The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. Christmas

A Reflection on the Wisdom of Life (Vitaesophia)

[ 1 ] When understood correctly and deeply enough, Spiritual Science will increasingly lead people back into direct experience of life—an experience that a materialistic way of thinking does not bring them closer to, as is commonly believed, but rather alienates them from.

[ 2 ] This sentence has often been uttered here and there, on this or that occasion, to characterize the mission of our movement. But it will seem strange to people today, for many of our contemporaries are of the opinion that real life—what they call life—is to be found somewhere entirely other than in what Spiritual Science has to offer; and some are likely also of the opinion that spiritual knowledge is the least likely to lead people to a practical way of life. It will do so nonetheless; it will do so in the smallest matters, it will do so in the greatest! Spiritual Science will be able, if those engaged in public or other affairs allow themselves to be permeated by it, to solve all the great questions of the present in the way they must be solved if humanity is to lead a full life. All the manifold confusions, all the unhealthy conditions of our time, everything that is called contemporary issues—which people today attempt to resolve in an amateurish manner from this or that perspective—can only be successfully addressed if our contemporaries are willing to allow themselves to be imbued with the truth of Spiritual Science. But that is not what concerns us today; it was merely to be touched upon.

[ 3 ] Today we should focus more on the emotional and sensory aspects of spiritual knowledge. We should allow the thought to come to the forefront of our minds that, when life is viewed from a deeper, more emotional perspective, our existence must seem abstract, bleak, intellectual, and conceptual to us, especially at a time like this. In such a time, as one of the great festivals—Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost—approaches, we see how the outward forms, certain outward customs of these festivals, are observed. Very, very little remains, however, of what our ancestors felt vividly in their souls at such times: that deep, soul-pervading current of feeling that was characteristic of our ancestors regarding the relationship of humanity to the entire cosmos and its divine foundation. This current was particularly enlivened during such festive seasons. For such festive seasons were something real for the soul. The soul felt differently during such times than during the rest of the year.

[ 4 ] People today have no mental image of what stirred the souls of people in times past, when the end of the year approached amid ever-shorter days and the birth of Christ Jesus was celebrated, or when the Resurrection of Christ Jesus drew near, as the blanket of snow gradually receded from the earth and what the earth had hidden beneath it came to the surface once more. On the surface, our lives seem concrete. In truth, the feelings of our contemporaries have become abstract, intellectual, and empty. People walk through the streets and generally feel little more about Christmas than that it is a festival of gifts. And whatever else they feel has only a tenuous connection to those deep emotions that permeated our ancestors in those times. Humanity has simply lost its connection to life. To regain this connection on an emotional level is part of the mission of Spiritual Science.

[ 5 ] Anyone who concerns themselves only with the concepts and ideas of what is commonly called the Spiritual Science worldview has understood the very least of Spiritual Science. One has truly grasped it only when one knows that the entire world of human feelings and sensations must become a different one when spiritual knowledge takes root in hearts and souls. And what has become abstract for a time, what has been forgotten in its significance—the deep meaning of our festivals—will come alive again before the soul when this intimate relationship with the entire surrounding world once more takes hold of the human being, just as it can take hold of him through a spiritual perspective.

[ 6 ] On previous occasions, we have often reflected on the deeper meaning of Christmas. Today, we will approach this from a different angle. Today we shall do so by first clarifying how anthroposophical thoughts and ideas affect our world of feeling, how they will actually transform the human being into something quite different from what he is now—something through which he will once again know what it means to directly sense the pulse of spiritual life in nature, to truly feel the warmth that flows through the world as the warmth that animates all beings. Today, when a person looks up at the starry sky, abstract astronomy has filled that sky with abstract, material spheres of the cosmos. These spheres will in turn appear to the person as bodies of soul and spirit. Space will once again be imbued with spirit and soul for them. They will perceive the entire cosmos as warm, just as they feel at a friend’s bosom; only they will naturally perceive the spirit of the cosmos as more majestic and magnificent.

