The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] I said eight days ago that we, as people interested in the anthroposophical movement, can gain a much deeper understanding of the burning issues of our time—and can grasp them in a more profound way—which is necessary for humanity today to form a judgment and to be able to take a stand. We can grasp many things more deeply than is possible among the general public. In a sense, we can regard ourselves as a kind of leaven—if I may use that biblical term—so that each of us, in our own place, strives to contribute something—out of a deeper feeling, out of a deeper impulse—to what is particularly needed at this time.

[ 2 ] If we recall the main theme of the public lectures, we will find that the task at hand is to strive for a certain structuring of the social organism. I always say “strive for”—not seeking to implement it revolutionarily overnight—but rather striving for a certain structuring of that which has become centralized under the influence of certain modern trends. Striving so that, instead of the so-called unitary state, a distinct member of the social organism may develop in free independence alongside the others, one that encompasses everything related to spiritual life: the education of people, schooling, art, literature, but also—as I have already indicated and as will be touched upon tomorrow in the public lecture—that which pertains to the administration of private and criminal law. A second member of the social organism should then, in the narrower sense, be what has hitherto been called the state—and which, in recent times, precisely as a result of the currents of the last four hundred years, people have sought to burden with all manner of things: state schools, state education, and so on. But precisely under the influence of socialist and social ideas, attempts are being made today to fuse economic life and political-legal life—in the most eminent sense—into a single entity. The two must once again diverge. The political state must stand independently as the second element of the social organism, and everything that encompasses the circulation of goods, economic life, and the economy must stand independently—or relatively independently.

[ 3 ] Now let us consider this matter from a perspective that may not yet be readily accessible to those who are not part of our movement, and let us then bring it to a certain culmination, so that from this culmination a deeper understanding of the condition of humanity today as a whole may spring forth. Consider for a moment what is called “spiritual life” in the earthly sense. Spiritual life in the earthly sense is everything that in any way lifts us beyond individual egoism and brings us together with groups of other people. Take, as the earthly spiritual life that is still most significant for the majority of people today, the very spiritual life that is meant to mediate the connection with the supersensible spiritual life; take religious life as it unfolds for people within the individual religious communities. There, in a certain sense, a person is brought together with others through their soul needs; it is these shared soul needs that then connect them to one another. Through education, one person cares for another in the spiritual and soul realm. When we read a book, we are also led beyond our individual, self-centered lives, not only by taking in the author’s thoughts, but—if the book is read even halfway—by sharing the same thoughts with numerous other people, which in turn places us within a certain group of people who experience similar things in their souls. This is, after all, an important characteristic of spiritual life: that this spiritual life springs from complete freedom, from the individual initiative of each person; yet this earthly spiritual life brings people together with others, forming groups of people out of the totality of humanity.

[ 4 ] But this already says something to those who seek a deeper understanding—something that brings every form of such coexistence closer to the central event of all earthly development, the Mystery of Golgotha. For ever since the Mystery of Golgotha took place in Earth’s evolution, everything pertaining to human coexistence belongs, in a certain sense, to this Christ impulse. This is the essential point: that the Christ impulse does not belong to the individual human being, but to human coexistence. Understood in the sense of Christ Jesus himself, it is a great error to believe that the individual human being can have a direct relationship with Christ. The essential point is that Christ lived, died, and rose again for humanity—for what humanity is as a whole. Therefore, the Mystery of Golgotha—the Christ event—comes immediately into consideration—we will return to this later—whenever any form of human coexistence has unfolded since the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus, even earthly spiritual life—which springs forth from the most individual aspects of human nature, from personal dispositions and gifts—draws near to the Christ event for those who truly understand the world.

