The Rudolf Steiner Archive

On the Meaning of Life II

[ 1 ] It would be a grave mistake to believe that the question of the meaning of life and existence could simply be posed by saying: What is the meaning of life and existence? and that anyone could then give a simple answer in a few words, perhaps saying: This is the meaning of life and existence, or that. In this way, a true sense of it could never arise, nor could a mental image ever form of the grand, majestic, and powerful reality that lies hidden behind this question of the meaning of life.

[ 2 ] However, one could also give an abstract answer, and you will sense, from what I am about to say, just how unsatisfying such an abstract answer would be. One could say: The meaning of life actually consists in the fact that those spiritual beings to whom we look up as divine beings gradually enable human beings to participate in the development of existence, so that human beings, as it were, would be imperfect at the beginning of their development, unable to participate in the entire structure of the universe, and in the course of development would gradually be drawn more and more into participating in this development.

[ 3 ] But that would be an abstract answer that would tell us very little indeed. Rather, in order to even begin to grasp an answer to such a significant question, we must delve into certain mysteries of existence and life. Let us begin with the reflections that arise from those we already made yesterday. Today, let us, so to speak, delve a little more deeply into these mysteries of existence. We cannot really be satisfied merely with observing the world around us and seeing coming into being and passing away. We already pointed out yesterday how enigmatic this coming into being and passing away appears to our soul when we ask ourselves about the meaning that lies in all this coming into being and passing away. But there is something that presents us with an even more difficult riddle.

[ 4 ] If we take a closer look at this process of coming into being and passing away, the matter becomes even more puzzling. Even in the very act of coming into being, we see, so to speak, something highly peculiar, something highly strange, which could fill us with a sense of tragedy and sadness if we were to view it only superficially. If we take a look through the lens of what we know from the physical world—if we gaze out into the vastness of the world’s oceans or into the vastness of any other form of existence—we know that countless seeds of life come into being and that few of these seeds of life actually become fully developed beings. Just imagine how many eggs of various fish are laid in the sea every year that do not reach their goal—namely, to become fully developed beings—but disappear before that, and how only a small number of these eggs can achieve the goal of becoming fully developed beings!

[ 5 ] Yesterday we turned our attention to the fact that everything that comes into being, so to speak, eventually perishes. Now, however, another fact imposes itself upon us: that from an unlimited realm of immeasurable possibilities, only a few realities emerge; that is to say, there is something mysterious in the very act of coming into being, in that what seems to be struggling into existence cannot even truly come into being.

[ 6 ] Let us consider a specific example. When we sow a field where, for the sake of argument, wheat or grain grows, we see a large number of wheat or grain ears sprouting up. We know full well that a new wheat or grain ear can grow from every single grain in these ears. And now we ask ourselves: How many of the grains in the ears that we see there in the field of sowing achieve this goal? Let us let our thoughts wander to the infinitely many grains that take a completely different path than the one that is the goal of the grains, namely to become an ear again; there we have, in a concrete case before us, what we see in all seeds of life. So that we must say: The living world that surrounds us arises as such only because, in its coming into being, it seems to push immeasurable seeds of life down into the abyss of the aimless.

[ 7 ] Let us bear this in mind: let us bear in mind that everything that exists around us rises from a foundation of the richest, immeasurably rich possibilities, which never become realities in the ordinary sense of the word. Let us note that realities arise from such a foundation of possibilities, and let us regard this as one aspect of the enigmatic existence of life that presents itself to our eyes.

[ 8 ] Now let us turn our gaze to the other side, which is also there, but which can only become conscious to us through immersion in occult truths. This other side is the one that presents itself to the human being when he walks the path to occult knowledge. This path to occult knowledge is sometimes, as you know, described as something dangerous. And why? Simply because, when we wish to walk the path to occult knowledge, we enter a realm that by no means can be accepted so readily, just as it presents itself to us.

[ 9 ] Let us suppose that a person follows the occult path using the methods you are familiar with and which you will find in my book, *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds*, and reaches a point where what we call “imaginations” rise up from the depths of their soul. We know what these formations are. They are visionary images that, once a person has walked the occult path, appear before them as an entirely new world. If a person truly walks this occult path with seriousness, they reach a point where the entire physical world around them grows dark. In place of this physical world, a world of undulating images appears—undulating impressions of a tonal, odorous, gustatory, and luminous nature. This penetrates and swirls into our occult field of vision, and we have experiences that we can call the experiences of imaginative visions, which then surround us on all sides—these are our world, in which we live and weave with our soul.

[ 10 ] Let us now suppose that a person were to rely on the fact that, in this visionary world into which he enters in this way, he has a full reality before him; that person would be in a grave, very grave error. And here we stand at the point where the danger begins. The realm of visionary life is immeasurable as long as we do not rise from the imagination, which conjures up a visionary world for us, to inspiration. It is inspiration alone that tells us: You must turn toward this one image; you must direct your occult gaze there; then you will experience a truth, and countless other images surrounding it must vanish into an insubstantial nothingness. Then this one image will emerge from an immeasurable multitude and prove itself to you as an expression of truth.