[ 7 ] We know that a soul such as we know it in human beings—an individual soul that dwells within a specific body—can only be found in human beings. In the other beings that surround us, we must seek the soul in a different manner and form. The animals that live around us are also animated, but we will search in vain for their soul here on the physical plane. The animal “I,” which we call a group “I,” is to be found on the astral plane, and an entire group of related animals—say, the lion group, the tiger group, all cats—all individual groups of related forms have a common soul, a common “I.” The physical separation of location here on Earth is irrelevant. Whether one lion is here in a menagerie and another in Africa makes no difference; all lions belong together to the same ego that the occult researcher can find on the astral plane. These group egos are distinct personalities there; and just as your personality here on the physical plane is a distinct one, so the group ego is a distinct personality on the astral plane. Just as your ten fingers belong to your unified personality, so all lions belong to the group-self of the lion. And if we could make the acquaintance of the individual group-selves on the astral plane, we would find that the most striking characteristic of the group-selves is wisdom, however unwise the individual animals may seem to us here on Earth. No one should infer the characteristics of the Group-I, the animal personality on the astral plane, from the characteristics of individual animals here. Just as your fingers do not display the characteristics of an individual self, so too does the individual animal not display the characteristics of the Group-I.

[ 8 ] These group-I’s act wisely, and these individual animal souls are wiser than you can imagine; what you perceive here as the actions of animals is actually brought about by the group-I’s. They live in our atmosphere, in the vicinity of our Earth; they can be found all around us. When you observe the flight of the birds, how they migrate from the northeast to the southwest as autumn approaches, and return to their homeland from the southwest to the northeast as spring approaches, and when you ask yourself: Who wisely guides this flight of birds? then, as an occult researcher, when you seek the individual organizers and rulers, you arrive at the group-I’s of the individual genera or species. In the entire animal population lives the astral I, which is just as much an I for the astral plane as the human I is here, only a much, much wiser I. Far wiser Selves than the physical human beings here are the unified group personalities on the astral plane, which the individual members here on the physical plane possess, and everything that is wisely arranged in the individual animals is the revealed wisdom of the group Selves of the animals. We walk through the world differently when we know that with every step we take, we are walking through beings whose actions we see. | |

[ 9 ] When we consider the plant kingdom, the “I” of this plant world resides in a realm even higher than that of the group “I”s of the animal kingdom. The I’s of the plants reside in the spiritual world, or in Devachan, and in essence there are very few of these plant I’s; for all these plant I’s encompass many individual plants that exist here on Earth, many species. And if we were to seek the location where we might find these plant I’s spatially, we would arrive at the center of the Earth. All plant-I’s are united at the center of the Earth.

[ 10 ] It would be a primitive mental image of the spirit of the “I” to ask whether there is room for all these different “I’s.” In the spiritual realm, everything interpenetrates. Those who do not understand this arrive at the view now contained in a book that is particularly touted among theosophists; though it speaks of spiritual worlds, it does so in such a way that one is led to ask: If thirty billion people had lived over the course of a millennium, whose souls are now said to be in the vicinity of the Earth, then there would have to be such a great number of souls that there would be little room for all of them in the vicinity of the Earth. — This book is well-intentioned, but it is incredibly trivial.

[ 11 ] We must seek the plant-selves at the center of the Earth, because the Earth itself, as a planet, is a complete organism; and just as hair is part of your body, so are plants parts of the Earth’s organism, and the plants that are parts of the Earth’s organism are not independent beings in themselves, but are members of the Earth’s organism. Pain and pleasure in plants are the pain and pleasure of the Earth organism.

[ 12 ] We need only recall what was said a few weeks ago regarding pain and pleasure in the plant world. Anyone who can observe these things knows that when a plant is injured—as far as its upper parts are concerned—this injury is not associated with a sensation of pain in our earthly organism. It gives the Earth a sense of well-being. It is like a calf suckling at its mother’s udder, which is also associated with a feeling of pleasure. For what sprouts from the Earth through the plants—even though it is solid—this greenery sprouting from the Earth is comparable, for the Earth organism, to the milk of the animal organism. And when, in autumn, the reaper cuts through the stalks with his scythe, this is not merely an abstract process for those who know how to deepen the ideas of Spiritual Science into soul sensations; rather, the stroke of the scythe signifies a breath of pleasure that sweeps across the field, and the entire reaping of the grain scatters the field with feelings of pleasure.

