The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The God of the Alpha and the God of the Omega

[ 1 ] It is often rightly emphasized that spiritual science should not merely be a theory about the world, life, and humanity, but that it should become the deepest content of the human soul: the substance of life. If one approaches spiritual science with the right attitude, it will indeed become just that within the human being. It should be expressly emphasized that this will happen gradually, for spiritual science is like something that grows and develops: first there is the seed, which grows larger and larger and thus becomes increasingly effective.

[ 2 ] The fact is, however, that no one can hope to derive the right way of life from spiritual science merely through intellectual understanding of it. Viewed from the outside, it appears as if spiritual science were a worldview—albeit one that is more comprehensive and magnificent than others. But it is something else entirely; for what theory could possibly offer such comprehensive insights into Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon? What worldviews today would dare to make such specific statements about them? They remain confined to abstract concepts when they rise above what the physical eyes see and the physical ears hear. Such worldviews and theories have vague notions of the Divine that weaves behind reality. Even with regard to other, less lofty truths—such as the teachings of reincarnation and karma—spiritual research is far ahead of anything science dares to say about human evolution. It could, of course, arrive at these teachings as well; for if one were truly willing to draw the consequences of materialistic-scientific facts, reincarnation and karma would long since have become popular teachings. But because contemporary science does not dare to draw these consequences, it stops short. People speak of natural and historical evolution, but they do not want to hear anything about the true evolution of human individuality, which passes from life to life and carries the human soul into the future.

[ 3 ] Those who contemplate life must, purely through the consequences of that life, also arrive at the teaching revealed through clairvoyant research: the teaching of the four members of the human being. But because contemporary thinking is so despondent, this teaching is proclaimed only by spiritual science. Thus, as a teaching, spiritual science is far ahead of other worldviews and philosophies that approach people today.

[ 4 ] But all of this is, after all, not the true fruit of spiritual science. Its fruit does not lie in its being accepted as a satisfying, far-reaching doctrine. One cannot have the fruit without the seed. What we are developing today as the fruit of the anthroposophical worldview—and what can uplift our hearts and warm our love—this fruit of the spiritual-scientific worldview cannot be had without the seed, that is, spiritual-scientific knowledge itself. People say, for example: What do we need these ideas about reincarnation and karma, about the human members and the evolution of the world? It is a matter of developing love for humanity and a noble disposition. — Certainly, that is part of it, but a true love for humanity—one that bears fruit for the world—is only possible on the basis of knowledge, specifically spiritual scientific knowledge.

[ 5 ] As a body of knowledge, spiritual science is far ahead of other worldviews. If we truly experience it from within, if we do not allow ourselves to grow weary of repeatedly awakening these grand, all-encompassing thoughts in our souls—thoughts that we constantly carry within us—then we will see that this teaching can, in a very specific sense, become the purpose of our lives. The teaching of spiritual science is a collection of ideas that lead us into supersensible worlds, and we must therefore, in our spiritual scientific thinking, soar up to higher worlds. Every lesson in spiritual science is a reaching out of the soul beyond the everyday. The moment we devote ourselves to the teaching, our thinking is transported into another world. Our “I” is then united with the spiritual world, and when we consider that it is from this world that our “I” was born, we are—when we think in accordance with spiritual science—with our “I” in our spiritual homeland, at the primal source from which it originates.

[ 6 ] If we understand this in the proper sense, then we can truly compare spiritual scientific thinking to that state of consciousness which we—from a spiritual point of view—recognize as sleep. When a person falls asleep in the evening and slips into the spiritual world, their “I” is also in that world—the world from which their “I” was born, and from which it emerges each morning to enter the sensory world within the body. One day the soul will be consciously present in this spiritual world; in normal human consciousness, however, the “I” is not consciously present there. Why? Because, over the course of time, its awareness of the spiritual world has grown ever weaker.

