The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Man's Relationship with Nature

[ 1 ] Today we will discuss to what extent, by embracing the theosophical worldview, a person not only learns something and is able to gain insight into the world and its beings, but also to what extent theosophical teachings, views, thoughts, and ideas are capable of influencing human perception and emotion. It is, after all, rightly emphasized so often that Theosophy is not meant to be something that merely introduces us theoretically to higher worlds, but rather something that penetrates deeply into our lives. Now, the opinion usually associated with this statement is often trivial or considered inferior, and we must instead form our own view today regarding the significance of such an opinion. In the most intimate way, the thoughts and ideas we absorb through Theosophy gradually flow into our entire range of feelings and sensibilities, so that, in the true sense of the word, we can become different people through Theosophy. Admittedly, that trivial notion often consists in forming a certain mental image from the outset—that a theosophist must be this way or that way—and when he is not, people say: “But I understand a theosophist to be something entirely different.” — But I think that only a theosophist can judge what a theosophist should be, and if others—who are not yet theosophists—always say they have a mental image of a theosophist as something else, then in most cases this view is unlikely to be very theosophical, because it cannot be based on true expertise. Today we do not wish to speak of such a trivial opinion, but rather of the profound transformation of our feelings and sensibilities when we truly take Theosophy into ourselves. Let us consider the question: Can such thoughts, when communicated to us, flow into all the powers of our soul and, with regard to everything we experience inwardly, make us into new people? — They can.

[ 2 ] The world around us—the ordinary world we walk through—can take on a different appearance with every step we take if we understand theosophy. So today, of course, we must try to delve a little deeper into a theosophical understanding of the world.

[ 3 ] All around us are inanimate beings that we call minerals, plants, animals, and other human beings. We know that spiritual beings stand behind these beings, and that a spiritual world exists behind our physical world. We know that even of the person standing before us, we can perceive with our senses only a small part—the physical body—and that this person, in addition to this physical body, has an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I.” We cannot perceive these last three aspects with our ordinary senses. When we look at a stone, we tell ourselves: it differs from a human being in that, as a mineral, as a stone, it has no etheric body, no astral body, and no “I” in the physical world, but only the physical body. We know that a plant has a physical body and an etheric body, and that an animal also has an astral body. And only the human being possesses the fourth member, the “I.” It is precisely because the human being has this member—the “I”—that transcends all other beings that he is the crown of our physical world. Only when we express the matter in this way is it correct. But if we express it even slightly differently, it is already incorrect. If someone says, “Here in the physical world, the stone or the mineral has only the physical body”—then that is correct. But if someone omits just those few words, “here in the physical world,” then it is already wrong—fundamentally wrong. If someone says, “The stone has only a physical body”—that is fundamentally wrong.

[ 4 ] What may seem so pedantic—it must be said once—is meant to convey a sense of just how precisely one must speak when it comes to these subtle matters. Even a stone has its etheric body, its astral body, and its “I”—just not in the physical world—and the same is true of plants and animals. And it is very good to bring this clearly to mind: that we should view the stone from a higher perspective—as a being that belongs to something other than what it appears to be to us. Take a look at your fingernails. Imagine that some very tiny being were to look at these nails and, because it had no sense organs, could see nothing of the fingers; it would believe that these nails were something in and of themselves, and yet that is not true. These nails have meaning only when they are on fingers. So it is with all our minerals. People look at minerals. They see their physical body. But just as the nails belong to the fingers, so the physical body of the mineral belongs to an etheric body—only this etheric body can no longer be found in the physical world. The physical body of the mineral is in the physical world; the etheric body of the mineral is in the astral world; and for a being who looks into the astral world, it is just as if you were tracing the nails all the way back to the fingers. For this etheric body in the astral world belongs to the mineral. Likewise, the mineral has an astral body, only this astral body of the mineral is in what we call Devachan. And finally, the mineral also has an “I,” and this “I” is in the higher Devachanic world, in the arupic world.