[ 13 ] In this way, we learn to feel with the Earth’s organism just as we feel at a friend’s bosom. And we learn to understand the Earth’s pain when we realize that the Earth feels pain the moment we uproot plants. It is painful for the Earth when we pull up a plant by its roots. One must not object here that it might, under certain circumstances, be better to uproot a plant than to pluck its flower. Such circumstances are irrelevant here. When a person begins to go gray and, in order to remain beautiful, plucks out the first gray hairs, it still hurts him.

[ 14 ] In this way, we learn to feel in harmony with the natural world around us, and nature increasingly becomes our soul and spirit. And when we go out to a quarry, and see the stoneworkers chiseling away at the rocks, this experience—if we deepen our understanding of the ideas of Spiritual Science into feelings of the soul—does not remain something abstract. We then do not merely see the stones flying out of the rock. Indeed, not even when a rock is blasted does this remain something abstract to us; rather, we learn to empathize with what the soul- and spirit-filled nature out there feels. And when we stand before a glass of water and throw some salt or a piece of sugar into the water and see how the salt or sugar dissolves, something is felt there: there is a soul within it. And if we want to know what kind of soul is inside, we must not apply ordinary analogies. For one might easily believe that when the stonemason hammers the stones loose, this causes nature pain; but the opposite is precisely the case. What is called “shattering” in the realm of stone brings nature the greatest joy, an inner sense of well-being, and it is also an inner sense of well-being when we dissolve a piece of sugar or salt in water. Through this, the water is filled with the sense of well-being of the dissolving mineral bodies. It is different on other occasions.

[ 15 ] Let us recall the Earth’s primeval era, that time when the Earth was a fiery, molten mass and all the metals and minerals within it were dissolved. The Earth could not have remained that way, for it had to become the solid ground on which we live, the firm ground on which we can walk. The metals and minerals had to solidify from the liquid element; they had to become solid, they had to contract. What was dissolved in the liquid element had to clump together, crystallize; a process similar, then, to what takes place in a glass of water in which you have dissolved salt. Cool the water, and you will see the salt crystals detach themselves as solid bodies from the mass of water. If you trace the feelings at play here, they are feelings of pain in the seemingly lifeless mineral kingdom. All apparent destruction and fragmentation of the mineral kingdom is the Earth’s sense of pain. All consolidation, all solidification, all crystallization occurs through pain, and through pain all rocks have formed, all the solid minerals of the place we walk upon. This has been more or less the case with the solidification of our Earth’s crust.

[ 16 ] When we look toward the future of the Earth’s development, we must create a mental image of it in such a way that the solid becomes increasingly fluid and dissolves. The Earth will ultimately transform into what we call the “astral Earth,” until the Earth’s matter has become finer and finer. Thus, in the first half of the Earth’s formation process, we must regard the mineral components as the solid setting—formed through pain and suffering—for our dwelling; and toward the end, a sense of blissful well-being increasingly permeates the Earth’s becoming, and the entire Earth will be bathed in this sense of well-being when it transforms into a heavenly planet that will exist astral in the world.

[ 17 ] Initiates, when they speak of these things, always express profound mysteries in their words. They express such mysteries that their words can even be understood in multiple ways, because there is so much meaning in them. Paul, who was an initiate, spoke such words, in which there is always a multiple meaning. The further we ourselves advance in our understanding of the cosmos and the spiritual worlds, the deeper such a statement by Paul will always appear to us. Paul knew that the earthly bodies have solidified through pain and yearn for their dissolution, for their becoming spiritual and heavenly: “And the whole creation groans in pain, waiting for its adoption as children!” These pains, through which the solid minerals have formed into what we stand and walk upon—this is what the initiate Paul means by this profound word.

