The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture V

[ 1 ] It is always emphasized that, in order to make progress in the occult, one should be as positive as possible and as little negative as possible, and that one should speak less about what is not than about what is. If this is encouraged in everyday life, it serves as preparation for work in the occult. The occultist must not ask, “Does the stone have life?” but rather, “Where is the life of the stone? Where is the consciousness of the mineral kingdom to be found?” — This is the highest form of non-criticism. It is precisely in the face of the highest questions that one must cultivate this attitude.

[ 2 ] In everyday life, we distinguish between three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gaseous or air-like. One must distinguish between “solid” and “mineral.” Air and water are also mineral. In theosophical writings, four other, finer types of matter are added to this list. The next substance, which is finer than air, is the element that expands it, making it ever larger in terms of volume. What causes air to expand in this way is heat; it is actually a fine, ethereal substance—the first degree of ether, the heat ether. The second type of ether is the light ether. Bodies that glow emit a substance that is referred to in Theosophy as light ether. The third type of ether is the carrier of everything that forms the finest substances: the formative ether, also called chemical ether. This ether causes oxygen and hydrogen to combine. And the very finest ether is the one that forms life: prana, or life ether.

[ 3 ] Science lumps all four types of ether together. But it will gradually come to distinguish them in this way. Our terminology follows that of the Rosicrucians, whereas Indian literature speaks of four different degrees of ether.

[ 4 ] Let us first consider everything that is solid. What is solid appears to have no life. If one projects one’s life into the solid—which is achieved by living consciously in the state known as the dream world and then seeking out the solid, for example, by projecting oneself into a rocky mountain landscape—then one feels one’s own life changing within oneself; one feels permeated by a life force. One is not there with one’s consciousness, but with one’s own life, the etheric body; one is then in a place, in a state, called the Mahaparinirvana Plane. On this Mahaparinirvana Plane lies the life of the solid. This plane is the other pole of the solid. One can perceive from other effects that one was then with life on the Mahaparinirvana Plane. When one returns from there, one has experienced the influence of beings in the Mahaparinirvana state. There, the solid rock has its life.

[ 5 ] Next comes the fluid—water. If, in a dream state, one imagines oneself in the ocean, as if one were the ocean itself, then one transports oneself to the Parinirvana plane through the life of the fluid. Through this process, one gains some understanding of the various planes.

[ 6 ] Third, when one transports oneself into the ethereal realm in a dream, one finds oneself on the plane of Nirvana. Nirvana literally means “to extinguish”—to extinguish in air, just as one extinguishes a fire. If one seeks life within it, one is on the plane of Nirvana with one’s own life. A person breathes in air. When one experiences the life of the air within oneself, that is the path to reaching the plane of Nirvana. Hence the breathing exercises of the yogis. No one can reach the Nirvana Plane unless they truly practice breathing exercises. They are only Hatha Yoga exercises if they are performed at the wrong level. Otherwise, they are Raja Yoga exercises. One actually breathes in life—the Nirvana Plane.

[ 7 ] Fourth: Below the Nirvana plane is the Buddhi or Shushupti plane. There, warmth is the source of life. When Buddhi is developed in a human being, all Kama is transformed into selflessness and love. Those animals that do not develop warmth are also devoid of passion. At higher levels, human beings must attain this dispassion once again, because their life is on the Shushupti Plane. Fifth is the Devachan or Mental Plane. There, the light ether is alive. Sunlight lives on the Devachan Plane; hence the inner connection between wisdom and light. When one experiences the light in dream consciousness, one experiences wisdom within it. This has always been the case whenever God revealed Himself in the light. In the burning bush—that is, in the light—Jehovah appeared to Moses to reveal wisdom.

[ 8 ] The sixth is the astral plane. The chemical ether exists on this plane. When one is somnambulistic, one perceives the properties of chemicals—their chemical properties—on the astral plane, because the chemical ether truly has its life on the astral plane.

[ 9 ] The seventh is the physical plane. This is where the life ether exists in its true element. It is through the life ether that we perceive life. The life ether is also called the atomistic ether because, on this plane, it has its own life and its own center. Whatever lives on this plane has its center on this plane.

[ 10 ] In fact, everything around us contains the seven planes. They are indeed all around us. One need only ask: Where do solids and gases find their life? — and so on.

