The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Address to the Russian audience of the lecture series “The Occult Foundations of the Bhagavad Gita”

[ 1 ] When we gathered here last year, there was, so to speak, still a bud in the hearts of those who were already gathered with our Russian friends at that time—a bud that has, in a certain sense, unfolded right up to this year: the awareness that is meant to permeate your hearts more and more, that Theosophy, or whatever we may call it, Anthroposophy, is not something that a person takes in like any other body of knowledge or like any other individual creed, but rather something that, in a certain sense, is meant to take hold of the entire soul of each individual—something that is meant to take hold of the soul of all humanity in our present age. This awareness must develop little by little, and one should not believe—one must not succumb to the illusion—that one can easily attain the full significance and full power of this awareness. For only little by little, slowly and very gradually, can we attain through experience the awareness of the significance of the theosophical impulse.

[ 2 ] Such a truth may seem quite trivial, but this is precisely where we must take what appears trivial with the utmost seriousness. For take a single aspect from the wealth of what belongs to this awareness; take the fact that it has been nearly two thousand years since the Christ impulse descended from higher worlds into earthly life; take the fact that the Gospel is among the most widely read books in the world; take the fact that for centuries upon centuries millions of human souls have believed they had a true relationship with Christ, and set that fact alongside the truth that the honest human soul—who does not presume to claim an understanding she does not possess—must grapple in our time with the question: What exactly is this Christ impulse? — And that this soul can only hope to truly gain an understanding of this Christ impulse through new revelations from the spiritual world! Consider other facts. Last year, I attended the Easter service of the Russian Church with some friends. Immediately afterward, I attempted to speak a word that I assumed would give you pause for thought. The service flowed solely from the consciousness of the dead Christ. But for the salvation of humanity, the message of the ever-living Christ must be the focus in our time and in the future. Yet another image presented itself to me, as the backdrop to this service, from which one had to set aside what those personalities—unsuited to this cult—were doing there. What emerged as the backdrop was a tableau of ancient sacred mysteries that have nevertheless evolved into what lives outwardly in the forms of this cult—something that many human hearts do indeed feel, but which is least understood precisely by those who should be the most qualified interpreters or who consider themselves to be so in the present.

[ 3 ] Try to engrave this thought ever more deeply into your souls through such insights as those just expressed, so that theosophy may spring from every single heart, and so that through theosophy or anthroposophy something entirely new may flow into the development of humanity. Try to engrave in your hearts the truth that the signs of the times are such that we must never, at least within our own souls, within our own hearts—sometimes quite quietly and intimately—compromise with what surrounds us. A new plant cannot simply arise from an old one; a new plant can only emerge from an old one if the old plant dies and a new plant forms, as it were, from a single point—from the seed. Thus, my dear friends, Theosophy is indeed something that must develop like a completely new seed within our souls, within our hearts; it must retain from all that the ancient plant of humanity has possessed only that which is universal—only that which we behold in the sight of the Mystery of Golgotha. The leaves, the trunk of the ancient culture of humanity, will have to fall away; the flower, the Mystery of Golgotha, will have to remain as a remembrance of the seed that is to develop in Theosophy. And this seed, my dear friends, will have to carry within itself the consciousness of bringing this flower ever more and more to full bloom in a new and ever-renewed way. Then the Christ impulse will live on in many forms through human evolution and yet always remain the same, just as every new flower carries within itself the power and beauty of the old flower. But at the same time, it will be what it most intimately wishes to be: something that arises anew again and again, a new and ever-renewed understanding of that which was given as a new beginning of human development when the blood flowed from the wounds of the One who took on human form to experience death within humanity.