[ 5 ] But let us first consider this earthly spiritual life in and of itself: religious life, schooling and education, artistic life, and so on. Through this, we enter into a certain relationship with other people. Here we must distinguish between what connects us to other people through our actual destiny—through our karma—and what is not connected to our individual karma in this narrowest sense. On the one hand, we have certain relationships with people that arise in our lives; we form new relationships with individual people. We have relationships that are nothing other than the effects of other connections established in previous earthly lives. Here, in turn, we establish connections that will find their karmic development in later earthly lives. This results in a whole host of individual relationships between specific people and other specific people. These relationships, which are essentially connected to our karma in the strictest sense, must be distinguished from the broader relationships we enter into with people by forming communities with them—through which we belong together to a religious congregation or share a common creed, are educated in the same spirit, read a book together, and the like, or enjoy some form of art together, and so on. These people with whom we thus enter into an earthly community do not necessarily have to be connected to us through a karmic relationship from a previous earthly life. There are, however, also such communities that point to shared destinies in previous earthly lives, but with these larger communities I have just spoken of, this is generally not the case. Yet it leads back to something else. It stems from the fact that toward the end of the time we spend in the supersensible world between death and a new birth—when we reach the period close to our new reincarnation—we enter into spiritual relationships—because we have, to a certain degree, matured for such spiritual relationships—with the hierarchies of the Angeloi, archangels, and Archai—that is, spiritual relationships with the higher hierarchies in general; but also that, in the spiritual-supersensory world before our new birth, we draw close to other human souls who will incarnate later than we do, who in some way still have to wait longer for their incarnation. We have a whole series of supersensible encounters that we experience precisely because of our particular maturity before we are drawn back into earthly life through a new birth. And these forces that we absorb in the process place us on Earth in the very place where it becomes possible for us to experience those communities of earthly-spiritual life of which I have just spoken.

[ 6 ] The main point to take away from what I have said is that our earthly-spiritual life, which we experience by being religious people, by being raised and educated, by absorbing certain artistic impressions and the like, is not something that derives its purpose solely from what exists on Earth, but is determined by that which we first experience in the supersensible realm before we descend through birth into this earthly spiritual life. Just as the image in the mirror points to the one who is reflected, so too does earthly spiritual life point to what a person experienced before entering an earthly body. In this regard, there is nothing on Earth that stands in such an intimate connection—in such a real, living connection—to the supersensible world as this earthly spiritual life, which, after all, exhibits certain aberrations, indeed many aberrations. But even these aberrations have a meaningful connection to what we experience in the supersensible world—albeit in a completely different way, yet still in the supersensible realm. This gives earthly spiritual life a special position on Earth, in that it is connected to our pre-birth life. Nothing else in earthly life is so closely connected to our pre-birth life as this earthly spiritual life. This is what the spiritual researcher must still emphasize in particular. He distinguishes earthly spiritual life from the other activities to which human beings are subject here on Earth, because in his supersensible observations he learns that this earthly spiritual life has its origins and its impulses in the prenatal, supersensible life. Consequently, for the spiritual scientist, this earthly spiritual life is distinguished from human beings’ other experiences.

[ 7 ] The situation is different with what can be called, in the narrower sense, political and public legal life—that is, the life that establishes state order among people. No matter how hard one tries, using even the most precise methods of the humanities, to investigate what this state life—the truly state life, political legal life, public legal life—is connected to, one finds absolutely no connection between this life and anything supernatural. This life stands there as entirely earthly. We must simply be clear about what is meant here. What, for example, is a political legal relationship that is earthly in the preeminent sense? The relationship of possession, the relationship of ownership. If I am in any way the owner of a piece of land, I am so only because a political context grants me the exclusive right to use this land and enables me to exclude all others from using it, from building on it, and so on. So it is with everything that is based on public law. That which constitutes the sum of public rights—including the sum of everything that protects a certain community from external influences—all of that is state life in the narrower sense. This is the truly earthly life, which is connected only to the impulses that flow through a human being between birth and death. No matter how much the state may sometimes imagine itself to be God-given, in the deeper sense of all religious creeds, the following applies. First, what Jesus Christ meant when he spoke to the people in the language of his time: “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” He sought, particularly in the face of the aspirations of the Roman Empire, to separate everything that constitutes external state life from that which is a reflection of the supersensible life. But everything that seeks to introduce a supernatural impulse into mere earthly political life—for example, seeking to make the state the very bearer of religious life or the bearer of the educational system—which, unfortunately, no one in modern times doubts is supposed to be the case!—all of this was described by deeper religious souls in such a way that they said: “If that which is spiritual and supersensory seeks in any way to mingle with that which is external and state-related, then the unlawful prince of this world reigns.”

[ 8 ] You may know that one would have to reflect deeply on the meaning of the unlawful prince of this world, and in the end, one cannot make sense of it. Only through spiritual science can one discover what is meant by this. The unlawful prince of this world reigns when that which is meant to relate solely to the order of earthly conditions presumes to include spiritual life—and, as we shall see later, economic life as well—within its scope. The rightful prince of this world is only the one who includes in the external political affairs of the state only that which has its impulses in human life between birth and death. Thus, we have grasped the second member of the social organism from the perspective of spiritual science. It is the one that is ordered toward those impulses that flow through the human being between birth and death.

