical body. Through the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, we come to God. The “Spirit” is astral; when it is well purified, we call it the “Holy Spirit.” In the etheric body, we are united with the Son. In the physical body, we find the Father Spirit, the spirit of planetary life.

[ 30 ] Such truths underlie all religions. Theosophy seeks to awaken these truths. The theosophical worldview aims to provide guidance to seeking souls. Human beings have sprung from the Eternal. While they may know nothing about brain molecules, they do know a great deal about their thoughts; and we conquer the lower natures by bringing them closer to the Divine.

[ 31 ] Human beings must develop various abilities over the course of time. In ancient India, what only the chela can look back upon is contained in the poetry of the “Veda.” In European regions, sacred knowledge was recorded by the Druids—holy men, great teachers—in a manner similar to that of the Vedas. The “Edda” is the same as the Vedas.

[ 32 ] In Buddha, the same teachings of wisdom are revealed in a different way. Buddha becomes Wotan in Germanic mythology: “Boda” becomes “Wota,” and “Wota” becomes “Wotan.” Thus, we have the same key to Germanic mythology. In Hebrew esotericism, we have the “I”—the “Yao”—“Jehovah.” In Christianity, it is Christ.

[ 33 ] Eternity is taught by the spirits of wisdom.

[ 34 ] Later came a time when the physical world was conquered [...]. This conquest of the physical world caused the spiritual world to recede. That is why Theosophy is now emerging to replace rampant materialism with something spiritual. In the past, the various religions taught among different peoples according to their needs. Today, materialism has enveloped the entire globe; therefore, the spiritual must also encompass the entire globe. Humanity must become a spiritual whole. This is the goal of theosophy. Just as people everywhere understand one another in material matters—just as a check circulates across the entire globe as legal tender—so too should truth and wisdom become universal currency. That people everywhere may learn to understand one another and exchange their thoughts as one would exchange a check for cash—that is our goal—and hence the call for brotherhood among humankind, the first principle upheld by the Theosophical Society. The past centuries have amassed temporal wealth. Culture has laid down layers upon the earth’s surface that bear witness to its course of development. Only in the uppermost layers do we find human remains. Millions of years from now, everything we are working on today will likewise form a layer around the globe and constitute a uniform cultural history. Theosophy works toward a future in which not only the material, but also the eternal and imperishable will encompass the entire universe. That is why it places such great value on the essence of brotherhood.

[ 35 ] Just as people now understand one another through material means, so too will they understand one another through their souls in the future when they awaken the Eternal, for it is in the soul that the Eternal reveals itself. It is through the Eternal that is within us that the Eternal is first revealed—and from the transitory to the Eternal: that is the path prescribed for us by theosophy.