[ 5 ] So when we look at the minerals around us, they are projected entities that protrude—like our fingernails—from the organism, that is, from the entities to which they belong and which, in relation to their “I,” are in higher worlds. Just as you have your fingernails here, these entities have their limbs, which they extend—first into the lower Devachanic world, then into the astral world—and then “fingernails” grow from them below: the minerals on Earth. So when you look at a mineral, you must not believe that this single mineral has a “self”; rather, many related minerals belong together as part of a collective “self.” There are few such mineral personalities on the Devachanic plane. — The plant differs from the mineral in that, on the physical plane, it has its physical body as well as its etheric body. In the astral world, it has its astral body, and on the Devachanic plane, it has its “I.” The “I” of the plant is thus one level lower than that of the mineral, so that on the lower Devachan plane one encounters beings whose lowest link is the plant. — In the case of the animal, it has its physical body, its etheric body, and its astral body—all on the physical plane, here in the physical world—and its “I” in the astral world. All animals belonging to a single species—all lions, for example—do not each have an individual “I” of their own, but rather a collective “I.” This “I” is also called the group “I” of the animals. Human beings differ from animals in that they also have their “I” on the physical plane.

[ 6 ] So when you look at an animal, if we view it through the eyes of a theosophist, the feeling must arise within us: You find a “I” in every human being, in each individual person; in animals, you cannot find a “I” on the physical plane—you must ascend to the astral plane, where the astral plane is populated by these group “I”s of animals. The lion “I” on the astral plane is a completely different being from the individual lion, just as your fingers are a different being from yourself. There are group “I’s” of animals that are much more intelligent than the most intelligent humans on the physical plane. These group-I’s are the guides, promoters, and shapers of what the animal experiences here on the physical plane, and no one can ever gain a true understanding of animal life unless they know that what animals do here is merely the expression of actions taken above by the animal group-I’s. Take, for example, the remarkable phenomenon that, at a certain time of year, the birdlife of the Northeast begins to migrate in a line toward the southwest, only to return in the spring. Each species migrates at a certain altitude, and you can imagine that these bird migrations are connected to important instincts in the animal world. The spring migration is a mating flight. If you ask about the wise mechanisms underlying it, you cannot understand them unless you realize that they are based on the Group-Iches, which direct and guide it all. Everything that happens in the animal world takes on a different aspect for us when we are aware of this presence of the Group-Iches. Imagine you have a wall with various holes: a person reaches their hands through them. What a mistake it would be to believe that these hands are beings in their own right. Anyone who regards an animal as a being in its own right falls into this very mistake. It is wise beings who direct this bird migration. Thus, the animal world becomes for us the expression of a world of wise beings that lies behind it. We come to know a wondrous world of beings and no longer pass by the events that directly confront us so thoughtlessly. In fact, these animal group-selves are always to be found in the vicinity of our Earth. These animal group-I’s constantly circle the Earth spiritually, like the trade winds, the migrating birds, or the electrical and magnetic currents circulating around the Earth. Thus, there are spiritual currents and movements that are nothing other than the actions of these animal group-I’s.

[ 7 ] When we now consider the plant kingdom, we see something similar. We see the outer plant. What we have before us as a plant is the physical body and the etheric body. But when we rise to the astral plane, we find the astral bodies of the plants, and on the Devachan plane we find the plant-selves. For our earthly plant world, there are a large number of such plant “I’s.” But all these plant “I’s” have a common place where they are together; that is the center of the Earth. All plants are such that they strive with their very being toward the center of the Earth.

[ 8 ] Now consider what becomes of the Earth itself when we view it from this perspective. It does not become the physical body that geology portrays it as, but rather the Earth itself thereby becomes a living being with an “I.” The individual plant has no astral body, but all plants are immersed in and enveloped by an astral body, so that we can form a mental image of the entire plant world of the Earth as follows: All plants belong to the Earth’s astral body, and at the center of the Earth is the “I” of the plants. Through this, the Earth becomes a conscious being to us. Just as your “I” is within your body and sends out its rays to your fingers, so the Earth has its “I” at its center and sends out rays to the individual plants. Like our hair, the plants are organs of the Earth’s organism. Every plant strives toward the center of the Earth as toward its “I.” In the spiritual world, countless beings can interpenetrate one another in a single place, existing in the same location. The spatial relationships in the spiritual world are different from those in the physical world. The plant “I’s” can all meet at the center of the Earth. The weed has a different “I” than the wheat. The two “I’s” do not get along well, but they both have their “I” at the center of the Earth. Such a truth must not only be grasped with the intellect; one must feel it with every step one takes in life. The Earth’s vegetation takes on a different meaning when we walk through it with the sense that these plants are the outer, physical expression of a spiritual content that is connected to the Earth. The Earth has its own “I,” but all of this finds its full expression in the plants.