[ 9 ] Now we come to the third aspect: the economic relationship. Just consider how economic life actually places us in a certain relationship to the world. You will easily grasp what this relationship is like if you were to imagine that we could be completely absorbed in purely external economic life. What would we be then, if we were absorbed only in external, purely economic life? We would be thinking animals, nothing more. It is only because, in addition to economic life, we also have a legal life, a political life, a civic life, and a spiritual science—an earthly spiritual life—that we are not merely thinking animals. Economic life thus pushes us down, to a greater or lesser extent, into the subhuman realm. But precisely because we are pushed down into the subhuman realm, we can develop interests in this very realm that are, in the truest sense of the word, fraternal interests among human beings. In no other realm can we so easily and so naturally develop fraternal relationships among human beings in the fullest sense of the word as we can in economic life.

[ 10 ] In spiritual life—what is it that actually governs earthly spiritual life? Essentially, it is personal—albeit spiritual—but spiritually egoistic interest. People want religion to make them happy. From education, they expect it to develop their talents. From any artistic or other phenomenon they enjoy, they seek to bring joy into their lives or to foster the unfolding of their life forces. It is true everywhere that a coarser or more refined form of egoism—albeit understandably—leads people, for their own sake, to what is alive in earthly spiritual life.

[ 11 ] Again, in legal and political life, we are dealing with what, in a sense, makes us equal before the law. We are dealing with the relationship between one person and another. We are dealing with what our law is supposed to be. Law does not exist among animals! This is also something that elevates us above the animal realm even in our earthly lives. But in the relationships we have—whether in a religious community, an educational community, or a legal community—we find something that, in a certain sense, is based on a claim we make, something we desire, as it were, as a matter of course. In the realm of economic life, something can assert itself precisely when we are able to overcome what we do not want out of self-interest: brotherhood, consideration for others, living in such a way that the other person experiences something through us.

[ 12 ] In an emotional relationship, we accept something because we want it. In a legal relationship, we lay claim to something that we must lay claim to if we are to preserve a life of dignity as equals among equals. And in economic life, what connects the feelings of one person with those of another unfolds: brotherhood. The impulses of brotherly life arise when we establish a certain relationship—from what we possess to what the other possesses; from what we need to what the other needs; between what we have and what the other has, and so on. If we develop this brotherhood more and more in economic life, then, in a sense, something emerges from this economic life. This brotherhood in economic life—this fraternal relationship among people that must radiate from economic life if economic life is to be restored—is what, if I may put it this way, “evaporates” from economic life, so that, by cultivating it within ourselves precisely from within economic life, we take it with us through the gate of death and carry it into the supersensible life after death.

[ 13 ] Thus, in earthly life, economic life appears to be the lowest, but within it something develops that pulses right from the earthly realm through the gateway of death into the super-earthly realm. Here we have examined the third sphere of the social organism from the perspective of spiritual science. Something develops that, in a sense, thrusts us humans down into the subhuman realm, but we are blessed in that, precisely from what brotherhood develops in economic life, we take something with us through the gate of death—something that remains with us as we enter the supersensible world. Just as earthly spiritual life—which develops in the way I described earlier—points, through its reflection, to that which is reflected, to the pre-birth supersensible spiritual life, so economic life, through what develops within the human being under its influence—social interest, feelings for human community, brotherhood—to the supersensible life after death.