[ 11 ] Thus, when we are on the occult path, we enter a realm of immeasurable visionary possibilities and must develop the ability to, so to speak, filter out and select from this realm those visions that truly express a spiritual reality. There is no other way to ensure this than the one just indicated, for if someone were to come and say: “So one enters a realm of immeasurably rich visions—which are true, which are false? Can you not give me a rule by which I may distinguish the true from the false?”—no occultist would answer such a question with a rule. Every occultist would have to answer: “If you want to learn to distinguish, then you must continue to develop. But then the possibility will also arise for you to direct your gaze toward that which withstands your gaze. For those that withstand are those that are on your level, but those that are extinguished by you are merely secondary images.”

[ 12 ] The danger lies in the fact that many people feel extraordinarily comfortable and at ease in the realm of visions, and when they are faced with a visionary world, they do not develop any further, nor do they wish to strive any further, because they find this visionary world so appealing. One cannot develop toward the truth in spiritual life if one simply surrenders to this bliss, so to speak, to revelling in the visionary world. One cannot then rise to reality, to the truth. One must strive onward with all the means at our disposal. Then the spiritual-real truly emerges from the immeasurable possibility of visions.

[ 13 ] And now compare the two things I have described to you. On the one hand, the outer world, from which countless possibilities of life-germs emerge, yet only a few of them reach their destination; and on the other hand, the inner world to which the path of knowledge leads us: an immeasurable world of visions, comparable to the world of possibilities of life-germs. Few of these are the kind of visions we ultimately arrive at, which are comparable to what rises from the many seeds of life as the few instances of true life. These two things correspond to one another completely in the world; these two things truly belong together in the world.

[ 14 ] But now let us take this line of thought a step further. Let us ask: Is the person right who is now despondent and sad about life and existence because, out there, countless seeds, so to speak, only half-germinate and only a few of them reach their destination? Do we have the right to mourn this, do we have the right to say: Out there is a fierce struggle for existence, which only a few happen to escape? Consider our concrete example of the seedbed, the grain or wheat field. Let us suppose that all the wheat grains that emerge would actually reach their destination and become ears of wheat again. What would be the consequence of that? The world simply would not be possible, for the beings that must feed on grain or wheat would have no food! In order for those beings we know all too well to ascend to their present stage of development, the beings we have just mentioned had to remain behind their goal—they must, so to speak, sink into the abyss relative to the sphere of their own goal. Nevertheless, we have no reason to grieve, unless we wish to say that we care nothing at all for the world; for if we care about the world, if we care that it exists—and the world consists only of beings—then these beings must be able to sustain themselves. If they are to sustain themselves, then other beings must sacrifice themselves. Therefore, only a few of the seeds of life can truly reach their goal. The others must take different paths. They must take different paths because the world is to continue to exist, because truly only in this way can the world be wisely ordered.

[ 15 ] We are thus surrounded by a world such as we have only because certain beings sacrifice themselves before reaching their goal. If we follow the path of those who sacrifice themselves, we find them in the other beings that are superior, in the beings that need this sacrifice so that they may exist. There, so to speak, we have grasped a corner of the meaning of even that seemingly so enigmatic existence which can come into being and also sink down into destruction. And yet we have discovered that it is precisely in this that wisdom is revealed in existence—that is, meaning is revealed—and that it is only our thinking that is too limited when we lament that so much must seemingly sink aimlessly into the abyss.

[ 16 ] Now let us return to the other, the spiritual side. Let us consider what we have called the immeasurable world of visions. Here, however, we must address what this immeasurable world of visions actually means. It is not simply false in the sense that one might say: “What sinks down there is false, and what remains in the end is true.” That is not the sense in which this world is false. That is just as short-sighted a judgment as believing that what does not come to life are not seeds of life, and that what vanishes for us into the immeasurable are not true imaginations. Just as it is the case in our outer, real life that only a few beings reach their goal, so too can only a little of the immeasurable spiritual life enter our horizon. And why?

[ 17 ] This question of “why” will be extraordinarily instructive for us. Let us suppose that a person were to simply surrender to the visions flowing into them in immeasurable variety. Once the visionary world has opened up to someone, visions flow into them ceaselessly; they come and go one after another, surging and weaving into one another. One cannot possibly defend oneself against the images and impressions that surge up and down in the spiritual realm, pulsing around us. But if we look closely, we find something highly peculiar in someone who simply surrenders to this visionary world. First, when we encounter such a person—who does not wish to develop further but to remain at the level of the visionary—we find that they have experienced this or that, that they have had this or that experience. Well, let’s say you’ve had spiritual experiences; you’ve experienced this—for you, these are realities. Fine, that is a manifestation from the spiritual world. But we will very soon notice that when another person comes along and shares their visions of the same thing with us—and they are no further along than the first person—their visions of the same thing take on a completely different form, so that there can be two different accounts of the same thing. Yes, we will be able to have even worse experiences. We will find that such people, who wish to remain in the purely visionary world, themselves make different statements about one and the same thing at different times, telling one thing one time, another thing the next. It is indeed unfortunate that visionaries usually have a poor memory and usually no longer know what they told the first time. They are not aware of what they have told.

[ 18 ] In short, we are dealing with an immeasurable diversity of phenomena. If we, as human beings with our present earthly selves, were to correctly assess all that is presented to us in the visionary world, we would have to compare an infinite number of things. Yet nothing would come of it. The fundamental principle must be that, while this visionary world is indeed a revelation of the spirit, its statements are initially of no value whatsoever. No matter how many visions come to us—they are manifestations of the spiritual world, but they are not truths. If they are to become truths, one would first have to compare the various visions of the individual with those of many other people. But that is not possible. A substitute for this is created through further development toward inspiration. But then the following occurs: We then discover that when people rise to the level of inspiration, the statements are the same for everyone. There are no longer any differences, nothing that appears differently to one person than to another. The experiences are in fact the same for all who have reached the same stage of development.