[ 9 ] If we now look at the matter in this way and do not limit ourselves to the mere concept, only then does it come to life; only then have we grasped it correctly, for only then do we know that what we do to a plant produces something similar to what we do to a human being. When we strike a human being, it hurts them because they have an astral body. The etheric body cannot feel joy or pain. An individual plant—since not all individual plants have an astral body—does not feel pain when pressed. But the Earth possesses the collective astral body of the plants, and it is this that feels the pain of what is done to the plant. And at the center of the Earth are the “I’s” of the plants. There, awareness arises of what is being done to the plant. If we grasp this teaching as something we take in with all the powers of our soul, we will walk differently across the surface of the Earth. Through this, every step in our life becomes a communion with the Earth as a conscious being, and we know that the Earth as a whole experiences pleasure and suffering, joy and pain. We must, however, perceive this in the right way. One might think that when we cut a plant, it hurts the Earth. That is not the case. Only someone who can look into the way the Earth’s astral body functions can provide information about the details. When you pluck a flower, it is a sensation similar to that of a calf suckling milk from its mother cow, which gives the cow a kind of sense of well-being. What the Earth causes to sprout in the form of plants can be compared to the flow of milk from an animal, so that you can pick flowers, and this gives the Earth a sense of well-being. But if you pull them out by the roots, it hurts the Earth, just as if you were cutting into flesh. If you take this to heart, you will realize what a spiritual connection you gain with the earth. When the scythe cuts through the stalks, the clairvoyant sees waves of well-being sweeping across the earth, across the fields. As a field is mowed, floods of well-being sweep across the earth. Our relationship with the world deepens wonderfully when we immerse ourselves in these truths. And when we tear the plants from the earth, we feel how much it hurts the earth—just as if a hair were being pulled out of our own head.

[ 10 ] One might object: Yes, but sometimes it is a very good thing not to pick all the flowers, but to leave them in nature, and sometimes it is good to transplant the plants and pull them up by the roots. That does not change the fact that pulling them up causes pain, while picking them brings a sense of well-being. The moral aspect is distinct from the fact itself. A moral perspective that is justified in human life must not be applied to the cosmos. Consider this: when someone begins to get their first gray hairs, it may be desirable from an aesthetic standpoint to pluck them out. He may become more handsome, but it causes him pain. Similarly, it may be desirable to transplant plants, but it causes pain to the earth. Now the question is: Is it not necessary to cause such pain? Or: May one—or should one—cause this pain? In many respects, pain is inseparable from existence. A human being enters the world through the mother’s pain. Whatever is born is born in pain. Even if it may be necessary to uproot plants, the earth always experiences pain. Thus, our concepts and ideas merge into intimate feeling and sensation. We gradually realize how much we fail to perceive in our surroundings when we know nothing of all these things. In our surroundings, there is always feeling, sensation, and life; it is not merely a mechanical process when the scythe cuts through the stalks, but rather floods of sensations flow across the field in the fall. Thus we learn to immerse ourselves in the beings around us.

[ 11 ] And what about the rock? We have said that rock has its own “I” just as humans do, only in a much higher world. This “I” of the rock and its astral body feel and sense just as the Earth does when you pull up or pick plants. And it is not merely a mechanical process when stonecutters in the quarry chisel away stone by stone. What is being blasted loose there is seen by a person who relies solely on their senses as a process of the external world. We come to understand that something similar is taking place and being experienced within a soul when we delve into Theosophy. However, you must not judge this based on analogies; rather, one must proceed concretely. One might think that the hammering in the quarry causes pain. That is not the case. You cannot do the mineral kingdom a greater favor than by shattering a stone: that is its true delight. And it is an outpouring of delight when you set off an explosion in a quarry and the stones are hurled in all directions. The stone has a true longing and passion to be split, shattered, and torn apart.