[ 14 ] And so, from a spiritual scientific perspective, we have distinguished three realms: spiritual life, with its reference to the pre-birth supersensible life; actual political life, with its connection to the impulses that unfold between birth and death; economic life proper, which points to what we will experience after we have passed through the gate of death. Just as it is true that the human being is not only an earthly but also a super-earthly being, that he carries within himself the results of what he “pre-lived” in the supersensible realm before birth, and that he develops within himself the seeds of what he is to experience in the life after death—if I may use that image— just as true as it is that, in this regard, human life is threefold and that, in addition to these two reflections of the supersensible life, the human being experiences his or her own distinct earthly life between birth and death; just as true as it is that this human life is itself threefold in structure—so true must the social organism in which the human being stands be threefold in structure if the human soul as a whole is to have its foundation, its basis, within this social organism. Thus, for those who recognize humanity’s place in the universe through spiritual science, there are even deeper reasons to understand that the social organism must be threefold, that humanity must, so to speak, wither away—just as it has withered away in a certain way in modern life, which then led to the terrible catastrophe of the last four years— when everything is centralized, when everything is related solely to a chaotic, anarchically jumbled external social life. To view human life in this way, to become conscious in this manner that every individual human being is so deeply embedded within humanity as a whole and within the world at large—this is what should gradually come to be for the human being through deepening into the insights of spiritual science. This is precisely what constitutes the true knowledge of Christ for our time and for the near future. In a sense, this is what is revealed to us when we seek to hear Christ today. He himself said—as I have often emphasized—“I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This means that he did not speak only during the time he walked on earth, but he continues to speak, and we are to continue to listen to him. We should not merely read the Gospels—which we should, of course, read again and again—but we should hear what he has to reveal to us in a living way through his continued presence with us. In this age, he has this to reveal to us: Change your thinking—as his forerunner, John the Baptist, said—change your thinking anew, for this opens up to you the vision of your threefold humanity, which demands that even that in which you live—your earthly existence—require a threefold structure.

[ 15 ] It is rightly said: Christ died and rose again for all of humanity; the Mystery of Golgotha is an event shared by all of humanity. — One becomes particularly aware of this in the present day, when nations have risen up against one another and raged against each other in savage conflict; when now, once again—after events have reached a crisis—it is not prudence, not an awareness of humanity’s commonality, but instead, in many cases, a wild frenzy of victory that prevails! Let us not fail to recognize this. Everything we have experienced over the past four and a half years, what we are experiencing now, and what we will yet experience, shows the discerning observer that humanity has entered a kind of crisis with regard to Christ-consciousness. Humanity has entered a crisis with regard to Christ-consciousness because the true sense of community—the proper connection among human beings—has been lost. And it is absolutely necessary for people to reflect: How can we rediscover the Christ impulse in the right way?

[ 16 ] A simple fact can teach us why he is not always found. Before the Christ impulse had taken effect in the development of the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, the very people from whom Christ Jesus was born regarded themselves as the chosen people, and this chosen people believed that the Earth could only become happy if everything else perished, and only the members of this people would fill the entire Earth. In a certain sense, this was a firm belief, because the God Yahweh had chosen this people as His own and because the God Yahweh was regarded as the one and only God. For the time before the Mystery of Golgotha came to Earth, this was, for that reason, a justified view of the ancient Hebrew people, because it was precisely from this ancient Hebrew people that Christ Jesus was to emerge. But with the appearance of the Mystery of Golgotha on Earth, this consciousness should have ceased. Afterward, this consciousness became antiquated; afterward, the consciousness of Christ should have taken the place of the consciousness of Jehovah—a consciousness that speaks of humanity just as the people of Yahweh spoke of the members of a single nation. It is the tragic fate of the Jewish people that they failed to recognize that this is the case. But today we are witnessing a relapse in many instances. Today we are witnessing a relapse in which the nations—even if they view it differently or call it by another name—all want to worship a kind of Yahweh, but a special Yahweh, their national god.

[ 17 ] Certainly, people no longer speak in religious formulas as they did in the past, but they speak, so to speak, in a modern way of thinking. “Way of thinking” or “habit of thought” seems to me to be a good term. People have now become accustomed to using a different word. One could also make a concession, in order to be better understood, to go along with this trend for a while, and instead of the terms “habit of thought” or “way of thinking”—which I have always used in our circle—say “mentality” in public today. So, based on today’s mentality, the following is becoming apparent: Every nation wants, in a sense, to install its own special national god, one that exists solely in the spirit of that nation. — This is precisely what has led to nation raging against nation. We are witnessing a relapse into the religion of Yahweh, except that the religion of Yahweh is fragmenting into many specialized “Yahweh religions.” There truly is an Old Testament relapse today—an atavism, a relapse into the Old Testament! Humanity wants to divide itself into separate groups across the entire earth, in opposition to Christ Jesus, who existed and lived for all of humanity. Humanity wants to establish itself in the sense of national gods, in a Yahweh-like manner. This was justified before the Mystery of Golgotha; now it is a relapse. One must simply understand this correctly: National self-assertion today is a relapse into the Old Testament. This relapse into the Old Testament is what will impose severe trials upon modern humanity, and against which there is only one remedy: to draw near to Christ once again through the spiritual path.

