The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. On the Relationship between Humans and the World around them

[ 1 ] Today I will speak to you about a wide variety of topics, which can easily be tied together in a way that will allow you to find a sense of common ground among them.

[ 2 ] Above all, I would like to say a few words to you about humanity’s relationship to the world around us, about human perceptions and feelings toward the world, and how these perceptions and feelings can be deepened through the theosophical worldview. In doing so, I would like above all to convey the sense that viewing the world as a person with the average level of education and worldview common today is not the same as viewing the world as a theosophist.

[ 3 ] If we wish to elevate Theosophy from what many know it to be—a theory, a collection of teachings—to something that has a soul, that fills the soul, that purifies and ennobles all our sensations and feelings, if we wish to elevate it to a purpose in life, we must be able to experience what we can learn through it, and truly apply it, so to speak, to our most everyday life. Only then will we have truly internalized Theosophy in the right way—when, for example, we understand how to look at a plant, a field, a mountain, or an animal differently, and to perceive them differently than we were able to before we became Theosophists. And we will be able to delve into what this means once we immerse ourselves in the essence of what is called self-consciousness.

[ 4 ] You are all familiar with self-consciousness in human beings; you know that we distinguish four components in the human being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I,” and that when a human being becomes conscious of this “I,” what we call self-consciousness arises. This “I” therefore has not only the capacity to know the world around it, but also to know itself: that we are beings of an independent nature. If you really think this idea through to its conclusion, you may come to understand how to conceive of this self-consciousness in human beings themselves. This raises the question: How does this apply to animals, plants, and minerals? Can we, in a certain sense, speak of self-consciousness in animals, plants, and minerals? — Those who simply say, “Why shouldn’t every stone have an ‘I’ in the same sense as a human being, only that humans do not perceive it?”—such people speak without knowledge of the matter. For on what we call the physical plane, only human beings possess self-consciousness—an “I”—not animals, not plants, and not minerals. This is what distinguishes human beings from animals, plants, and minerals: that they possess this “I” here on the physical plane, in the ordinary world.

[ 5 ] Now, you shouldn’t take the words I’m about to say as an “either-or” situation. You must be clearly aware that certain higher animals—namely those that live closely with humans, such as domestic animals—possess a kind of self-awareness that, in a certain sense, already resembles that of primitive, wild humans today. There are degrees of difference everywhere. We are not speaking of transitional stages, but of the main points, as they exist, so to speak, in intermediate states. In general, we do not find self-consciousness in animals here on the physical plane. What, then, is this self-consciousness of the animal? You can easily grasp this if you ask yourself: Where is the self-consciousness of each of my fingers? — Then you must tell yourself: Your own consciousness is the self-consciousness of your finger. It is inconceivable without your shared consciousness. Within your “I,” your ten fingers have their shared consciousness, their shared “I,” just as do your other limbs. That is their self-consciousness.

[ 6 ] Apply this concept, in a certain sense, to the concept of an animal species. You must tell yourself: Everything in the animal kingdom that is similarly structured—all lions, bears, frogs, and fish that are similarly structured—these related lions and so on truly behave like your ten fingers. Distance makes no difference here. If one were to ask the individual fingers about their “I,” they would have to say: “That is the ‘I’ of the human being to whom we belong.” Thus, if you were to ask one lion in a menagerie and another in Africa, and so on, they would all point to the shared species “I,” the generic “I,” the group “I.” All similarly structured animals have a collective “I.” This is what distinguishes humans from animals: every human has an individual “I,” whereas animals have a species “I,” a group “I.” You cannot find these “I’s” of the animals in our physical world; rather, they exist on what we call the astral plane. There, you will find a single entity representing all the lions. Just as you can encounter a human being here on the physical plane who reveals to you a self-contained entity within their skin, so too, if you were clairvoyant, you could encounter entities on the astral plane—the lion’s “I,” the bear’s “I”—as self-contained entities, just as humans are here. These are highly intelligent beings there who are in no way inferior to humans. The individual lion may be inferior to the human, but his “I” is a very high being and, with penetrating wisdom, is charged with comprehending and carrying out the entire mission of the lions here on Earth. Thus, the animal “I’s” are very intelligent beings.