[ 12 ] On the other hand, something else causes pain and suffering to the essence that underlies our world of rocks. If you have table salt dissolved in a glass and this salt begins to precipitate out—so that it separates as a solid salt and settles to the bottom—when the dissolved substance clumps together into a solid mass, then the being in question suffers pain. If you dissolve the clumped-together substance again, then it experiences pleasure. If you were to reassemble the scattered rock fragments into the original rock, this would cause the rock’s soul immense pain. Consider that, fundamentally, our Earth was formed in this way: it was a molten body. And in order for you to have solid ground beneath your feet, solid bodies had to coalesce from the most diverse solutions and forms of water.

[ 13 ] There was a time when our Earth was such that all metals were molten. Then the first islands began to form. This was accompanied by immense pain. The fact that the Earth could become our home was achieved through suffering, and what is described in the natural sciences—the gradual solidification of the Earth—also signifies spiritual processes. When someone who sees through these things witnesses, for example, a volcanic eruption—as the molten masses flow out and solidify—they see streams of suffering from the soul of the lava flowing down the mountain. In this way, the whole of nature becomes imbued with soul for us when we know these things. But this is also always what the initiates have held up before humanity. The sayings of the initiates generally have deep meaning and profound value—and sometimes more than one meaning. Understand that the Earth was once a molten body, that this mineral kingdom solidified and condensed. Through suffering, the Earth has taken shape as our dwelling place. Only through the suffering of the mineral kingdom were we able to reach a certain stage of development. This suffering of the mineral kingdom will only cease when the Earth reaches its final state—when it becomes softer again, when it becomes spiritual once more. Imagine this course of the Earth’s development: a fiery, molten Earth, with human beings still existing within it in a spiritual form. The rock masses solidify. Constant pain and suffering for the progress of the human race within the lifeless mineral kingdom. How can one express this better than: “For all creation groans in pain, awaiting the adoption as children.” One cannot delve deeply enough if one truly wishes to understand the sayings of the Initiates.

[ 14 ] All of this shows that understanding the world is something entirely different from an abstraction. As we delve deeper into these concepts, we begin to experience the emotional sensations through which we gain insight into the soul-qualities flowing through the world. Everything becomes an expression of the soul in some form. Then every step in our lives takes on a different meaning, because we enter into a relationship not merely with the entities before our senses, but with the unknown beings on ever higher planes of the world. We simply have to find our way within the thoroughly different ways in which this is lived out.

[ 15 ] In this way, we also learn how to find the soul in plants, animals, and minerals. In this way, we come to know the soul of an entire people. An entire people, too, has a collective soul, and what is called the “national soul” is not a dead concept; it is something real. When a people comes into being—let us say, the Goths—and then passes away, this is a process of coming into being and passing away just as it is with the individual human being. But something soul-like lives within the people as a whole, and the individual human beings are the members of these folk-souls, embedded in the substance of the folk-souls, which in turn has its own destinies, its own sufferings and joys. We first gain a sense of this, then an ever-deepening understanding that all around us the world is permeated by pleasure and suffering; everywhere in nature around us—as within ourselves—there is both the old and the new. This is what makes us different from other people through the theosophical teachings. This means acquiring theosophical understanding and putting theosophy into practice in an intimate way. It is as if the theosophical concept were a seed that we plant in suitable soil; then it sprouts and bears blossoms and fruit when it becomes feeling and sensation, and we immerse ourselves deeply, deeply into our surroundings through feeling and sensation. When, through Theosophy, plants and stones become not merely objects of our observation but our friends and fellow beings—who grow dear to us through theosophical contemplation, whom we learn to love just as we learn to love other people—then, little by little, understanding will dawn upon us, and a new perspective will open up, revealing the immense educational value that Theosophy will have for the future. Create a mental image of people two, three, four, or five centuries from now who will not only conceptualize the ideas of karma and reincarnation but will walk through the world imbued with the feelings we have described. And how different human life as a whole—and all education—will be when people can perceive the pulse of beings everywhere. When a person places their hand on a tree and feels the Earth’s pulse, when they break a stone and experience the sense of well-being that flows through the stone’s soul, and when they become aware that the Earth has had to endure pain—then humanity will walk upon this Earth differently; then life will be transformed, and true compassion, emanating from human beings themselves, will prevail and be alive.