[ 7 ] During the Atlantean era, the “I” found itself surrounded by divine-spiritual beings while asleep. After the Atlantean catastrophe, the “I” was cast out into the sensory world and increasingly lost the ability to look into the world in which it resides during sleep. For it is nonsensical to think that it would be extinguished in the evening and rise again in the morning. It is in the spiritual world—only not consciously!

[ 8 ] Spiritual scientific thinking gives us the strength to gradually connect ourselves consciously with these spiritual worlds. Because anthroposophy leads us into this world—at least in our thinking—it shares certain qualities—soothing qualities—with sleep. During sleep, all worries and anxieties arising from the things of the sensory world cease. When a person is able to sleep and their thinking is suspended, they forget all their worries. This is the most soothing effect of sleep, and it is based on the fact that, during sleep, the “I” allows the currents of the spiritual world to flow into itself. These currents possess restorative powers and bring about not only the forgetting of worries and sorrows during sleep, but also the overcoming of the damage to our organism that we sustain through worries and sorrows. What these have caused is erased by that spiritual power, and hence the refreshment, the rebirth, that every healthy sleep provides. Spiritual scientific thinking shares such qualities with sleep in the higher sense.

[ 9 ] Spiritual thoughts are powerful thoughts when we grasp them with vitality. When we lift ourselves up to thoughts of Earth’s past and future and allow these magnificent events to take hold of us, our soul will be drawn to them with rapt attention, and it will be carried far beyond the worries of the day. Thoughts about how the ideal of our own royal will arises from karma—this plan of destiny—give us courage and strength, so that we say to ourselves: Even if this or that obstacle in my life seems insurmountable today, my strength grows from incarnation to incarnation. The royal will within me grows ever stronger, and all obstacles will help me to make this will ever more royal. I will overcome the obstacles, and through this my will will develop more and more, and my energy will grow. The trivialities of life, all that is inferior in existence, will melt away like frost in the sun—that sun which rises in the wisdom that permeates us through spiritual thinking. Our emotional world will be warmed, set ablaze, and illuminated; our existence will expand, and we will feel blissful within it.

[ 10 ] If we repeat such moments and allow them to take effect within us, our entire being will be strengthened in every way. Admittedly, this will not happen overnight, but through the constant repetition of such thoughts, melancholy, lamentation over our fate, and a gloomy disposition will gradually fade away. Spiritual knowledge will be a remedy for our soul! And when it becomes so, when our existence expands in this way, it will instill within us the attitude that is the fruit of spiritual knowledge. What it thus brings forth within us must be regarded as the ideal of spiritual science. All conflict, all disharmony in life will give way to the harmonious thoughts and feelings that give rise to an energetic will. Thus, spiritual research proves itself not merely as knowledge and teaching, but as a life force and as the substance of our soul. When understood in this way, it will be able to influence life in such a way that it frees people from all worries and sorrows. And this is how it must work in our time, for its existence is not due to mere whim, but to the realization that it is necessary.

[ 11 ] Those individuals who have far surpassed the ordinary existence of human beings—the masters of wisdom and the harmony of feelings—have recognized that spiritual science must flow into our culture if it is not to wither away. Spiritual science is a new life-giving force, and humanity must be supplied with new life-giving forces from time to time. Spiritual science is a necessary current in our time. Those who have a sense for these great truths should hasten to embrace them, so as to serve as a kind of leaven for the rest of humanity, to be the salt of the spiritual life of all humanity. The seeker must regard this as a kind of duty. It is not difficult to see why, precisely in our time, the call for spiritual science has gone forth from on high, to gather those who have an open heart and a free mind for it. We have let post-Atlantean humanity pass before our souls and have traced the cultural epochs from the Indian epoch to our own time, the fifth epoch. We saw how, during this time, people gradually lost their awareness of the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] In the first epoch, people still had a deep longing for the spiritual world. The sensory world is Maya—an illusion—to them. But then came times that called people to engage in external, physical work. They must learn to love the sensory world, for only then can they work with it. Human beings can no longer say that the external world is merely Maya; rather, they must immerse themselves in it with their strength and wisdom. As a result, however, they gradually lose awareness of the spiritual world, and Zarathustra, the initiator of Persian culture, must tell his disciples: The power that radiates from the sun as physical force calls all living things into being. But this physical force is not the only one. Ahura Mazdao, the spiritual being of the sun, lives within the sun. — It was necessary to show human beings how the outer expression of the spiritual is present in all that is sensory.