[ 7 ] If you could now observe these entities—which constitute all the “I’s” of the animals—as a clairvoyant, you would see that these entities are engaged in a remarkable activity. The tasks assigned to the animals are managed and governed by these entities, which we call the animal “I’s.” These animal “I’s” constantly surround the Earth. As an example among many, I will mention one task performed by these animal “I’s.” If you observe a phenomenon that is very well known and much pondered—the flight of birds—you will find that birds living in northern regions gather in the fall. They fly from the northeastern regions toward the southwestern ones, then southward. In the spring, they gather again and migrate northward in the opposite direction. What underlies these migrations is essentially breeding, raising young, and so on. The spring migration is a kind of nuptial flight. The regularity inherent in this is ensured by the group souls. They orchestrate all of this. And you can trace the patterns in the birds’ flight; one species flies this way, another that way, one low to the ground, another high in the skies. Everywhere you will find a deep wisdom within. It is said: All animal souls—all of them—circle our planet, circle the Earth. This is an example of how the wisdom of the group soul is at work in the flight of birds.

[ 8 ] So what is the situation with plants? They have only a physical body and an etheric body. They do not have an independent astral body or an independent “I” of their own here on the physical plane. Now, if you could observe yourself while you are asleep at night, you would see the physical and etheric bodies lying in bed. What lies in bed has the nature of a plant; the plant consists of this continuously. That which dwells within you during the day, while you are awake—that which is contained within your physical body—is outside your physical and etheric bodies at night. In the case of a plant, what you extract at night is always already outside. This process of emerging is also linked to something else. Suppose you were all to fall asleep here—which is not exactly desirable—then all your “I’s” and astral bodies would lie outside. They would not be able to be as separate from one another as you are now within the physical body. You would intermingle more, forming a more unified mass, as if you were flowing into one another. In a certain sense, you would dissolve into a common astral body of the Earth and draw strength from this common astral body of the Earth—which is intermingled with that of the Sun—to dispel fatigue. This is what happens continuously with the plant.

[ 9 ] What you see in the plant before you is the physical and etheric bodies. But the plant also has an astral body outside of itself. The entire Earth has a collective astral body, and that is the astral body of the plants. And the Earth has a collective “I,” and that is the “I” of the plants, so that you must seek the “I” of the plants in the collective “I” of the entire Earth. And now all the plants on Earth appear to you just as your fingers appear to you. They are an organism, and your fingers grow out of it. The entire Earth is an organism, and the plants are, in the literal sense, limbs of the Earth and, together with it, belong to a collective consciousness.

[ 10 ] And what follows from this is literally true: If someone hurts you, if they cut into your flesh, you feel pain. Similarly, under certain circumstances, the entire Earth can feel pain. But the Earth cannot feel pain if, for example, you cut off a plant or a flower. That would not cause the Earth any pain. What causes the Earth pain can be understood if you keep one thing in mind: You must create a mental image of the entire Earth as a unified organism and all plants as parts of this collective organism. Now, the relationship between the plants above ground and the Earth is roughly the same as that between milk and humans and animals. When a calf suckles from a cow, this brings the cow a certain sense of well-being. The Earth as a whole experiences this same feeling when you cut off a flower or a plant. For what the Earth sends to the sun—what it brings forth—is, in a different form, the very same substance that lives in milk. But if you pull a plant out by the roots, it is exactly as if you were tearing off a limb from a human being or cutting into their flesh. What our Earth feels when you cut off a plant that is still firmly rooted in the ground—in which case the Earth feels a sense of well-being—is quite different from what it feels when you pull a plant out by the roots. You should not judge this morally, but according to the facts; and this is how they are.

[ 11 ] Now try not merely to think about such a truth, but to feel it! You see, one feels it this way: When one goes outside in the fall and sees the farmer mowing down the grain with his scythe, someone who knows what is happening in the Earth’s astral body feels, as the grain is mowed down, something like feelings of voluptuousness, joy, and delight sweeping across the Earth. In fact, it is a feeling of joy for the entire Earth when the reaper cuts the grain during harvest. This is how one feels when one knows what is taking place within the animal group soul, the plant soul of the Earth, the group-I, and the Earth-I. This is how one perceives, in the passing flock of birds, the wisdom and the wise arrangement of the astral beings who bring about these arrangements. One feels the wind of wisdom blowing through the air. And when one knows that the plant is the Earth soul, one feels sensation and emotion in everything that happens to the plant. The World Spirit, it is said, is felt in the sphere of the Earth when one pays attention to the animal “I”; the World Soul—the feeling of nature—when one pays attention to the plant “I.”