[ 4 ] My dear friends! All the worlds we can traverse—from our physical world through the higher worlds, further and further—always have something in common. It is true that when we enter a higher world, we always find something new, yet there is always something in common with the world that preceded it. But when we come to know the higher worlds, there is one thing not found there that can exist only as a physical phenomenon, as a physical phenomenon alone. The gods of the higher worlds can experience many things, but there is one thing they can never experience: death. For death does not exist in the supersensible worlds. In the supersensible worlds, beings transform; they pass from one form into another; one cannot die in the supersensible world. Death as a physical phenomenon is that which can exist only as a physical phenomenon. And among all the gods and spirits, it was the only one who, in order to have something in common with humanity, descended into the world of humanity—Christ—who through his death has united himself with humanity, not merely through his life. But through a ‘death’ he has united himself, from which new life forces have sprung forth. To look upon the death on Golgotha—this must become for humanity the starting point for ever new and new life forces, for in this death is concentrated, at a single point in human development, that which only a God could have sought to accomplish for humanity through an infinite sacrifice. Let one try to think this thought through, let one try to make this thought a living meditation, and one will see that from this thought the strongest life forces can flow forth for every human soul. And so there is no more sublime image than the cross erected on Golgotha.

[ 5 ] My dear friends! With an image such as the cross on Golgotha—an image set before all of humanity—humanity is given something infinite. This symbol, which was at the same time a tangible reality, was set before us nearly two millennia ago, and we must still learn to understand it more and more in the future evolution of humanity. These are simple, primitive thoughts, but they are not meant to take on a metaphysical character within us, but rather to awaken feelings that make us capable of placing ourselves in the right way within the entire development of humanity.

[ 6 ] You know, my dear friends, that human development has proceeded in a differentiated manner; it has taken place within individual nations and peoples. Every people has a very special fundamental character, which stems from the fact that each people has as its leader one of those spirits whom we count among the hierarchy of the Archangels. The Archangels are, so to speak, the supreme leaders of the individual peoples. The fact that the human soul, as an individual soul, will in the future become increasingly connected with the leading folk-soul from the order of the Archangels is something that the spiritual worldview must reveal to us. And only when we show understanding for what this Folk-soul intends for us—when this Folk-soul has a will to develop into the future—can we contribute appropriately to the spiritual evolution of humanity. In this regard, we must make a significant distinction between the Folk-souls of Western Europe and the Eastern European, Russian Folk-soul. I am not speaking now of external Russian culture, of what exists on the external physical plane as Russian folk culture.

[ 7 ] I am speaking of your folk-souls, which truly exist in the spiritual world and are currently awaiting their future mission, folk-souls that are full of anticipation, full of hope, and full of confidence. When one compares these folk-souls with those of Western Europe, one gets the impression of the young and aspiring on the one hand, and the old and decrepit on the other. Central European culture has, after all, been thrust between Western and Eastern Europe as a mediating culture, which is fundamentally misunderstood when it is equated with the other cultures. In a very peculiar way, this Central European culture has the task of acting as a herald from ancient times into later times. Consider, my dear friends, how, in essence, the entire European culture of the Western world came into being at all. There were the outposts of the Oriental peoples extending all the way into ancient India, and these peoples developed a great, penetrating culture, as it comes to us from the culture of ancient India, from the time of the Bhagavad Gita. These peoples were pushed forward into the south of Asia. While wise teachers such as the Rishis and Zarathustra taught among them, there remained, in the widest circle of European countries—including your own—peoples who, in a sense, had been left behind by the wisdom of world evolution in primitive states. While far-reaching ideas flourished in Asia within the Sankhya and Vedanta philosophies, these European peoples had simple, primitive cultures. Why? Because cultures must progress in such a way that everything which is to come later as an impulse must first be absorbed by primitive people. The peoples of the East, having risen to a certain level of intellectuality, could never, for example, understand the Christ impulse; they had moved beyond the possibility of understanding the Christ impulse.