[ 13 ] And so it came to pass that this sentiment first arose in Persian culture: What is illuminated by the sun is indeed Maya, but behind this Maya lies the spirit. The spiritual world is always around me, but I cannot experience it with my physical eyes and ears—only with supersensory consciousness. When this consciousness is awakened, then even in physical existence I can perceive the great Spirit of the Sun with all its subordinate beings that belong to the Sun. There will come a time when my soul will not be able to perceive this. —- But it was difficult to fully convey this to people. They must be gradually brought to maturity through ever-new incarnations in order to recognize a divine-spiritual reality behind all that is physical, to recognize that all of nature is permeated by it.

[ 14 ] In this life, human beings could recognize the divine, but they could not carry this consciousness over into the period between death and a new birth. For that was the peculiar feature of that time: human consciousness grew ever darker between death and a new birth. Let us take the soul of an Indian from ancient times. When it passed through death and entered the other world, it still lived in a relatively bright world among spiritual beings. In Persian culture, this was already less the case. The world between death and a new birth had grown darker. Obstacles pile up between one soul and another, and the soul feels lonely. It cannot, so to speak, reach out its hand to another soul. That is the heaviness and darkness of this life in the spiritual world: that one cannot walk together with others.

[ 15 ] During the Egyptian period, the soul had already lost a great deal of the power that enabled it to reach out to other souls—so much so that the Egyptian soul longed to preserve the body. It was to be preserved in the mummy. This was because the soul sensed: The power I bring with me into this life between death and rebirth is meager. One wishes to preserve the body so that the soul can look down upon it as something that belongs to it, thereby replacing the power it no longer received on the other side. Cultural phenomena such as mummification are deeply connected to the development of the human soul.

[ 16 ] The Egyptians believed that upon death they would be united with Osiris. They told themselves: Once, in ancient times, the soul could see beyond. Now it has lost that power, but it can create a substitute for it if, here in life, it acquires qualities that make it more and more like Osiris. Then it will itself become a kind of Osiris and will be united with him after death. Thus, by clinging to Osiris, the soul had tried to create a substitute for what it could no longer obtain from ancient times. But what Osiris cannot give the soul is revealed by the Egyptian legend, which says that Osiris once dwelt on Earth together with human beings. But then he was locked in a chest—like a coffin—by his evil brother Seth. This means that Osiris was once, when human beings were still more spiritual, with them on Earth; but then he had to remain in the spiritual world because he was too good for the physical human form. The soul must become such a being—a being that is too good for the human form—if this soul wished to obtain a substitute for the spiritual power of vision between death and rebirth. By becoming like Osiris, the soul was able to overcome its loneliness in the spiritual world, yet it could not bring back into a new incarnation what it had received there through communion with Osiris, for Osiris did not fit into this sensory-physical embodiment. The soul made its existence between death and rebirth bearable, but it could bring none of this with it into a new incarnation.

[ 17 ] That was the grave danger facing humanity at that time: that incarnations would become increasingly inferior. For no new spiritual power could be added. Only what had remained from ancient times could be developed. This had reached maturity during the Greco-Roman era. Just as fruit follows the blossom, so this came to light in the magnificent art of the Greeks. That was the most beautiful fruit of what had been bequeathed to humanity as an ancient heritage from time immemorial. But linked to this was darkness and gloom in the life between death and new birth, and the noble Greek was right when he said: Better to be a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shadows! - Indeed, in this world of the Greek lands and the Roman states, where man possessed so much that delighted and satisfied his senses, it was in this world that he could take nothing with him into the life between death and new birth.