[ 12 ] And that is indeed the case. When we do not merely view the teachings of theosophy theoretically, but when they fill our entire soul, then we sense that God who is ever present in nature. And when that is the case—is it not true that when one person stands before another, they know that a feeling heart beats within the other’s chest, that feelings similar to their own lie beneath the other’s skin, that they not only think about the other but also feel with them—then we, too, gradually learn to sense something like the pulse, the warm feeling of nature. Nature becomes a living being of spirit and soul to us! Now let us imagine what it means for nature to become spiritualized through this teaching; then we experience it as if, through theosophy, we were learning to relate to everything in a completely different way, as if our feelings were being purified and ennobled. How indifferent the ordinary person is to whether the scythe swings and cuts down the crop! And how different it is for the theosophist, who follows the cutting scythe with his heart; and who knows that where the scythe touches, there is a living being beneath it, that the astral body of the Earth feels pleasure! Thus, little by little, nature truly comes to life for us. This means: allowing seemingly abstract teachings to transform into living feeling and sensation. In the most ordinary aspects of daily life, every step changes when one allows the teaching to become a feeling.

[ 13 ] And now that we have understood this, let us turn our attention to something else—something we may have already touched upon from a different angle—which will appear to us in a new light.

[ 14 ] You turn your eyes upward toward the moon and the sun. You have now seen how, through theosophical wisdom, we can kindle the feeling that enables us to empathize with our surroundings. This extends even to inanimate objects, even to stones. It is very peculiar how we learn to judge certain things in our surroundings differently. People often create mental images of things the wrong way. We think we go out as those who know, wanting to see what happens when something is going on outside. Let us approach the quarry. The workers are hammering and chiseling out the stones. This brings us to the “stone-self.” This is no longer connected merely to our planet Earth; rather, the stone is connected to our entire planetary system. The stone has its center where the planetary system has it. The stone, too, has its own sensation. But you must not believe that if you smash or destroy a stone, it would hurt it. No! When you smash or destroy the stone, it brings a sense of well-being. You can see an infinite sense of well-being pulsing out of the quarry as the men work. Putting the stones together, however, involves pain. It’s interesting to know this. The Earth was once a molten mass. You couldn’t have lived in it; it had to cool down. In the heat, everything was dissolved. It had to come together. This causes pain; separation brings joy, pleasure. All of inanimate nature suffers so that you can build dwellings for yourselves. It sighs for those who can see through it—it sighs! It will once again be dissolved into its elements. For humanity to have been able to undergo its development, this inanimate nature had to be brought together through pain. When humanity has become so spiritualized that it no longer needs the solid earth as a foundation, the earth will be redeemed along with it. This is what inanimate nature longs for. It is true what Paul says: “All creation groans and suffers in labor pains.” It will be redeemed through its approach to that spiritualized state of humanity.

[ 15 ] One can even observe that children, because they are still structured differently from adults, have a certain sensitivity to the astral realm and can still sense something of what an inanimate object feels when it is destroyed. Not always—it often happens simply out of mischief—but this is frequently a reason why children feel such compassion and destroy things. It does not always happen merely out of mischief. One can even see this. Things sometimes appear quite differently from a spiritual point of view.

[ 16 ] So you see that the entire Earth is imbued with soul, infused with spirit, and permeated with feelings. This is the marvelous thing: that theosophy leads us into living nature. Now you will easily understand that anyone who looks into the world as an occultist must conceive of things—including the sun and the moon—as being imbued with soul and spirit just as the natural kingdoms are. It is truly so. What we see of the sun when we look at it with the physical eye relates to the whole of the sun just as what we see of the human being with the physical eye relates to the whole of the human being. The body of the sun is the body of the solar spirit, and the body of the moon is the body of the lunar spirit. And the Sun, Moon, and Earth belong together in a spiritual sense, and the matter is actually quite complicated. A whole host of spiritual beings are united with the Sun—they have their bodies within the Sun—not just a single spiritual being. So when the occultist looks into the Sun and sees the sunbeams, this is not merely a physical phenomenon for him, but something else as well. You can get a mental image of what he sees if, for example, you see a woman on the street raising her hand in a gesture of giving toward a child. You see the hand movement, and perhaps a coin falling into the child’s hand. But that is only the physical aspect. If you could look into what is here merely an expression, you would see the compassion; you would see how this is the cause of the hand’s movement. The same goes for the child: you would be able to see and trace the external event as an expression of a spiritual process—perhaps as an expression of gratitude. The person who perceives the sun’s rays solely with the physical eye is to the spiritual seer as the one who looks only at the physical movements of the woman and the child is to the one who also observes the inner processes. Whoever, with an eye trained in occultism, sees the processes by which the sun’s rays come to us, sees how spiritual beings in the sun overflow with feelings and how these feelings become action. And their action is what they send down in the sun’s rays. And when you observe the astral body of the Earth, you see something like gratitude from the entire plant soul as it receives the sunbeams. And that is just one full cycle of the year! When the plants open up, it is a heartfelt expression of the Earth’s inner soul processes as well as of what the creatively giving spirits of the Sun feel.