[ 18 ] We cannot truly understand Spiritual Science as long as it remains merely a system of thought for us. But the remarkable thing is that ideas are transformed into feelings, and that we become different people because, at every turn, we learn to feel and sense everything we see around us! That was the view of those who truly knew something of the esoteric teachings of Christianity. You can trace Christian writers all the way into the 18th century who still had a sense of the living in nature, of all joy and sorrow. That is why they speak to us in their writings with words that today are mere words to people, or at most allegories and images, whereas they are meant to be understood as reality: You must not merely think about nature; you must sense it, taste it, and feel it! — That is what they meant when the Reaper mows down the stalks: that we taste it, that we feel the emotions that sweep across the field. And when we see the man in the quarry chipping away at the stones, that we may then share in nature’s sense of well-being. And when we see how, where a river flows into the sea, the earth settles, that we may learn to feel how, along with the settling earth, feelings of pain settle at the same time.

[ 19 ] In this way, nature becomes completely imbued with spirit. Thus, the human soul breaks free from its confinement. Emotion flows out into the environment. In this way, we become one with all of the surrounding nature. And as we gradually become one with the entire surrounding nature, we also perceive the greater events in their spiritual, soulful essence. We feel this when, in spring, the days grow longer and longer, when more and more light streams onto our earth, when plants—which were contained within the earth in their seeds—grow out of the earth’s mysterious interior, and when everything is once again covered in green; we feel flowing forth not merely what we see—the shimmering green—but we feel that something is also happening in the soul.

[ 20 ] And when, as winter approaches, the days grow shorter, less and less light reaches our earth, the plants begin to wither, and the greenery changes, we feel something similar to what we feel when, weary in the evening, we drift off to sleep. And we feel something similar in spring, when nature awakens: that this expression is not merely an allegory for us, but true reality. We feel the change in nature, the change in the soul and spirit of nature. We feel how, from the middle of summer onward, everything begins to decline, how the soul of our Earth inclines toward its state of sleep. — But then, when in the evening a person turns toward sleep, we have before us that living process we have often described: Gradually the astral body withdraws along with the person’s ego, frees itself, and floats, so to speak, in its own, its very own world. And if, in the present stage of human development, people could do what they will one day be able to do, then when the astral body lifts itself out of the etheric and physical bodies, a spiritual consciousness would dawn; spiritual activity and the spiritual world would surround the body. The human being would simply step out of his physical body, entering into another form of existence. He does this in this way as well, only he is unaware of it in his present state of development.

[ 21 ] This also happens on our Earth. The astral body of our Earth’s atmosphere undergoes transformations throughout the year. These transformations differ between the two hemispheres of the Earth; that is not what concerns us today. The astral body of our Earth is engaged with the natural existence of our Earth during the time when plants and life in general sprout from the Earth. It ensures that plants grow; it ensures everything that happens on Earth in terms of growth and flourishing. And in the fall, when a kind of dormant state descends upon the Earth, this astral body of the Earth turns to its spiritual work.

[ 22 ] Those who feel this process of the Earth vividly, who know that during the height of the Sun’s course—from spring into autumn—they must see in everything that sprouts and flourishes outside the outward manifestation of the Earth Spirit. But then, when autumn approaches, they are directly confronted with the Earth’s astral body, which has become freer; and when the days are shortest—that is, when external physical life is closest to sleep—then spiritual life awakens. And what is this spiritual life of the Earth? Who is the Spirit of the Earth?

[ 23 ] This “Spirit of the Earth” has described itself as the Spirit of the Earth, for when it said, “Whoever eats my bread tramples me underfoot,” and when it pointed to what the earth produces as solid food for human beings, and said: “This is my body,” and when he pointed to what flows through living beings as life-giving juices and said, “This is my blood.” At that time, with these two utterances, he designated the Earth itself as his organism.

[ 24 ] All of this was different in pre-Christian times, and it is different in Christian times. For the way things are in Christian times only came to be at a specific moment in the Earth’s evolution. In the times of short days, when the sacred mysteries of antiquity were performed, those who were to be initiated turned their entire spiritual being toward the sun; and at the deep midnight of the day we know as Christmas, those to be initiated into the sacred mysteries were enabled to see the sun at the hour of midnight. For there they were raised to clairvoyance. Modern man cannot see the sun at midnight, for it is beyond the Earth. But for the seer, the physical Earth is no obstacle to seeing the sun. He sees the sun in its spiritual essence. And when the seers in the sacred mysteries saw the sun at midnight, they saw the ruler of the sun, the Christ. For he was, after all, still very much in the sun at that time for those who were to come into contact with him.