[ 18 ] Then came the event at Golgotha, that event which is significant not only for the outer physical world, but for all the worlds that human beings experience. At the moment when blood flowed from the Savior’s wounds, as the body hung on the cross, Christ appeared in the underworld and kindled the light that restored sight to the souls there below. And from that moment on, the soul was able to realize that power could also come from there below for the outer world. No longer does the soul unite with Osiris to make up for the lost ability to see; rather, from now on it could say to itself: I also find the Christ-light down there—that which has sunk into the earth—for Christ has become the Spirit of the Earth. And in the life between death and new birth, I draw strength from the spiritual realm—strength that I can bring with me when I return to Earth for a new birth. —But what was necessary for this strength to flow in properly? For this, a complete reversal had to take place with regard to the sensory realm.

[ 19 ] Let us ask ourselves what these ancient Indians felt when they said: This world is Maya, the great illusion, and when I connect with it through my senses and perceive it, then I myself have fallen prey to the great illusion. Only when I withdraw from it and rise to that which lies beyond the sensory realm—when I rise to the ancient spiritual—am I in the world of the gods! Solely by withdrawing from the outer world do I return, through my inner self—which has remained with me like an ancient heirloom from these spiritual worlds—to my ancient homeland. I must return to this ancient, sacred land from which I stepped into the world of the senses. I can return only by allowing my spiritual nature to take effect when it diverts my gaze from the external world. — This was possible in those days: one could turn back. There was still so much left within—of the power to look up to the ancient gods—that by applying this power, the path to the gods could be found. Thus the Indian found his devas, from whom all things sprang.

[ 20 ] Now came the Persian era, in which the human soul no longer possessed as much of the power that had been, like a genetic legacy, handed down from ancient times. If the soul had said at that point, “I will turn back; I do not wish to remain in this world,” it would no longer have found the ancient gods. It no longer had sufficient power for that. This is connected to the further development of humanity. If the soul had now tried to turn its gaze away from the outer world and regard it merely as Maya, this would have led not to seeing the high gods, but only the subordinate devas—the evil spiritual beings who do not belong to the high gods and who have fallen into evil. This is what the souls would have encountered. Because this danger existed, the soul had to be shown how—not by turning away from the sensory world, but by proceeding from it—it could perceive more within it, namely, how the sensory world is an outward expression of the spiritual. When the gaze turns upward toward the sun, the soul learns to see in it not merely the outer physical power of the sun, but Ahura Mazdao, the sun god; and through this, the soul becomes capable of perceiving something of the divine-spiritual even within the sensory world.

[ 21 ] The Persian soul had become weak in the face of the spiritual forces that led back to the ancient gods, and it first had to be taught to see through the veil of the material world that lies over the spiritual. In the outer world, the evil asuras were hidden from it, but it could not yet perceive the good spiritual beings who lie beyond Maya. That is why, between Indian and Persian culture, the entire nomenclature for the spiritual realm is reversed. In Indian culture, the Devas are the good beings; in Persian culture, the Devas have become the evil gods. This is the true reason for this change; it lies in the ongoing development of the human soul. The human soul had grown ever stronger in relation to the outer world, but ever weaker in relation to the inner world. But now, those who are to guide human development have prepared for what is to come.

[ 22 ] When Zarathustra had learned to turn his gaze toward the sun and to behold the sun god in the sun’s aura, he already knew that this was none other than the Christ Spirit, who for the time being can reveal himself only from without. In his soul on earth, man could not yet perceive the Christ-Essence. What was formerly seen in the sun as Ahura Mazdao must descend to earth. Only then can man learn to see within himself, through his inner being, a Deva—a divine-spiritual being—once more. Life in the human body was not yet capable, in Persian times, of receiving the Christ Spirit and allowing it to permeate itself. This had to come slowly and gradually. We must familiarize ourselves with the idea that the gods can reveal themselves only to those who prepare themselves to receive them. The Deva, who could be perceived through the inner being, could come only to a humanity that had prepared itself.