[ 18 ] This raises a question of particular importance for those interested in the spiritual sciences: How, in our own time, can we find Christ Jesus from within our own hearts, from the innermost impulses of our present-day souls? That this question is a very serious one—I have spoken about it frequently in this series from other perspectives as well—can be seen from the fact that many of the official representatives of Christianity have, in fact, lost Christ. There are many well-known ministers, pastors, and so on today who speak of Christ. They speak of how a person can establish a connection with Christ through a certain inner deepening, through a certain inner experience. If one examines more closely what these people mean by “Christ,” one finds that there is no distinction between this Christ and God in general—that which is called the Father God, also in the sense of the Gospel. Isn’t that so? A famous theologian, for example, is Harnack. Here in Switzerland, too, many follow in his footsteps. Harnack even published a little book titled *The Essence of Christianity*. In it, he speaks at length about Christ. But what he says about Christ—why should that be attributed to Christ at all? There is absolutely no reason to attribute that to Christ! It could just as easily be attributed to the God of Yahweh. Therefore, the entire book *The Essence of Christianity* is, at its core, a falsehood. It only becomes a truth when it is “Hebrewized”—that is, when it is translated so that wherever the phrase “Christ” appears in the sentences, “Yahweh” is substituted. In saying this, I am expressing a truth of which people today have hardly any inkling—that it is, in fact, a truth. From countless pulpits around the world, people speak of the Christ, and they believe they are rightly speaking of the Christ precisely because the word “Christ” is heard. People do not stop to consider: If I were to strike out the word “Christ” from what the pastor says and substitute “Yahweh” for it, only then would it make sense! You see, a certain untruth is connected to the deepest ills of our time. Do not think that, in the moment I say this, I am trying to target anyone in particular, so as to accuse or criticize them. That is not the case at all. I simply wish to state a fact. For those people who often find themselves in the deepest inner untruth—one might even say, an inner lie—are unaware of it; they are, in their own way, well-meaning. Humanity today finds it difficult to arrive at the truth because precisely what I have described here as an inner untruth has become traditionally and immensely entrenched. And from this inner untruth—which prevails on an immeasurably vast scale, particularly in relation to such matters—radiates that other untruth which has now gripped the most diverse branches of life, so that in many areas of life one can already ask: What, in fact, has actually remained true? Where, then, is there still real truth? — That is why the question looms large, especially for those striving toward spiritual science: How do I find the true path that leads to Christ, to this special divine being who is rightly called the Christ? — If we are merely born and live here on earth from birth to death with a soul life that simply unfolds according to the usual disposition and development of our faculties between birth and death, then we have absolutely no reason to come to the Christ. No matter how much spiritual activity may take place within us, we have no reason to come to Christ. If, so to speak, without doing anything specific—which I will describe shortly—we simply develop between birth and death, as most people do today, then we remain distant from Christ. — But how do we come to Christ? The initiative—even if it sometimes arises from the subconscious or from a vague feeling—to set out on the path to Christ must come from within ourselves. One can come to the God who is also identical with the God Yahweh simply by living a healthy life. Failing to find Yahweh is merely a kind of human illness. To be an atheist—to deny God—means, in a certain sense, to be ill. If one is fully healthy and normally developed, one is not an atheist, because it is ridiculous to believe that what we carry within us as our healthy organism could not be of divine origin. The “Ex deo nascimur” is something that arises naturally in the social life of a healthy, well-developed person. For if one does not acknowledge this—that “I am born of the Divine”—then one must somehow have a defect that expresses itself precisely in the way that one becomes an atheist. But this brings us to the “Divine” in general, which modern pastors, out of an inner lie, call “Christ,” but which is not the Christ. We can only come to the Christ—and I am speaking here with reference to our immediate present—if we go even further than acknowledging what is ordinarily and naturally healthy. For we know that the Mystery of Golgotha came to earth because, ultimately, human beings could not have found what is truly human without this Mystery of Golgotha—that is, without the Christ impulse. And so, in a sense, we must not only find our humanity between birth and death, but we must rediscover it if we wish to be Christians in the true sense, if we wish to draw near to Christ. We must rediscover this human being of ours in the following way. We must seek inner honesty, must summon the strength to be inwardly honest, and tell ourselves: With regard to our world of thought, we are not born without prejudice after the Mystery of Golgotha; we are all born with certain prejudices.