[ 8 ] The peoples of Western civilization were not yet ready to take in the spiritual realm with their minds; that which lives as a force from the heart to the head had not yet reached their minds. In India, everything was a culture of the head; among the European peoples, everything was still concentrated in the heart in primitive feelings of primal strength. Only such peoples, because they had not yet moved beyond the soul-like nature of the heart, were able to gradually weave the mysteries of Golgotha into their feelings. Thus it was European culture which, by having remained behind, stood in its original, fresh vitality—and original, fresh vitality is more closely related to the Divine—and was ready to receive the Christ impulse. Thus two currents flowed together within the Western world, which can be sharply distinguished by anyone who has a feeling for them. Who could fail to distinguish the distinctive underlying tone of Fichte, the Central European philosopher, from the distinctive underlying tone of Spinoza, who was, after all, also a European philosopher? It is even the case in human evolution that what belongs to general culture can be carried by the same individuality. For Spinoza and Fichte are, as some of our friends may already know, one and the same individuality. But Fichte, as an individual personality of the 18th and 19th centuries, is a spirit who could be permeated by the full power of the Christ impulse; Spinoza, that is, the same individuality, stands, however, in the other current within it and has nothing of it.

[ 9 ] But there is still much that has yet to enter European culture. And what has, in a certain sense, grown old must work together with that which is young and full of fresh hope. The Russian folk-soul, the entity from the order of the Archangels, is young and full of fresh hope; it has its task ahead of it. And it will be up to the Russian theosophists to find the bridge from the individual soul to the Folk-souls, to learn to understand what the Folk-souls want from them. You will find, my dear friends, that under certain conditions it will be easy for your very souls to enliven the Christ impulse from within your hearts through what lives in your souls. On the other hand, you will have to learn that, precisely because you possess a certain inner ease in bringing the Christ impulse to life, great difficulties will arise for you in turn. You will have to learn that the profound truth applies to you in a heightened degree: that you will have to rely on your own soul, that you will have to bring the Theosophical to life within your souls. For, my dear friends, Theosophy, as the proclamation of our age, does not wish to compromise with other worldviews. It speaks a stern word to other worldviews. It speaks a word to other worldviews that has already been heard in the course of evolution. Those who seek to find Theosophy within the existing external, materialistic cultures—and these are all the cultures of the present, or at least are moving in that direction—all who seek compromises will forever hear, with the utmost severity, the words once spoken by Christ Jesus: “Let the dead bury their dead! But you, follow me!” The dead are the individual cultures that are approaching materialism; they already possess within themselves the capacity to lead themselves to the grave. “Let the dead bury their dead!” But souls must follow what is the understanding of the spiritual impulse that reigns through the world as the Christ impulse. Therefore, my dear friends, you will not find, if you inquire into what ancient traditions can give you, what ancient customs can give you, anything that leads you to theosophy. It is good to discover these ancient customs, these old traditions, to show how the Divine reigns within them; but today, a person comes to Theosophy precisely by carrying within themselves a soul in which not the old, senile reigns, but a soul such as you carry: fresh, immediate souls, such as you bring to this Theosophy, uninfluenced by any tradition. The theosophical impulse requires life force, not mere intellectual power; the theosophical impulse demands this from your souls.

[ 10 ] My dear friends! Many of you—perhaps most of you, perhaps even all of you—feel within yourselves, even if you might define it differently, the pain and suffering of being separated from the folk-souls, of being temporarily separated from your folk-souls. Many of you feel—even if you believe otherwise—perhaps most of you, perhaps all of you feel within yourselves how you need new impetus for will and strength. Begin, my dear friends, to view what you feel as the suffering of your often-lacking will and your often-lacking strength; begin to regard this as the virginity of your will; resolve to see this as a will that has remained untouched, and which is only waiting to be spurred on by that which is the theosophical impulse! Let the theosophical impulse become will within you! Try to transform the suffering into strength, the weak will into the theosophy that desires within you; through this you will truly be able to enter into theosophical life! Try to reinterpret what is still weak within you, what is not yet fully present! In this way, you will be able to become the best bearers of Theosophy! For consider this: the souls that are now in your bodies are not destined to be reincarnated only in Eastern Europe in the next incarnation. They are destined to be distributed across the entire Earth in the next incarnations. And something will stand before you between death and a new birth, which will speak to you in this way when you enter a new incarnation. To one it will say: You have fulfilled your task; you can carry into the world what you have absorbed on Earth—that which could only be absorbed on the soil of Eastern Europe. — To the other it will say: You cannot!