[ 25 ] When blood flowed from the wounds on Golgotha, it was a momentous event for the entire development of the Earth. No one can understand this event who does not realize that Christianity is based on a mystical fact. If someone with a clairvoyant gaze had been able to observe the Earth’s evolution from a distant planet over the course of millennia, they would have seen not only the Earth’s physical body but also its astral body; and this astral body of the Earth would have revealed certain lights, certain colors, and certain forms throughout the millennia. In a single moment, that changed. Other forms appeared, other lights and other colors shone forth—and that was the moment when, on Golgotha, the blood flowed from the wounds of the Redeemer. That was not merely a human event, but a cosmic one. Through it, the Christ-I, which otherwise could only be sought on the Sun, passed over to the Earth. It united with the Earth, and in the spirit of the Earth we find the Christ-I, the Solar-I. And the initiate is now able to see the Solar Spirit—which he sought in the sacred mysteries of antiquity on the Sun at the midnight hour of Christmas—in the new age in Christ himself, as the central spirit of the Earth.

[ 26 ] Christian consciousness lies in the feeling of being vitally connected to the Spirit of Christ; not merely the consciousness of the ordinary Christian, but the consciousness of the Christian initiate.

[ 27 ] This is the process that takes place every year when the days grow shorter and the natural earth enters its slumber. Then the process is such that we can enter into direct connection with the spirit of the earth. That is why it is not a matter of whim, but of the principle of initiation, to place the birth of the Savior in the time of the shortest days and the longest nights. And we see something infinitely significant in the spiritual realm connected with the shortening of the days and the lengthening of the nights, and we also feel that there is a soul in this event—namely, the highest soul we can perceive in the Earth’s evolution.

[ 28 ] When the first Christians spoke the name of Christ, they did not perceive it as a doctrine or a collection of ideas. It would have seemed utterly impossible to them that anyone could be called a Christian merely on the basis of the sayings spoken by Jesus Christ as Christian doctrine. It would not have occurred to anyone to deny that these sayings are also found in other religious creeds, and it would not have occurred to anyone to regard this as something special. Only today, particularly in educated circles, is special importance attached to the fact that the teachings of Christ Jesus correspond with other religious creeds. It is true: one will hardly be able to find a doctrine that has not already been taught in the past, but that is not the point. It is not through doctrine alone that the Christian is connected to Christ. It is not the one who believes in the words who is a Christian, but the one who believes in the Spirit of Christ. Being a Christian involves feeling connected to the Christ who actually walked the earth. Merely acknowledging Christ’s teachings does not mean preaching Christianity. Preaching Christianity means seeing in Christ the Spirit whom we have just characterized as the Ruler of the Sun, who, at the moment the blood flowed from the wounds on Golgotha, transferred his work to the earth and thereby included the earth in the work of the Sun.

[ 29 ] That is why even those who first preached Christianity felt the least compelled to simply proclaim the words; rather, they placed the greatest emphasis on proclaiming the person of Christ Jesus: “We saw Him when He was with us on the holy mountain.” That He was there, that they had seen Him—that is what they valued. “We have laid our hands in His wounds.” That they had touched Him—that is what they valued. All future human development on our earth stems from this historical event. That is what people sensed back then. That is why the disciples said: We attach great importance to the fact that we were with Him on the mountain; but we also regard it as a great thing that the word of the prophets has been fulfilled in Him, which came from Truth and Wisdom themselves! — And what the prophets had foreseen has been fulfilled. At that time, the term “prophets” referred to the initiates who could foretell the Christ because they had seen Him in the ancient sacred mysteries around the midnight hour of Christmas. The first disciples of Christ regard the event at Golgotha as the fulfillment of what had always been known, and a great transformation is taking place in the feelings of those who know.

[ 30 ] When we look back to the pre-Christian era, and go further and further back in time, we find more and more evidence that all love is bound up with blood ties. Even among the Jewish people, from whom Christ himself came, we see love existing only within the blood relations themselves. We see that those in whom common blood flows love one another, and in earlier times, too, love was always based on the natural foundation of shared blood. Spiritual love, which is independent of blood and flesh, only came to earth with Christ. And in the future, it will depend on the fulfillment of the saying: “Whoever does not leave father and mother, brother and sister, wife and child, cannot be my disciple.” Whoever makes love dependent on the natural basis of blood is not a Christian in this sense. Spiritual love, which will permeate humanity as a great bond of brotherhood, is the result of Christianity.