[ 19 ] Now let us turn to the other question, which is in a certain sense related to this one: what has been presented to us in the outer world. There, the few seeds of life that have reached their destination are contrasted with the many that have already sunk into the abyss. We know that this downfall is necessary for the outer world to exist. But what about the spiritual world, these visions and inspirations? Above all, we must be clear that what we have before us—when we selected the visions—truly stands before us as spiritual realities; that we do not merely have images before us that provide us with insights in the ordinary sense. That is not the case, and I want to make clear to you that this is not so by means of something very significant. I want to explain to you how the selected visions relate to the world, just as we first clarified how the selected, fully developed seeds of life relate to the seeds of life in general. These are used as nourishment by the others. But what about the selected visions, what about what truly lives within the human being as a real vision?

[ 20 ] There are a few things I must point out here. You must not believe that someone who has attained clairvoyance has achieved a state in which the spiritual world now lives within them but not within others. You must not form a mental image of clairvoyance in such a way that you might say to yourself: Here is the clairvoyant, and there is the other person; in the clairvoyant’s soul lives the expression of spiritual reality, but not in the other’s. That would not be correct. Rather, if you wanted to express it correctly, you would have to say: Here stand two people. One is a clairvoyant, the other is not. What the clairvoyant sees lives in both. The same things, the same spiritual impulses, live in the non-clairvoyant just as they do in the clairvoyant. These are also present in the soul of the non-clairvoyant. The clairvoyant differs from the non-clairvoyant only in that he sees them, while the other does not. One carries them within himself and sees them; the other also carries them within himself but does not see them. — Anyone who believes that the clairvoyant possesses something within himself that the other does not possess would be committing a grave error. Just as the existence of a rose, for example, does not depend on whether a person sees it or not, so it is with clairvoyance: reality lives in the soul of the clairvoyant and in the soul of the non-clairvoyant, even though the latter does not see it. The difference lies solely in the fact that one sees it and the other does not. It is therefore true that all the things the clairvoyant perceives through his clairvoyance do indeed live in the souls of the people of Earth. Let us engrave this well in our souls.

[ 21 ] But now let us turn to a seemingly entirely different field of study, one that will later bring us back to what we have said. Let us now turn our attention, so to speak, to the animal world. The animal world surrounds us in the most diverse individual forms—in the forms of lions, bears, wolves, lambs, sharks, whales, and so on. Human beings distinguish these animal forms by forming external concepts of them, by forming the concept of the lion, the wolf, the lamb, and so on. Now, however, one must not confuse what human beings form as a concept with what the lion or the wolf actually is. You know—I need only point this out—that in Spiritual Science we speak of so-called group souls. All lions have a common lion group soul; all wolves a wolf group soul. Certain abstract philosophers do say, however, that what the animals have in common exists only in the concept, that “wolfness” does not exist out there in the world. But that is not correct. Anyone who believes that “wolfness” as such—that is, what objectively constitutes the group soul in the spiritual world—does not exist outside our concept need only consider the following. Outside of us, out in the world, there are beings we call wolves. Let us now assume that the soul, the characteristic nature of the wolf, is a consequence of the nature of the matter of which the wolf is composed. We know that the matter of an animal’s body is constantly changing. An animal takes in new matter and expels the old. As a result, the composition of the matter is constantly changing. But what matters is the fact that there is something within the wolf that transforms the ingested matter into wolf matter. Let us suppose that, through all the subtleties of natural science, it had been determined how much time the wolf needs to renew all its matter. Let us further assume that one confined it for just as long and fed it nothing but lambs, so that for as long as it takes to completely replace its matter, its physical body, it would have been fed nothing but lamb matter. If the wolf were nothing other than the physical substance of which its body is composed, it would now have to have become a lamb. But you will not believe that the wolf, simply because it has eaten lambs for so long, must now have become a lamb. You will see that the concepts we form of the various animal forms correspond to realities that are supernatural in relation to what exists in the sensory world outside.

[ 22 ] This is true of all animals. The group soul—that which underlies the entire ‘animal species’—is what makes one animal a wolf, another a lamb, one a lion, and another a tiger. But it is through his concepts that man grasps the group soul. The concepts that man usually forms, particularly regarding the animal world, are actually quite imperfect. The reason they are imperfect is that, in his present state, human beings penetrate very little into the depths of reality; they actually cling only to the surface of beings. If they were to penetrate deeper, then, in forming the concept of the wolf, they would not merely have the abstract concept in their soul, but they would experience the emotional state corresponding to that concept. A state of mind would form alongside the concept, and by forming the concept of the wolf, man would experience what it means to be a wolf. He would feel the wolf’s bloodthirstiness and also feel the lamb’s patience.

[ 23 ] If this is not the case today, it is because—I can only speak symbolically, for otherwise it would lead too far; you already know the reality of the matter—that after the Luciferic influences had taken place, humanity was prevented by the gods from realizing that it also possessed life. He was not to eat from the Tree of Life. He therefore possesses only the knowledge and cannot live out the reality of life. He can do so only if he is an occultist, if he penetrates this realm in an occult manner. Then he does not merely have the abstract concept, but lives within what we describe with the expressions “the bloodthirst of the wolf” and “the patience of the lamb.”