[ 11 ] My dear friends, consider what you now feel for Theosophy as an instinct for what has just been said, as that vague sense you have within you regarding this task of yours. Consider it in such a way that it can give you strength from the Self into your thinking, feeling, and willing, from there into your life, and from there into your very blood; then you will interpret this instinct, from which you are now rushing toward Theosophy, in the right way.

[ 12 ] You have now gathered yourselves outwardly. You have found a way, amidst the great difficulties that exist in your country, to gather yourselves outwardly without hindrance. Use this opportunity to achieve the strongest possible inner gathering, so that each and every one of you may build a bridge up to the folk-souls. It cannot be my task, my dear friends, to speak of the specific services that must be rendered to these folk-souls. But there is something else I may speak to you about, something I would like to be expressed in words, yet transformed within you into a feeling. You are in a peculiar situation, my dear friends. You are, so to speak, in the opposite situation of a people that, in a certain respect, populates the earth with a brief splendor of an ascending nature. You are in a situation opposite to that of the North American people. Consider, my dear friends, that this North American people, who are your polar opposite, began to advance gradually from the West toward the East at the very time that the age of materialism began in Europe, and they have continued to expand it. Consider that materialism reigns at the roots of Americanism. Consider that those who cultivated America did so with the mental images of the cultured European of centuries past, which lie so few centuries behind us. What, then, did these people do? These people took the materialistic mental images of modern parliaments, the mental images of modern natural science, and the modern social order, and used them to do what uneducated people otherwise do when they clear virgin forests, conquer arable land piece by piece, and prepare the land for cultivation. All of this sprang from materialism. And if one looks today at the man recognized as their most significant writer—the man whom the Americans themselves elected as their leader, Woodrow Wilson, who by today’s standards is truly a significant writer, who has achieved brilliant literary feats in the service of social ideology—if one looks at him, his concepts and ideas, everything he represents as a representative of the American people, what is it? A house of cards. A house of cards, destroyed by a single breath, were it to be breathed from the spiritual worlds. Then this entire culture would collapse. Every detail from which American culture originates can be traced back to external history books, to the cultural history of past centuries. Everything lies out in the open; everything is the work of human hands, from which it has sprung.

[ 13 ] Ask where your national identity comes from, where your spiritual life originates, ask where the best of what you can cherish in your souls comes from. You will not find it on Earth! It cannot be found in this way; it is rooted in the spiritual world itself. It is an organism, a living being—it is no house of cards! We must never allow such things to be a cause for our pride, but rather a cause for our humility and modesty, for we should not derive from it a reckless self-confidence, but rather a sense of responsibility.

[ 14 ] My dear friends! I spoke yesterday about freedom. Much water will have to flow down the rivers of Europe before a certain number of people fully understand what is meant by this freedom, what this freedom entails. What is freedom? Let us go from West to East! What is freedom for the American? That which makes his life most comfortable. He calls freedom that which should be woven into the social order so that each individual may best advance in the external world. We understand freedom differently—says Woodrow Wilson—than the European; we understand freedom because it seems practical to us. — So says the American himself. One uses a knife for cutting, a fork for eating, because they are practical for those purposes. The American embraces freedom because it is practical for what he needs, because it allows him best to establish the order that is comfortable for him. For the American, freedom is a utilitarian product; it brings him benefit. My dear friends! For the Western European, freedom was something else; freedom was a lofty ideal, something to which he looked up. One might almost apply the poet’s words to freedom. To the European, she is the “lofty, glorious goddess”; to the American, she is the useful cash cow that supplies him with milk and butter. I am not saying this, but the one who will be responsible for leading the United States of America in the coming years has said it. It is by no means my task to express my opinion, but only to be the interpreter of what lives in the spiritual world. In an outstanding American, American freedom has characterized itself. And if we take all that spiritual heroes in Europe have accomplished to portray this divine freedom as the high, noble goddess, then the vast majority of it is such that one must say: All our enthusiasm, all our passion, all our sensations, thoughts, and feelings turn toward what Europeans have envisioned as the highest ideal of freedom.