[ 31 ] In return, however, through Christianity, a person also comes to know the greatest freedom and the greatest inner wholeness. Even the psalmist said: “I remember the days of old; I meditate on times long past.” This was a constant sentiment of ancient times: to look up to the forefathers. One felt that the blood of the ancestors still flowed in one’s own veins, and one felt one’s own self connected to the self of the ancestors. If one wished to truly feel this, even among the ancient Jewish people, one would utter the name of Abraham; for one felt oneself within the common stream of blood flowing down from Abraham. The Jew would say, when he wished to express his highest self: I am one with Abraham. — And his soul went—this has a very deep background—back into the bosom of Abraham after the body had died. That independence which entered human consciousness through Christ Jesus did not yet exist. Through Christ Jesus, the conscious recognition of the “I am” entered into human beings.

[ 32 ] But there was one thing they did not yet sense at that time: the full divinity of the innermost divine being within the human being. They sensed the “I Am,” but they associated it with their forefathers; they sensed it in the common blood that had flowed down since the time of Abraham. Then came Christ Jesus and brought the awareness that there is something much older within the human being, something much more independent—that the “I Am” is not merely something that contains what lives as a commonality within a people, but rather what is within the individual person, and that therefore love, too, must seek within the individual person, from within oneself.

[ 33 ] The self that is enclosed within you today, cut off from the outside world, seeks spiritual love from the outside. This self does not feel at one with the Father who was in Abraham, but with the spiritual Father of the world: “I and the Father are one.” And an even deeper statement than this—though this is the most weighty, because it opens up greater understanding—is that Christ made it clear to people that this is not the deepest truth when they say: I was already in Abraham. — He made it clear to them that the “I Am” is of an earlier date, sprung from God Himself: “Before Abraham was, ‘I Am.’” Thus the saying in the original text—which is usually rendered in such a way that no one can grasp its meaning—does not read: “Before Abraham was, I am,” but rather: “Before Abraham was, ‘I Am’”—the innermost spiritual being that everyone carries within themselves.

[ 34 ] Whoever understands this sentence penetrates deeply into the essence of the Christian worldview and Christian life, and understands why Christ also points out: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And that is why we should also feel the true meaning of the Christmas antiphon, which tells us anew at every moment on this holy Christian night the eternal mystery of the timelessness of the “I am.” The Christmas hymn does not say, as a remembrance: “Today we commemorate that Christ was born”—but each time it says: “Today Christ is born to us!” For the event is timeless; and what once happened in Palestine happens anew every Christmas night for those who can transform the teaching into feelings and sensations.

[ 35 ] A spiritual worldview will once again guide people to a living sense of what such a festival is meant to convey. Its mission is not to be an abstract doctrine or an abstract theory, but to lead people fully back into life, to make it appear to them not as something abstract, but as something filled everywhere with soul. And we feel the soul when we go out to the quarry and see the stone being split; we feel the soul when we see the birds migrating, when we see the scythe moving across the fields, when the sun rises and sets; and we feel an ever deeper connection to the soul the more profound the events we observe. At the great turning points of the year we feel the most significant spiritual events, and we should learn to feel once again what is most important to us at the great turning points of the year, which are marked by our festivals.

[ 36 ] In this way, our festivals will once again become something that permeates human souls like a living breath, and in such festive moments, human beings will once again become attuned to the entire workings and interplay of the full spiritual and soul nature. The anthroposophist should first, as a pioneer, sense what the festivals can become when humanity once again grasps the spirit, experiences what it means to grasp the spirit in the festivals once more. It will be one of the forces that lead humanity back out into the world if, even today on such festival days, we feel and sense something of nature’s own feeling and sensing, and in these important moments remember what spiritual knowledge in this philosophy of life brings back to humanity. Then Spiritual Science will become a living reality of the soul, it will be Vitaesophia. And it can be this most fully in the times when the world soul bends down to us in a very special way and connects with us in a particularly intimate manner.