[ 24 ] Now you will understand how great the difference is between these two things. All of this is in conflict within us, since these concepts are permeated by the innermost essence of the soul’s substance. But the occultist and clairvoyant must form these concepts; he must rise to these concepts. Once the clairvoyant has risen to these things, one can say: Something of this already lives within him. And indeed, a living image of the entire animal world outside lives within him. —How fortunate, one might say, is the other person who has not become a clairvoyant. But I have just pointed out earlier that the clairvoyant does not differ from other people in this respect! What is in one is also in the other. The difference lies only in the fact that one sees it, while the other does not. The whole world I have spoken of is in reality within the soul of every human being; it is just that the ordinary person does not see it. This is what plays up from the hidden depths of the soul, what makes a person restless within, what drags a person into doubt, pulls them this way and that—it is what constitutes the interplay of their desires and instincts. That which does not push its way above a certain threshold, but expresses and lives itself out only in moments of weakness, is nevertheless present. Anyone with such a disposition is so connected to the world that these feelings fill them, seize them in struggle and in life, and bring them into serious relationships with beings and people. That is simply the way it is. And why?

[ 25 ] If that were not the case, then in a certain sense the evolution of our Earth together with the animal kingdom would have come to an end. Then the animal kingdom, as it is, would be a kind of conclusion. It could not progress further. All the group souls of the animals living around us would be unable to evolve into the subsequent incarnations of our Earth. That would be a strange thing. These group souls of the animals would be in the position—forgive me the comparison, but it will make clear to you what is meant—of an Amazonian state into which no man would ever be allowed. It would inevitably die out without a male presence. It would not die out spiritually, for the souls would pass into other realms, but as an Amazonian state, this fate would await it. So too would the state of the animal group souls die out if there were nothing else but it. For what lives in the animal group souls must be fertilized and cannot otherwise cross the precipice of Earth’s evolution into the next Earth incarnation, the Jupiter existence—it cannot make the transition unless it becomes the fertilizer of what I have described. Through this, the forms of the Earth animals perish; they die out, but the group souls are fertilized and appear on Jupiter as beings formed for a higher existence; they thus reach their next stage of existence.

[ 26 ] So what happens when human beings reflect the living forms of the group souls down here? In doing so, they form the seeds of inspiration for the group souls, which otherwise could not continue to develop. If we consider this, we can say the following: We can already see in the animal kingdom that human beings, in response to external stimulation—by observing the animal kingdom—develop within themselves certain inner impulses that serve as the seeds of fertilization for the animal group soul. These impulses, which arise in life as seeds of fertilization for the animal group soul, arise in response to external stimulation. The visions of the clairvoyant do not arise in response to external stimulation, nor does the one that is selected as a real vision. It exists only in the spiritual world and lives in the souls of human beings.

[ 27 ] Do not for a moment believe that when a certain number of grains of wheat are consumed, while only a few can develop into ears of wheat again, that nothing is happening in the spiritual world! As the grains are consumed, the spiritual essence connected to them passes into human beings. This is most clearly revealed to the clairvoyant eye when it looks out over a sea containing so many fish embryos and observes how few develop into fully formed fish. Those that develop into fully formed fish show small flames within them, but those that do not develop physically—those that physically sink into the abyss—develop powerful formations of flame-light. There, the spiritual aspect is all the more significant. So it is also with those grains of wheat and other cereals that are eaten. The material part of them is eaten; as it is broken down, a spiritual force emerges from these grains of wheat that have not reached their destination, filling our surroundings. It is the same for the clairvoyant when he looks at a person eating rice or something similar. While the person takes in the material substance and unites it with himself, the spiritual forces connected to the grain pour forth in streams. All this is not such a simple matter for the occult eye, especially not when the food was not a plant. But I do not wish to go into that today, since Spiritual Science is not meant to campaign for any particular political stance, and therefore not for vegetarianism either.

[ 28 ] Thus, the spiritual entities unite. Everything that appears to perish releases its spiritual essence into the environment. This spiritual essence, which is released into the environment, actually unites with that which lives within the human being—whether he becomes a clairvoyant or otherwise—in his visionary world. And the visions selected through inspiration are what, I would say, fertilize the spiritual essence squeezed out of the life-germs that have not reached their goal, and carry it forward in evolution.

[ 29 ] Thus, through what it develops internally, our inner being stands in a constant relationship with the outer world and interacts with it. This outer world would be doomed to ruin and could not continue to develop if we did not provide the seeds of renewal. There is also a spirituality out in the world, but it is, so to speak, only a half-spirituality. In order for this outer spirituality to bear fruit, the other spirituality—which lives within us—must join with it. What lives within us is by no means merely a cognitive reflection of the external world, but rather an integral part of it. It unites with what is outside of us and continues to develop. Just as the North and South Poles must come together as magnetism or electricity for something to happen, so must that which forms within us in the world of visions come together with that which bursts forth from the outside from what appears to have perished. Wonderful mysteries, yet ones that gradually become clear, showing us how the inner is connected to the outer.