[ 17 ] There is a certain contrast—which should not be understood as an opposition—between the spiritual entities in the Sun and those in the Moon. The Earth, the Sun, and the Moon belong together. In the distant past, they were a single body. At that time, the Sun separated from the Earth—that is, from the union of what is now the Earth and the Moon. Why did this happen? We could cite a wide variety of reasons. But today we will mention only one of the many reasons. Back then, when the Sun separated from the Earth, all the beings who were of a higher nature than what remained behind went with the Sun. For the Sun can be the setting for spiritual beings far, far higher than human beings. Beings who stand far, far above human beings went along as solar spirits, and the Sun became their setting, so that when we look into the Sun with the occult-trained eye, we then see the physical sun as a body, as the stage and dwelling place of exalted spirits—the sun spirits—who were able for a time to continue their evolution on the very same body on which we also live today, but who had to separate by extracting the finest substances in order to continue their evolution in a corresponding manner. One separated from these solar spirits and was given a special task. He remained connected to the Earth. And later, the Moon also broke away; the Earth became independent. And this one, who was, so to speak, a sun spirit but had initially been given a different, temporary task—not one originating from the Sun—this one spirit is Yahweh or Jehovah as cosmic intelligence. This individual entity went with the Moon, so that when the Earth split off, we have a kind of high sun spirits in the Sun and Jehovah in the Moon. Along with the light that comes from the Sun and the Moon, the soul and spiritual powers of these beings also radiate upon the Earth at the same time. And human beings could not have developed the way they did under the influence of only one of these beings. It had to happen the way it did.

[ 18 ] If the Earth had not had the Moon, but only the Sun, then humankind would have undergone constant transformation at an incredibly rapid pace and would have developed very quickly. That would not have been in its best interest; it would have rushed things and skipped steps. The Sun unites the best forces necessary for human development, but such a rapid pace could not be sustained. Therefore, Jehovah was separated off, thereby delaying the entire course of human development. Thus, the forces of the Sun and the Moon work together to bring about the proper balance in human development. Had only the forces of the Moon been at work, humankind would have withered away. Instead of living human beings, there would have been only withered, lifeless forms—mere beings of form. When you walk among the statues in a museum, you have a picture of what the Moon would have made of you: soulless beings of form—admittedly of great beauty, but nonetheless soulless. The forces of the Sun bring life and movement into these forms, into this rigidity; but with the forces of the Sun alone, humanity would have become spiritualized too quickly. The course of our Earth’s evolution is arranged with such wisdom. That is why the Sun and the Moon, with their forces and essences, had to separate from the Earth.

[ 19 ] If a clairvoyant person had observed Earth’s evolution from another planet—if he had been able to watch as the Earth unfolded—he would have witnessed a strange spectacle. Let us assume that someone were to observe Earth’s evolution from a distant celestial body. They would see not only the physical body of the Earth but also its astral body. If they were to observe this astral body, they would see it displaying all manner of light phenomena. He would observe this over the course of millennia. Then a point in time arrives when this astral body changes completely, revealing new colors and entirely new processes. There is such a turning point in the Earth’s evolution, particularly when we view the Earth as an organism. Before this, its astral body reveals certain colors to us, and afterward, it reveals different colors. These two phases of the Earth’s astral body are entirely different. And if one were to investigate what that specific moment was—the moment when the Earth’s astral body underwent this radical transformation—one would find that it was the moment when Christ died on Golgotha. As the blood flowed from the wounds of Christ Jesus, the entire astral body of the Earth was transformed. This is the cosmic mystery of the significance of Christ’s death.