[ 15 ] Understand, my dear friends, that freedom must become something entirely different for those who embrace a spiritual worldview. You will misunderstand everything if you do not realize that everything must be reshaped anew. We are faced with the demand that freedom must become something entirely different from what has hitherto been felt as a high ideal—a concept understood even by the best of humanity. For we know that in the time to come we, as human beings, will be allowed to go to a divine source, that we will be allowed to drink the water of the Spirit, and that this water of the Spirit will live in our souls, and that with it we will have to spiritualize freedom, just as we embody the soul with our bodies. For one person, freedom is practical for external life; for another, it is a lofty spiritual, noble ideal; for a third, freedom must be that which he may spiritualize, which is higher than the soul, as much higher than the soul as the soul is higher than the body. We must learn to spiritualize freedom. There is much we must learn, including how to imbue freedom with a soul; then we will advance as the eternal, spiritual powers intend for human evolution, having allowed Theosophy to flow into your souls.

[ 16 ] So, my dear friends, let us accept these simple words—words meant not for your intellect but for your hearts—at this very moment, now that you have found a way to formally commit yourselves to Theosophy within your country; let us take this as an opportunity to become conscious at this very moment of the lofty task entrusted to us through a spiritual understanding of the world. My dear friends! This awareness will ensure that, as we live within it, something will radiate from that quiet work in the Theosophical branches that will be a blessing for the entire country; for one begins to understand spiritual life only when one knows that it is not merely what we can do outwardly to spread Theosophy that truly contributes to the spread of Theosophy, but also that when we work together as best we can to gain an understanding of Theosophy, the effects of our spiritual striving radiate invisibly. And just as we know that a city with a Theosophical Lodge is, after thirty years, something entirely different—even if only a few have worked theosophically there—than a city without a Theosophical Lodge, so your country will become something entirely different if you perceive with inner understanding what Theosophy can give you. I am not speaking to you as a Western European, nor as a member of this or that nation. I know that is not the case. But perhaps precisely for that reason may I say to you: There is salvation for Russia, there is salvation, but this salvation must not be sought by false means. Nor do I say this merely because I love Theosophy, but because the entire development of humanity can teach us this as the truth. There is salvation for Russia, and this salvation is called Theosophy. For other regions of the earth, Theosophy will be something excellent, something that advances humanity. For Russia, Theosophy will be the only salvation, the very thing that must be there so that the Russian people may reconnect with their national soul, so that this national soul may not be called to other tasks in the world than those for which it is destined.

[ 17 ] With these words, I would like to dedicate your newly founded branches, for I know how the sacred meaning of these words dawns in your hearts. Then that connection which is necessary for the salvation of your country will be able to take effect in your souls: the connection between the Mystery of Golgotha and the human understanding of this Mystery. Then the Spirit that is to become the regenerator of your country will reign in your hearts; then that which your land needs will radiate from your gatherings. Out of this awareness, and looking up to the guiding powers of human evolution with devotion and reverence, I declare that I wish to call down every blessing upon your work, to call it down into the strength of your hearts, to call down the blessing of those powers that today allow the mystery of Golgotha to flow into human hearts, so that this blessing may continue to work through your souls, radiating from your work out into your land. And I know that this blessing is always present when we are worthy of it. So let us, as we stand, so to speak, at the starting point of your work, let us hold before the image of our consciousness a new impulse—the spiritual impulse that must pour forth into the development of humanity—and let us see how the spiritual guides of this impulse hover helpfully over our work, which we wish to carry out in sincerity. Then from this image springs the awareness that we are doing what must be done for the immediate sphere, and thereby also for the entire vast sphere of human development; then from this image springs our duty. May the blessing of the wise guides of the world and of humanity rest upon your work in this sense; may this blessing rise powerfully within your souls, be a light in your souls; then this light will be able to flow forth, and you will be able to do much that is of great significance for salvation, for progress, and for the true development of humanity.