[ 23 ] Everything in human development happens slowly and gradually; it does not progress in the same way everywhere. After the Atlantic Flood, the peoples had migrated eastward. This or that group of the descendants of the Atlanteans had remained in this or that region, and these peoples had developed differently. How did the Indian come to possess a vivid sense of the spiritual world? Because the development of the “I” took a very special course. The “I” remained deeply rooted in the spiritual world, so that it was inclined to find little connection with the physical world. This was the distinctive trait of the Indian: that he had this inclination toward the spirituality of antiquity and had little connection with the physical world, with which he did not wish to associate his “I.” Consequently, the achievements of external culture do not flourish in the East; the peoples there lack the inventive gift for it. In the West, human beings had a greater aptitude for working in the external world, since their task was to work through it. Persia, in a sense, formed the boundary between West and East. Further to the East remained those people who paid little attention to the outer, sensory world. That is why, six hundred years before Christ, a teaching such as that of the Buddha was still necessary for the East. He had to be placed at this point in world development because he was to keep alive in people’s souls the longing for the spiritual worlds of antiquity. That is why he had to preach against the thirst to enter the physical world. And that is why he preached at a time when the soul still had the inclination, but no longer the ability, to rise into the spiritual worlds. Buddha preaches to people the high truths about suffering, and he brings them the insights that lift their souls above this world of suffering.

[ 24 ] Such a teaching would have been impossible for the Western world. For the West, there had to be a teaching that could withstand the inclination toward the sensory world. The West needed a teaching that said: In the outer world, you must work in such a way that the forces of this world are placed at the service of humanity. But you can also take the fruits of this life with you into the spiritual world after death.

[ 25 ] People usually fail to grasp the unique nature of Christianity. In the Roman world, it found little appeal among those who were able to enjoy the treasures and riches of this world, but it appealed greatly to those who had to work in the material world. Despite all their labor in the sensory world, within the physical world, these people knew that they were developing something here that they could take with them after death. That was the lofty sentiment that inspired those who embraced Christianity. People could say to themselves: By setting Christ as your ideal, you will develop something in this world that even death cannot destroy. — This awareness could only develop because Christ was truly on Earth, not as a deva being, but as a being who incarnated in a human body, so that every human being could take him as a model and ideal. But for this to happen, the impulse and the power had to be created. And Zarathustra created the prerequisites for this. He had gone through so much that he was prepared to take on this mission.

[ 26 ] Zoroaster, who beheld the Sun God in the sun’s aura in Persia, must have had to prepare himself in earlier incarnations in order to be able to behold this God. Even in the time when the teachings of the holy Rishis still prevailed, he had already undergone lofty, sublime experiences of incarnation. He was initiated into the teachings of the holy Rishis. He had received them gradually over the course of seven successive incarnations. Then he was born into a body that was blind and deaf and had as little connection to the outside world as possible. Zarathustra had to be born as a human being who was virtually impervious to external sensory impressions; and then, from within him, came the memory of the teachings of the holy Rishis that he had once received. And it was precisely then that the great Sun God was able to kindle something within him that went beyond the teachings of the Rishis. This was revived in his next incarnation, and it was there that Ahura Mazdao revealed himself to Zarathustra from the outside.

[ 27 ] Thus, Zarathustra had gone through much before he became the teacher and inspiration of the Persian people. We also know that he had Moses and Hermes as disciples and that he gave his astral body to Hermes and his etheric body to Moses. From Moses stems the teaching, drawn from the Akashic Records, of the “I am who I am” (Ejeh asher ejeh). Thus, Zarathustra slowly prepared himself for an even greater and more momentous sacrifice. When Zarathustra’s astral body reappeared in Hermes and his etheric body in Moses, the “I,” which had been continually evolving, was able to form an astral and etheric body in the new incarnation, corresponding to the perfect “I.” And Zarathustra was reborn within the ancient Chaldean lands, six hundred years before Christ, and became the teacher of Pythagoras—as Zarathos or Nazarathos. He then prepared, within Chaldean culture, for the impulse that was to come into the world. We find this reflected in the spirit expressed in the passage of the Bible that says: the wise men from the East came to greet the Christ as the new Star of Wisdom that had risen. Zarathustra taught that the Christ would come, and those who remained disciples of this significant Zarathustrian teaching knew when the time of the great impulse of Golgotha would come.