[ 20 ] This cannot be fully grasped by the intellect alone. No occult training would be sufficient to enable one to fully grasp the significance of this event. What, then, occurred in our solar system at that moment? How was the Earth’s astral body transformed? It was transformed because, from that moment on, one of the solar spirits united its astral body with that of the Earth. We said: Even among the solar spirits, there are several—six in number. The one we call the Christ Spirit united his astral body with that of the Earth at the very moment when blood flowed from the wounds of the physical body. Since that time, the Earth has undergone a fundamental transformation, for the Earth has since become one with the body of Christ. The Christ Principle descended from the heights of heaven. It lived in the solar body until the crucifixion of Christ Jesus. In death, it united with the Earth’s body. Since that time, the Earth, as a planetary body, has been the body of Christ. He has been united with the Earth ever since. And we now understand in a deeper sense what it means: “He who eats my bread tramples me underfoot.” Imagine that the Earth were the body of Christ, and take this expression literally. People walk upon the Earth’s body, and they eat the bread of the Earth’s body. And when the Spirit of the Earth speaks, it can describe this process only with the words: “Whoever eats my bread tramples my body underfoot,” and it does so without resentment.

[ 21 ] And the Lord’s Supper itself! What infinite depth does it take on when we understand that the earthly body is the body of Christ! What is the bread baked from grains of wheat? How must the Spirit of the Earth speak to this bread? “This is my body!” This must be taken literally. How must the spirit of the earth speak to the forces of the plants? How must it, after uniting with the earthly “I,” speak to the sap that flows through the plants? “This is my blood!” Just as blood flows through your veins in your body, so in the body of Christ—the Earth body—the blood of Christ literally flows in the plant sap. And who would say that this does not give the Eucharist an infinite depth? What does one feel when one senses how the astral body of Christ unites with that of the Earth, and at that very moment becomes aware of the meaning of the sayings just quoted? What does a person feel when they fully immerse themselves in this experience? How profound does the mystery of the Lord’s Supper become for them!

[ 22 ] Thus, especially through an occult examination of these processes, we learn to perceive all life around us in a different way. We learn to understand the religious texts literally. And we come to realize that, once we learn this, all external interpretations of the religious texts must disappear. For the religious texts are written from the deepest realities and reflect them. You will find nothing in the authentic texts that does not correspond to such great truths as the merging of the Christ Spirit with the Earth when the blood flowed on Golgotha. And how infinitely is the life of feeling deepened when one looks into this mystery!

[ 23 ] It is the mission of Theosophy to work toward enabling people to rediscover how to rekindle within their souls those deep sensations and feelings that truly lived within their ancestors. For just as we now try, through the theosophical teachings, to conjure before the soul what the soul can feel through them, so it was in ancient times, when the first Christians felt in this way. They felt it deeply! They continued to feel so deeply for a long time, until materialism arrived with its intellectual judgments. Then, so to speak, the spirits withdrew, for nothing has such an alienating effect on spiritual beings as the intellect. The intellect, when it tears things apart and subjects them to its caustic criticism, causes even the spiritual beings within the human soul to flee. The myth of the little elves has a profound meaning. They were there when the light of the intellect had not yet shone within human beings. The light of the intellect drove the little helpers away. Those feelings were there when the critical intellect had not yet penetrated the human soul. Theosophy exists to restore to human beings—in spite of the intellect—a warm, living empathy with all of nature. The development of the intellect was inevitable. For a time, the spiritual being had to take a back seat. The spirit will return. We will retain our intellect and, in addition, reclaim the warmth, the fire of emotion, the enthusiasm, and the compassion. Knowledge and feeling will be united when we reach the sources of life.

[ 24 ] And a new life will spring forth for us from the religious texts if the situation Goethe longed for were to come to pass. For many, many centuries ago, the majority of humanity was not yet able to read the Bible; however, people had heard some of what is written within it. It was only with the advent of printing that people were able to read the Bible. Today, however, they no longer read the profound, mysterious texts themselves, but rather what critical minds have to say about the Bible. Goethe longed for an age when people would once again understand how to read the Bible—not the Bible itself. Today, people read about the Bible. For a few pfennigs, one can buy writings that show how the Bible is supposedly composed of individual pieces, and how the Old Testament came into being bit by bit. A book has even been constructed in which sentences have been arranged one by one using differently colored letters, intended to indicate what was written earlier and what later, what is an addition, and so on—the so-called Rainbow Bible. These ideas stem from the critical mind, which can only perceive how, on the material plane, these texts were written by one person or another, but cannot grasp that all the authors of the biblical writings were disciples of the great Initiates, who had direct insight into the spiritual world. But what matters is that we recognize the true spirit in the Word, that we penetrate to what lies behind it, that we understand how the religious texts were written from the depths of spiritual, true knowledge.

[ 25 ] Thus we have seen how we are to understand these things. It is through this that a person learns what is important. Then he rises to true feeling—that is, to true life.