[ 19 ] The moment one regards human beings—whether in the Rousseauian sense or in any other way—as perfect from the outset, one cannot find Christ at all; rather, one can find him only when one knows that human beings, in a certain sense—as those who live according to the Mystery of Golgotha—have a defect that they must compensate for through their own actions in this life. I was born a prejudiced person and must first acquire freedom from prejudice in my thinking throughout my life. And how can I acquire it here? Solely by developing not only an interest in what I myself think, in what I myself consider to be right, but also by developing a selfless interest in everything that people believe and in everything that comes my way—even if I consider it to be a grave error. The more a person clings to his own stubborn opinions and is interested only in them, the further he distances himself from Christ at this moment in the world’s development. The more a person develops a social interest in the opinions of others—even if they consider them to be errors—the more they shed light on their own thoughts through the opinions of others; the more they place alongside their own thoughts—which they may regard as truth—those developed by others that they consider to be errors, yet remain interested in them nonetheless—the more deeply they feel, in the innermost part of their soul, a word of Christ, which must be interpreted today in the spirit of the new language of Christ. Christ said: “Whatever you do to one of the least of my brothers, you have done to me.” Christ never ceases to reveal himself to humanity again and again, until the end of time. And so he speaks today to those who are willing to hear him: Whatever one of the least of your brothers thinks, you must regard it as though I were thinking within him, and as though I were feeling with you, by measuring the other’s thoughts against your own and taking a social interest in what is taking place in the other’s soul. Whatever you find as an opinion or a worldview in one of the least of your brothers, in that you seek me myself. — Thus speaks Christ into our inner life, who is about to reveal himself in a new way—the time is drawing near—to the people of the 20th century. Not by speaking, in the manner of Harnack, of the God who can also be the God of Yahweh and in reality is so, but by knowing that Christ is the God for all people. But we will not find him if we remain selfishly closed off within ourselves with our thoughts; rather, we will find him only when we measure our thoughts against the thoughts of other people, when we expand our interest with inner tolerance for all that is human, when we say to ourselves: By birth I am a prejudiced person; through my rebirth from the thoughts of all people into a comprehensive social sense of thought, I will find within myself that impulse which is the Christ impulse. If I do not regard myself solely as the source of everything I think, but rather regard myself as a member of humanity right down to the innermost depths of my soul, then a path to the Christ is found. — This is the path that must be called today the path of thought leading to Christ. Serious self-education—by cultivating a sense of consideration for the thoughts of others, by correcting what we naturally carry within ourselves as our own direction through conversations with others—must become a serious life task. For if this life task were not to take root among people, they would lose the path to Christ. This is the path of thought today.

[ 20 ] And the other path leads through the will. Here, too, people have strayed far off course—a path that does not lead to Christ, but leads away from Him. And in this other realm, we must rediscover the path to Christ. Young people still possess a certain amount of idealism of their own accord, but humanity today is dry and sober. And humanity today is arrogant toward what is often called “practicality,” which is, however, merely a certain narrow-mindedness. Humanity today has no regard for ideals drawn from the source of the spiritual. Young people still have these ideals. Never before has the life of the elderly been so different from that of the young as it is today. A lack of understanding of human nature is, in fact, what characterizes our present age.