[ 30 ] Now let us take a look at what surrounds us out there, and at what we have as selected visions—at what stands out from the immeasurable possibilities of visions. That which we thus elevate to a vision valid for us serves our inner development. What then sinks down when we survey the entire immeasurable field of visionary life—what sinks down individually—does not vanish into nothingness, but penetrates the outer world and fertilizes it. What we have selected from the visions serves our further development. The others depart from us and unite with what surrounds us, with the life that has not reached its goal.

[ 31 ] Just as a living being must take in for nourishment that which has not come into being, so must we take in that which we do not give to the outside world to fertilize it. This, then, serves a purpose. And everything in the world that is constantly arising spiritually would perish if we did not let go of our visions and did not select only those that arise from inspiration.

[ 32 ] Now we come to the second point: the danger of the visionary life. What does the person do who simply labels all the immeasurably numerous and varied visions as truth, and does not select what is right for him, nor discard the far greater number of visions? What does he do? He does spiritually the same thing that a person would do—if you translate it into the physical realm, you will immediately see what he does—who stands before a field of grain and does not use a large portion for food, but instead uses all the grains again for sowing. It wouldn’t be long before the earth could no longer sustain all that grain. So that couldn’t go on, because everything else would die out; there would be nothing left to eat. It is the same with the person who regards everything as truth, who does not discard any vision and keeps everything within himself. In this way, he acts within himself as if he were gathering all the grains of wheat and sowing them again. Just as the world would soon be overwhelmed with nothing but wheat fields and grains of wheat, so would the person who does not select from among his visions be overwhelmed with visions.

[ 33 ] I have described to you the environment—both physical and spiritual—the animals, as well as the concepts that humans form about them. But I have also shown how humans must give their visions a purpose and how this visionary world must connect with the outside world so that development can move forward. But what is the situation when we now consider human beings? They stand before an “animal,” observe its group soul, and say “wolf”—that is, they have formed the concept of “wolf,” and by saying “wolf,” an image has sprung up within them, though the non-clairvoyant lacks the emotional substance of this image and possesses only the abstract concept. What lives in the soul substance connects with the group soul and fertilizes it when the human being utters the name “wolf.” If he did not utter the name, the animal kingdom as such would die out. And the same applies to the plant kingdom.

[ 34 ] What I have described about human beings applies only to human beings. What I have described does not apply to animals, nor to angels, and so on. They have entirely different tasks. Human beings alone exist to contrast their nature with the external world, so that seeds of fertilization may arise, which express themselves in the “name.” Thus, the possibility for the further development of the animal and plant kingdoms is laid within the human being.

[ 35 ] Let us now return to the starting point we chose yesterday. Yahweh or Jehovah was asked by the ministering angels why he was so determined to create human beings. The angels could not understand it. Then Jehovah gathered the animals and plants and asked the angels what the names of these beings were. They did not know. They have other tasks besides the fertilization of the group souls. But man was able to name them. In this way, Yahweh shows that he needs human beings, because otherwise creation would die out. In human beings, that which has reached its end in creation and must be rekindled so that development may continue further develops. Therefore, human beings had to be added to creation so that the seeds of fertilization could arise, which are expressed in the “name.”

[ 36 ] Thus we see that our presence in creation is not superfluous. If we were to remove humanity, the transitional realms would be unable to continue developing. They would fall prey to the same fate as a plant world that is not fertilized. Solely through the fact that human beings are placed within earthly existence is the bridge created between the world that was before and the one that will be later, and human beings themselves take for themselves, for their own development, that which lives as a name within the vast multitude of beings, and thereby bring about their own ascent along with the entire course of development.

[ 37 ] Here we have answered the question—not in a simple, abstract way—“What is the meaning of life?” although, fundamentally speaking, the abstract answer lies within it. Humanity has become a co-worker with the spiritual beings. It has become so through its very being. What is within humanity has become the seed of fertilization for the entire creation. Humanity must be there, and without it, creation could not exist. Thus, by knowing itself to be at the heart of creation, humanity feels itself to be a participant in the divine-spiritual creative process.

[ 38 ] Now he also knows why he leads such a life within himself, why there is a world of stars, clouds, and the natural realms outside—with all that belongs to it spiritually—and why a world of spiritual life exists within him. For now the human being sees: these two worlds belong together, and only through their mutual interaction does development move forward. Out there, the immeasurable world spreads out in space. Here within us is our world of the soul. We do not realize that what lives within us radiates outward and connects with what lives outside. We do not realize that we are the stage for this connection. What is within us is, so to speak, one pole, and what is out there in the world is the other pole; both must connect with one another for the world’s development to continue. And the meaning—the meaning of human existence—lies in the fact that we are allowed to be part of this process.

[ 39 ] Ordinary perception, as it exists in normal consciousness, knows little about these things. But as we progress in our understanding of these things, we become increasingly aware that within us lies, as it were, the place where the North and South Poles of the world—if I may use that comparison—exchange their opposing forces and unite with one another, so that further development can take place. Through occult science, we learn that within us lies the stage for the balancing of the world’s forces. We feel how the divine-spiritual world lives within us as in a center, how it connects with the outer world, and how the two thus mutually enrich one another.

[ 40 ] When we perceive ourselves as the setting and know that we are part of it, we truly immerse ourselves in life, grasp the full meaning of life, and realize that what is initially unconscious will become increasingly conscious to us as we delve deeper into Spiritual Science. All development of the higher spiritual powers is based on this. While it is beyond the reach of normal consciousness to know that something within you is uniting with what is out there, higher consciousness is permitted to observe this. This truly develops that which belongs to the outer world. Therefore, it is necessary for a certain state of maturity to be reached, so that one does not haphazardly mix what is within and what is without. For as soon as we ascend to a higher consciousness, what lives within us is reality. It remains an illusion as long as one lives in ordinary, normal consciousness.