[ 11 ] We have now heard that heat has a life of its own on the Buddhi or Shushupti plane. Thus, certain relationships exist between all things. The relationship between the ear and speech is particularly striking. In the course of evolution, the ear existed much earlier than speech. The ear is the organ of reception; speech is the organ of production for sound. These two things—the ear and speech—essentially belong together. Sound, as it appears, is the reproduction of vibrations in the air, and every sound arises from a specific vibration. The Pythagoreans said: When you study what is out there, outside of you, in sound, you are studying the arithmetic of the air. - A uniform space would be a soundless one; one that is arithmetically organized is a resonant space. Here is an example of how one can look into the Akashic Records. If one can elevate oneself to perceive the inner arithmetic that remains from the sound in space, then one can hear again at any time a sound that a person has spoken. For example, one can hear what Caesar said as he crossed the Rubicon. The inner arithmetic of the sound remains preserved in the Akashic Records. The sound corresponds to something called Manas. What is sound to the ear is the wisdom of the world. One hears the wisdom of the world by perceiving the sound. One brings forth the wisdom of the world by speaking oneself. That which is arithmetic in our speech remains present in the Akashic Records. A person expresses themselves directly through wisdom when they hear or speak. Thinking is the form in which a person can now express their will through language. Only through thinking can we now unfold our will. Only later can a person unfold their will in speech, beyond the realm of thinking.

[ 12 ] The next stage is connected with warmth. We must seek human activity in what a person radiates as inner warmth. Karma arises from what follows from this warmth: passions, drives, instincts, desires, wishes, and so on. Just as the organ corresponding to the ear is the organ of speech, so the organ corresponding to the warmth of the heart is the mucous body, the pituitary gland. The heart absorbs warmth from the outside, just as the ear absorbs sound. Through this, it perceives the warmth of the world. The corresponding organ that we must possess in order to consciously produce this warmth is the mucous body in the head, which is now only at the beginning of its development. Just as we perceive with the ear and produce sound with the larynx, we absorb the warmth of the world into the heart and radiate it outward again through the pituitary gland in the brain. Once this ability has been acquired, the heart has become the organ it was meant to be. This is what the words in *Light on the Path* refer to: “Before the soul can stand before the Masters, the blood of its heart must moisten its feet.” Then our heart’s blood will flow forth, just as our words now flood the world. Later, the warmth of the soul will flood humanity.

[ 13 ] The organ of sight stands somewhat lower in the evolutionary hierarchy than the organ of warmth. In terms of development, the organ of hearing, the organ of warmth, and the organ of sight followed one another. The organ of sight is still entirely at the stage where it can only receive impressions. The ear, on the other hand, already perceives the innermost essence from sound—for example, from the sound of a bell. Heat must flow to us from the being itself. The eye has only an image; the ear perceives the innermost essence. Perceiving heat involves receiving a radiation. An organ will now also become the active counterpart to the eye. This is currently latent in the pineal gland, the epiphysis, an organ that will lend reality to the images the eye produces today. These two organs—the pineal gland and the mucous body—must develop into active organs corresponding to the organ of sight (the eye) and the organ of warmth (the heart). Imagination today is the predisposition for future creativity. At present, human beings possess, at most, the power of imagination. Later, they will possess magical power. This is kriyashakti. This power develops to the same extent that the pineal gland develops physically.

[ 14 ] The mutual relationship between the ear and the larynx serves as a model. Thinking is then later permeated by warmth, and even later, the human being learns to create on his own. First, he learns to create an image; then to create and radiate an aura; and finally, to create beings. Freemasonry calls these three powers: wisdom, appearance (beauty), and power. (See Goethe’s “Fairy Tales.”)

[ 15 ] Heat has its own life on the Shushupti plane. To make conscious use of this is possible for those who know and master the life of heat, just as humans today master the life of air in a certain way. In the course of evolution, humankind must now draw closer to the forces of the Shushupti plane (Buddhi-Manas). The fifth subrace (cultural period) has the primary task of developing Kama-Manas. Manas is found in everything that is placed in the service of the human spirit. But fundamentally, all of this now serves Kama. The highest achievements of the mind are placed at the service of Kama. Our age has placed the highest powers at the service of those needs that the animal satisfies even without these achievements.

[ 16 ] But now it is also time to develop the Buddhi-Manas. Human beings must learn more than just how to speak. Speech must be combined with another kind of power, as we find described in Tolstoy’s writings. What matters here is not so much what he says, but that behind what he says lies an elemental force that possesses something of the Buddhi-Manas, which must find its way into our culture. Tolstoy’s writings have such a powerful effect because, in conscious contrast to Western European culture, they contain something new and elemental. The kind of barbarism still present in them will be balanced out later. Tolstoy is merely a very small instrument of a higher spiritual force, the same force that also stood behind the Gothic initiate Ulfilas. This spiritual force uses Tolstoy as its instrument.