[ 21 ] Yesterday I pointed out the deep divide that exists between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. And the older generation and the youth—how poorly they get along today! This is something we must also take very, very seriously. Let us try to understand the youth in light of their idealism. Very well, but today there is a desire to drive this idealism out of the youth. The aim is to drive it out by depriving the youth of a certain education of the imagination—a cultivation of the imagination through fairy tales, legends, and everything that leads them away from dry, external sensuality. Nevertheless, it will be difficult to drive out of the youth that which is youthful, natural, and elemental idealism. But what is it? It is beautiful, it is great, but it must not be the only thing in a human being. For this youthful idealism is, after all, only the idealism of *ex deo nascimur*—the divine, which is also identical with the divine of Yahweh—but which must not remain alone now that the Mystery of Golgotha has come upon the earth. There must be something else alongside it; there must be an education, a self-education in idealism. Alongside the innate idealism of youth, care must be taken to ensure that something is acquired within the human community—namely, acquired idealism—which is not merely idealism born of blood and the fire of youth, but rather something that is cultivated, something one first acquires for oneself through some initiative. Cultivated—and especially self-cultivated—idealism, which cannot be lost with youth, is something that opens the path to Christ, because it is, once again, something that is acquired in life between birth and death. Feel the great difference between idealism born of blood and cultivated, acquired idealism. Feel the great difference between the fire of youth and that fire which comes from grasping spiritual life and can be rekindled again and again, because we have made it our own in our soul, independent of our physical development; then you have grasped the second idealism, which is acquired idealism—the idealism of rebirth, not that of being born with it. That is the path of the will to Christ. The other is the path of thought. Do not ask today about abstract paths to Christ; ask about these concrete paths. Ask what the path of thought is like—the path that consists in becoming inwardly tolerant of the opinions of all humanity, in gaining a social interest in the thoughts of other people. Ask what the path of the will is like, and you will not find something abstract, but rather the necessity of cultivating an idealism. But then, when you cultivate this idealism in yourself—or when you instill it in young people, in the rising generation, which is particularly necessary—you will find that in what is cultivated as idealism, a sense awakens within the person to do more than merely what the external world compels them to do. Rather, from this idealism spring the impulses to do more than what the sensory world compels; the sense of acting out of the spirit wells up. In what we do out of cultivated idealism, we realize what Christ intended; for He did not descend to Earth from otherworldly realms merely to realize earthly goals here, but descended from the otherworldly into the earthly world to realize the supermundane. But we grow together with him only if we cultivate idealism within ourselves, so that Christ—who is supermundane within the earthly—can work within us. Only through cultivated idealism is realized what the Pauline saying about Christ means: “Not I, but Christ in me.” Anyone who does not wish to strive to develop the idealism cultivated through inner moral rebirth can say nothing other than: “Not I, but Yahweh within me.” — But whoever acquires precisely that idealism—which must be cultivated, which must be acquired—can say: “Not I, but Christ within me.” These are the two paths through which we truly find Christ. If we walk in them, we will no longer speak in such a way that our speech is an inner lie. Then we will speak of Christ as the God of our inner rebirth, while Yahweh is the God of our birth.

[ 22 ] This distinction must be recognized by modern people, for this distinction alone is what leads us to true social feelings and true social interests. Those who cultivate a sense of idealism within themselves also have love for their fellow human beings. Preach as much as you like from the pulpit that people should love one another. You’re talking to a stove. No matter how much you coax it, it won’t heat the room; it will heat the room only if you put coal in it. Then you won’t need to tell it at all that it’s the stove’s duty to warm the room. So you can keep preaching to humanity: love, love, and love. That is mere talk; it is just a word. Work toward helping people experience a rebirth in terms of idealism—so that, alongside their instinctive idealism, they possess a spiritually cultivated idealism that endures throughout life—and then you will also kindle love for humanity in the human soul. For to the extent that you cultivate idealism within yourself, to that extent your soul will lead you away from your egoism toward an independent emotional concern for other people. One thing, however, you will experience if you follow this twofold path—the path of thought and the path of will—which I have indicated to you in connection with the renewal of Christianity. Out of your own thoughts—which are inwardly tolerant and interested in the thoughts of others—and out of your reborn will—a will reborn through cultivated idealism—something develops that can be described as nothing other than an elevated sense of responsibility for all things one does and thinks. The person who is inclined to observe the development of their soul will, if they follow these two paths, feel within themselves—unlike in ordinary life, which does not follow these paths—this heightened, increasingly refined sense of inner responsibility toward the things one thinks and does. When this sense of responsibility arises, one asks oneself: “Can I really justify this—not merely to the immediate circle of my life and my immediate surroundings—but can I justify it knowing that I belong to a supersensible-spiritual world? Can I justify it knowing that everything I do here on Earth is inscribed in an Akashic Record of eternal significance, where it continues to have an effect?” — Oh, one feels this strongly—this supersensory responsibility toward everything! It is something that approaches one like a warning voice when one seeks the twofold Christ path, like a being standing behind one, looking over one’s shoulder, always saying: You are not only accountable to the world; you are accountable to the divine-spiritual realm for what you think and do.

[ 23 ] But this being, who looks over our shoulders in this way—heightening and refining our sense of responsibility, leading us down paths quite different from those we were on before—is precisely the one who draws us even closer to the Christ who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. Today I wanted to speak to you about this path of Christ—how it is found and how it manifests itself in the nature I have just described. For this path of Christ is intimately connected precisely with the deepest social impulses and tasks of our time.

[ 24 ] That is what I wanted to convey to you during our time together.