[ 41 ] We will participate in the Divine-Spiritual. But why will we participate in this way? Does the whole thing even make sense if we are, so to speak, merely a kind of balancing mechanism for opposing forces? Couldn’t these forces balance themselves out even without us? A very simple line of reasoning shows us how things stand. Suppose there is a single mass of force (it is drawn). One part lives within, the other outside. The fact that these parts stand opposite one another has come about without us. We initially keep them apart. But whether they come together at all depends on us. We bring them together within ourselves. This thought is one that stirs the deepest mysteries within us when we consider it properly. The gods present the world to us as a duality: objective reality outside, the life of the soul within us. We stand in the midst of this and are the ones who, as it were, close the circuit and thus bring the two poles together. This happens within us, takes place on the stage of our consciousness.

[ 42 ] Here, then, comes into play that which constitutes freedom for us. Through this, we become independent beings. In the entire structure of the universe, we must see not merely a stage, but a field in which to participate. This, however, gives rise to a thought that the world does not easily grasp, not even when presented to it philosophically, for I attempted this years ago in my little book *Truth and Science*, in which I demonstrated that sensory activity comes first and then the inner world, but that their coexistence and interaction are necessary. There the thought is carried through philosophically. At that time, I did not yet attempt to reveal the occult mysteries behind it, but the world did not even understand the philosophical aspect at that time.

[ 43 ] Now we see how we are to conceive of the meaning of our lives. Meaning comes into play: we are made co-actors in the world process. What exists in the world is divided into two opposing camps, and we are placed within it to bring them together. Yet the matter is by no means such that we should imagine this work to be strictly limited. I know a witty gentleman in Germany who writes a great deal for German magazines. He wrote recently in a newspaper that it is necessary for the development of the world that human beings always remain at the point where they cannot solve the ordinary mysteries of the world, and that it would not be right if human beings were to come to penetrate and solve them through reason. For if humanity had solved the intellectual mysteries, then there would be no more of them, and there would be nothing left for humanity to do. — So there must always be doubt regarding the intellectual mysteries, and imperfect things must always happen! For this man has no idea that when normal consciousness has reached its end, consciousness itself progresses, and that a new polarity arises, which represents a new task and must be reunited. For how long must it be reunited? Until man has actually achieved that the divine consciousness has been repeated in his own consciousness.

[ 44 ] Now that we have gained some sense of the truly immeasurable magnitude of the mystery, we can rise to the abstract answer, now that we know that within us lie the seeds of a spiritual world that cannot move forward without us. Now let us also examine the meaning of life, for we are now working on a broad foundation. Now we must say to ourselves: Once upon a time, in the course of evolution, there was the divine consciousness. It was in its immeasurability. With this, we stand at the beginning of existence. This divine consciousness first forms images. How, then, do these images differ from the divine consciousness? In that they were many, whereas the divine consciousness is only one. Furthermore, in that they were empty, whereas the divine consciousness was full of content, so that the images first exist as a multitude, but are then also empty, just as we had the empty ego in contrast to the divine ego filled with an entire world. But this empty ego is made into a stage where the divine contents, divided into two opposing camps, continually unite. And as the empty consciousness continually creates balances, it fills itself more and more with what was originally in the divine consciousness. Evolution thus proceeds in such a way that the individual consciousness is filled with what the divine consciousness originally contained. This occurs through the continual balancing within the individualities.

[ 45 ] Does divine consciousness need this for its development? This is the question asked by many who cannot fully understand the meaning of life. Does divine consciousness need this for its own perfection, for its own development? No, divine consciousness does not need this. It has everything within itself. But divine consciousness is not selfish. It grants an immeasurably great number of beings the same content that it itself possesses. To achieve this, however, these beings must first acquire the whole, so that they possess divine consciousness within themselves and divine consciousness is thereby multiplied. What was once unity at the beginning of the world’s development then appears in great numbers, but subsequently falls away again on the path of the deification of individual consciousnesses.

[ 46 ] This development, as described here, has essentially always been the same for human beings. It was so during the Saturnic Age; it was similar during the Solar and Lunar Ages. For the Earth era, we have now clearly outlined it. During the Saturn era, the first rudiment of the physical body undergoes this development and, in turn, fertilizes the external world; during the Sun era, it is the rudiment of the etheric body, and so on. The process is the same, but it becomes increasingly spiritual. In the end, less and less remains outside that still needs to be fertilized. As human beings continue to develop, more and more will live within them, and less and less will remain outside that still needs to be fertilized. Therefore, in the end, they will have more and more of what is outside within themselves. The outer world will become their inner world. Internalization is the other side of forward development.

[ 47 ] The union of the inner with the outer, the internalization of the external—these are the two principles by which human beings evolve. They will become ever more like the Divine and, ultimately, ever more inward. In the volcanic evolution, everything will then be fertilized. Everything external will have become internal. Deification is internalization. Internalization is deification. That is the goal and the meaning of life.