[ 28 ] Now, there is always a certain connection between those who stand in the world—a Buddha, Zarathustra, Pythagoras. For what is at work in the world is, after all, a force; it is a fact. The spirits work together; it is not by chance that they are born together in one age. Thus the great impulses of human development intertwine. Zarathustra pointed to the one who, through the event at Golgotha, was to bring about that human beings might find the world of the devas through the power of their own inner being—more and more as they develop further into the future and are able to direct their steps forward. And at the same time, the Buddha said: Yes, there is a spiritual world in comparison to which the entire sensory world is Maya. Turn your steps back toward the world in which you were before the thirst for earthly existence arose, and you will find Nirvana, rest in the Divine!—That is the difference between the teachings of the Buddha and those of Zarathustra. The Buddha teaches that man can attain the Divine by turning his steps back, and Zarathustra teaches as Zarathos: The time will come when the Light will incarnate within the earth itself, and through this, as the soul moves forward, it will draw nearer to the Divine. — The Buddha says: By turning back—Zarathustra says: By moving forward, the soul will find God.

[ 29 ] Whether one seeks God in the Alpha or in the Omega: one finds Him. Whether one moves backward or forward: one comes to God! But people must find Him through heightened human powers. The powers necessary to find the God of the Alpha are the primal powers of humankind. The powers, however, that are necessary to find the God of the Omega—these must be attained by humankind itself on Earth. It is not the same whether one goes backward to the Alpha or forward to the Omega. Whoever merely wishes to find God, merely wishes to enter the spiritual world, may go forward or backward; but whoever cares that humanity should leave the Earth in an elevated state must point the way to the Omega.

[ 30 ] That is what Zarathustra did. He paved the way for humanity, which was to take hold of the very forces of the Earth itself. Zarathustra showed the Buddha the deepest understanding, for both were seeking one and the same thing. What must Zarathustra do? He must bring about the possibility that the Christ impulse can descend to Earth. Zarathustra is reborn as Jesus of Nazareth, and through what had happened in his previous incarnation, Zarathustra was able to unite with various things that had remained through spiritual economy. The world is profound, and the truth is complex!

[ 31 ] And the essence of the Buddha, which had been carried forward in various ways, was also incorporated into Jesus of Nazareth, for in the one who is to accomplish much, much is at work. At his baptism in the Jordan, the “I” of Jesus left the physical, etheric, and astral bodies, and the Sun God—the Christ Spirit—entered and dwelt for three years in the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, Zarathustra had worked toward making humanity a recipient of the Christ impulse.

[ 32 ] This marked an important moment in the Earth’s evolution. It had now become possible for human beings to find God within themselves, and they could now bring something from this life between death and rebirth into their new incarnation. And now there are already souls who feel strongly enough to say: “I was in a world where the light of Christ shone.”—The fact that this is dimly sensed in some souls is what enables people today to understand the teachings of spiritual science. Because such people exist today, the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings told themselves, we may hope that they will sense the truths of spiritual science and make them the content of their lives. Because the Masters know this, they entrusted to those who had an understanding of it the mission of proclaiming anthroposophy in the present.

[ 33 ] It is imperative that spiritual science now begin to become a spiritual current in our present time. Christ Himself has prepared the souls for it, and a complete guarantee of its endurance is the fact that the light of Christ, once kindled, can never be extinguished. Filled with this sense of the necessity of the anthroposophical spiritual current, we stand within it in the true sense, and it will stand before us as an unshakable ideal.

[ 34 ] Yes, a human personality had to develop to such an extent that it became possible for the Light to descend and, within a human body, say: “I am the light of the world!”

[ 35 ] It first shone down into Zarathustra’s soul and spoke to that soul, and that soul comprehended the light of the world and sacrificed itself for it, so that it might find a place from which to say to humankind from within an earthly body: “I am the light of the world!”