[ 48 ] But we only get to the heart of the matter when we do not merely create a mental image of it as a way to pin down abstract concepts, but rather by truly delving into the details. Human beings must immerse themselves in the subject and delve into the details to such an extent that, when they form the names of animals and plants, something arises within them that connects what is in the word with what underlies the animal or plant germ and then lives on in the spiritual world. Our worldview certainly needs improvement in this regard, for what has Darwinism actually achieved in this direction? It speaks of the struggle for existence. Yet it fails to consider that even what is defeated and perishes in this struggle is itself subject to further development. The Darwinist sees only the beings that reach the goal and the others that perish. Those that perish, however, radiate the spiritual, so that it is not only what triumphs in the physical struggle that develops. That which seemingly perishes undergoes development in the spiritual realm. That is what is significant.

[ 49 ] In this way we penetrate the meaning of life. Nothing—not even what has been conquered, nor what has been consumed—perishes, but is spiritually fertilized and sprouts forth anew in the spiritual realm. Much has perished in the course of the development of the Earth and humanity as a whole, without human beings being able to do anything about it directly. Let us take the entire pre-Christian development. We know what this pre-Christian development was like. Humanity originated in the spiritual world at the beginning. Gradually, it then descended into the physical-sensory world. What it possessed at the beginning, what lived within it, has vanished, just as the seeds of life that did not reach their goal have vanished. From the lineage of human development, we see countless things sinking into an abyss. While countless beings sink downward in the outer development of human culture and human life, the Christ impulse develops above. Just as the fertilizing seed develops within the human being for its environment, so the Christ impulse develops for that which seemingly perishes within the human being. Then the Mystery of Golgotha occurs. This is the fertilization from above of that which has perished. There, indeed, a transformation takes place in that which has seemingly fallen away from the Divine and sunk into the abyss. The Christ impulse intervenes and fertilizes it. And from the Mystery of Golgotha onward, we see in the further course of Earth’s development a reblooming and a resurgence through the fertilization received from the Christ impulse.

[ 50 ] Thus, what we have come to understand about polarity has also been confirmed in this greatest event in the history of Earth’s development. In our age, the cultural seeds that perished in ancient Egyptian culture are now emerging. For they are contained within Earth’s development. The Christ impulse has now entered into them and fertilized them, and as it fertilized them, a repetition of the Egyptian-Chaldean culture has arisen among us. In the culture that will follow ours, the primordial Persian culture will emerge, fertilized by the Christ seed. In the seventh epoch, the primordial Indian culture—the high spiritual art that came from the holy Rishis—will emerge in a new form, fertilized by the Christ seed.

[ 51 ] Thus, in this ongoing development, we also see that what we have come to know in human beings can become a mutual relationship: the inner and the outer, the spiritual and the physical, mutually enriching one another. Thus, the Christ impulse is present above, and the enrichment through the Christ seed is present below. Below, the advancing earthly culture; from above, flowing in through the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ impulse.

[ 52 ] Now we also understand the meaning of the Christ experience: just as the individual human being is meant to experience the divine mysteries, so too is the Earth meant to experience the mysteries of the world. This is how polarity was established within human beings, just as it was within the Earth.

[ 53 ] Like two opposing poles, the Earth and that which is above it—that which was first united with the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha—have developed. Christ and the Earth belong together. In order to unite, they first had to develop separately from one another as polarities. Thus we see that for things to unfold in reality at all, it is necessary for them to differentiate into polarities, and the polarities then unite again for the progress of life. That is the meaning of life.

[ 54 ] Now, it is all too true: when we look at things this way, we feel that we are at the very heart of the world, that the world would be nothing at all without us. A mystic as profound as Angelus Silesius made the remarkable statement that might at first leave people perplexed: “ I know that without me God cannot live for a single moment; if I were to perish, He would be forced to give up His spirit.” Denominational Christians may rail against such a statement. But in doing so, they fail to consider the historical context—namely, that Angelus Silesius, even before he became Catholic—in order to stand firmly on the ground of Christianity, in his own view—was a truly pious man, and yet he made this statement. Anyone who knows Angelus Silesius will not admit that this statement arose from godlessness. What exists in the world stands in opposition to one another, like polarities that cannot come together if human beings are left out of the equation. Human beings stand right in the middle and are part of it. When human beings think, the world thinks within them. They are the stage; they merely bring the thoughts together. When the human being feels and wills, it is the same. Now we can grasp what it means when we direct our gaze out into the vastness of space, when we say: It is the Divine that fills him, and the Divine is that which must unite with the earthly seed. “In me is the meaning of life,” the human being can say. The gods have set themselves goals. But they have also chosen the stage where these goals are to be achieved. The human soul is the stage. Therefore, if the human soul looks deep enough within itself, and does not merely seek to solve the mysteries of the vast cosmos, then it finds there something where the gods perform their deeds and the human being is present. That is what I tried to express in the words found in my last Mystery Play, “The Trial of the Soul”—how the gods work within the human being, how the meaning of the world unfolds in the human soul, and how the meaning of the world will live on in the human soul. What is the meaning of life? It is that this meaning will live within the human being itself. This is what I sought to express in the words that the soul can speak within itself:

“In your thinking, cosmic thoughts live,
In your feeling, cosmic forces weave,
In your will, cosmic beings act.
Lose yourself in cosmic thoughts,
Experience yourself through cosmic forces,
Create yourself from beings of will.
Do not end in the distance of worlds
Through the dream-like play of thought — — —;
Begin in the expanses of the spirit
And end in the depths of your own soul: —
You will find divine goals
By recognizing yourself within yourself.”

[ 55 ] If one wishes to say something that is true, rather than something that has merely occurred to one, it must always be expressed in light of the occult mysteries. This is of the utmost importance. Therefore, you must not think of the words used in occult works—whether they appear in the form of prose or poetry—in the same style as other, external works of poetry. Such works, which have truly sprung from the truth, the world, and its mysteries, have come into being in such a way that the soul truly allows the thoughts of the world to speak within itself, truly allows itself to be inspired by the feelings of the world—not by its own personal feelings—and has truly created itself out of beings of will.

[ 56 ] It is part of the mission of our spiritual movement to learn to distinguish between what flows from the mysteries of the world and what has been invented by the arbitrary imagination of human beings. Cultural development will increasingly rise to such a level that arbitrary invention will be replaced by that which lives within the human soul as the opposite polarity of the corresponding spiritual reality. Such things, created in this way, are themselves fertile seeds that connect with the spiritual. They serve a purpose in the world process. This gives us a completely different sense of responsibility toward the things we create ourselves, when we know that what we create are seeds of inspiration and not sterile seeds that simply fizzle out. Then we must also allow these seeds to emerge from the depths of the world soul.

[ 57 ] Now you may ask: Yes, how does one achieve this? Through patience. By increasingly learning to put to death within oneself any ambition of a personal nature. Personal ambition increasingly tempts us to produce only what is personal and prevents us from allowing that which is the expression of the Divine within us to speak. How can we know that the Divine within us is speaking? We must kill everything that comes only from ourselves, and above all, we must kill every ambitious striving. This then creates the right polarity within us; it sows truly fertile seeds in the soul. — Impatience is the worst guide in life. It is what corrupts the world. — If we succeed in this, then you will see how it has been explained that the meaning of life is attained in the manner indicated, through the fertilization of the outer by the inner. But then it will also become clear to us that if our inner self is not right, we scatter incorrect seeds of fertilization out into the world. What is the consequence of this? The consequence is that monstrosities arise in the world. Our present-day culture is full of such monstrosities. In every country today, for example—driven by steam power, one might say, and soon it will be by hot-air balloons—poetry and prose are being produced, while a famous eighteenth-century writer already noted: A single country today produces five times as many books as the earth needs for its own good. And today it has become even worse. These are things that surround contemporary culture with spiritual entities that are not viable, that should not come into being and would not come into being if people had the necessary patience. This will also arise, as a kind of opposite pole, within the human soul: patience, so that the human soul does not merely rage on, which is merely an outflow of ambition and egoism.

[ 58 ] This should not be taken as a moral sermon, but as a statement of fact. It is a fact that ambitious endeavors give rise in our souls to seeds of fertilization from which monstrosities emerge in the spiritual world. To repress these, and gradually to transform them, is a fruitful task for the distant future. It is the mission of Spiritual Science to solve this task, and this is the meaning of life: that the spiritual-scientific worldview thereby aligns with the whole meaning of life, that meaning flows toward us everywhere in life, that everything in life is meaningful. This is what occultism seeks to teach humanity: that we stand right in the midst of meaning and can truly say:

“In your thinking, cosmic thoughts live,
In your feeling, cosmic forces weave,
In your will, cosmic beings act.
Lose yourself in cosmic thoughts,
Experience yourself through cosmic forces,
Create yourself from beings of will.
Do not end in the distance of worlds
Through the dream-like play of thought — — -;
Begin in the expanses of the spirit
And end in the depths of your own soul: —
You will find divine goals
By recognizing yourself within yourself.”

[ 59 ] That, my dear friends, is the meaning of life, as humanity must first come to understand it.

[ 60 ] That is what I wanted to discuss with you. If we make it completely clear to ourselves and truly internalize it, then the souls that have become divine will allow it to take effect in your soul.

[ 61 ] Please attribute the difficulty in understanding these remarks to the fact that karma dictated that we had to cover such an important subject as the meaning of life in just two short lectures, and that some things could only be hinted at—things that can only be fully experienced within one’s own soul. Consider it also as a polarity: that a stimulus must be given to be further processed through meditation, so that through this further work all our interactions gain meaning, gain substance, and become so meaningful that our souls interplay with one another. And that is the essence of true love. That is also a balancing of polarities. Where theosophical thoughts are to penetrate souls, they are to stimulate the other poles, to find balance at this pole. This is what can act like theosophical celestial music. If we work in this way with harmony in the spiritual world, then, if we are genuine in theosophical life, we will also be united in theosophical life.

[ 62 ] This is how I would like us to view our gathering today. These spiritual matters were an expression of the spirit of love and are dedicated to the spirit of love among us Theosophists. Thus, through the spark we possess, this love will help us exchange spiritual insights with one another; thus, this love will be something through which we are not only sustained but increasingly inspired to theosophical striving, and Spiritual Science will then become a vehicle for spreading this love that touches the innermost depths of the human soul. Then this love will live on. Then, as human beings who must be physically separated from one another, we will also attain within the Theosophical Society that this love will endure—from the times through which we have been brought together by karma, even beyond the times when we are physically separated on the material plane. Thus we remain together and regard as the true reason for always remaining together with the best that we have in our souls the fact that we have soared together to divine-spiritual heights with our best spiritual faculties. And so, my dear friends, let us continue to remain together.