The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Let us recall the explanations I have given you regarding the human experience between death and a new birth. From the various descriptions, we have been able to gain the insight that this life of the human being—especially during its main phase, around the middle of the period between death and a new birth—is spent in communion with those beings who are referred to in my Outline of Esoteric Science as the beings of the higher hierarchies. This life with the beings of the higher hierarchies is similar to the relationship that exists here for human beings dwelling in their physical bodies with regard to the beings of the three kingdoms of nature.

[ 2 ] Basically, everything we have in our earthly environment belongs to one of the three kingdoms of nature: the mineral, plant, or animal kingdom—or even the physical human kingdom, which in this regard can also be counted as part of the animal kingdom. Human beings have their senses, and through the impressions received by their senses, they live together with the beings of the three kingdoms of nature. That which develops in their feeling—insofar as it is gained through experience of the environment between birth and death—also relates to these three kingdoms of nature; the same is true of that which arises from the will: human action. Thus, between birth and death, human beings live interwoven with what their senses convey to them from the three natural kingdoms.

[ 3 ] Thus, during the period described—between death and a new birth—human beings live, one might say, within the higher realms, among the beings of the higher hierarchies. And this coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies is, in fact, an activity, a continuous process. We have seen that the spiritual seed of the physical body comes into being through cooperation with these beings of the higher hierarchies. Here on Earth, as we perceive things or carry out our actions within the realm of the three natural kingdoms, we feel ourselves to be separate from other beings. Between death and a new birth, there is a state in which we find ourselves entirely within these beings of the higher hierarchies. We are devoted to these beings. This is the one state in which we find ourselves. Let us make it quite clear to ourselves what this state is like.

[ 4 ] When we pick, say, a flower here on Earth, the factual situation is correctly described when we say: “I am picking the flower.” — Expressed in this way, however, the factual situation would not be correctly described in relation to our coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies. When we do something in connection with these beings, we must say: “The other being is acting within us.” — Thus, we are in a state in which we are constantly compelled not to describe the activity in which we are involved as our own, but rather as the activity of these beings of the higher hierarchies within us. We have a cosmic consciousness. Just as we feel our lungs, heart, and so on within us here, so do we feel the world within us—but the world of the beings of the higher hierarchies—and everything that happens occurs through an activity in which we ourselves are also interwoven. But if we want to describe the situation correctly, we must say: Some being of the higher hierarchies is acting within us. — But that is only one state, and we could not truly be human if we lived only in this one state. We would be just as unable to endure this state in the spiritual world between death and a new birth as we would be here on earth to endure merely inhaling without exhaling. This state, which I have just described, must alternate with another. And this other state consists in our using our cosmic consciousness to eradicate all thinking and feeling concerning the beings of the higher hierarchies, and to eradicate all will that acts within us in this way through the beings of the higher hierarchies.

[ 5 ] So we can say that there are times in life—between death and a new birth—when we find ourselves completely filled, filled with light by the beings of the higher hierarchies, and when we feel them within us. But there is another state in which we first have dampened and then completely extinguished this entire awareness of the higher beings appearing within us. Then, to use earthly terms, we are, so to speak, outside our body—it is all spiritual, of course, but let’s put it that way—we are then outside our body. We know nothing of the world that lives within us, but in such states we have then come to ourselves. We no longer live in the other beings of the higher hierarchies; we then live within ourselves. We would never attain an awareness of ourselves between death and a new birth if we were to live only in that one state. Just as we here on Earth must alternate inhalation with exhalation, or sleep with wakefulness, so too must we, between death and a new birth, move in a rhythmic alternation between the inner experience of the entire world of the higher hierarchies within us and a state in which we have come to ourselves.

[ 6 ] Now, all earthly life is, in a certain sense, a result, a consequence of what we experienced in our pre-earthly existence between death and a new birth. You will recall how I explained to you that even such achievements of human life on Earth as walking, speaking, and thinking are transformations of certain activities in pre-earthly existence. Today, let us focus more on the spiritual aspect.

[ 7 ] What we experience in our pre-earthly existence in communion with the beings of the higher hierarchies leaves behind, so to speak, a legacy within us for our earthly life—a faint shadow of this communion with the beings of the higher hierarchies. If we did not have this coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies between death and a new birth, we would not be able to unfold the power of love here on Earth. For what we develop here on Earth as the power of love is, admittedly, only a faint reflection, a shadow of our coexistence with the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies between death and a new birth—but it is nonetheless a reflection, a shadow of that coexistence. The fact that we can develop love for our fellow human beings here on Earth, that we can develop understanding for another human being here on Earth, stems from the fact that between death and a new birth we are able to live with the beings of the higher hierarchies. And through spiritual scientific insight, one can clearly see how those people who, in previous earthly lives, have acquired only a small measure of the gift—we will come to speak of how this gift is acquired shortly—to live in harmony with the beings of the higher hierarchies at the appropriate time after death, are completely devoted to these beings of the higher hierarchies in certain states, just as these people here on Earth develop only a small capacity for love—namely, universal love for humanity, which is expressed in understanding other people.

[ 8 ] Among the gods, in our pre-earthly existence, we acquire the gift of looking upon our fellow human beings, of paying attention to how they feel and think, and of comprehending, with inner empathy, who they are. And if we did not have—as one might call it—the relationship with the gods described above, we would never be able to develop on Earth that capacity to look deeply into other people, which, in essence, is what makes earthly life possible. In fact, when I speak in this context of love—and specifically of universal love for humanity—you must think of love in this concrete sense, as I have just described it: in the sense of a truly heartfelt understanding of another human being. And when one combines this understanding of another human being with universal love for humanity, one has thereby provided everything that constitutes human morality. For earthly human morality—provided it does not consist merely of empty phrases, fine-sounding rhetoric, or resolutions that are never carried out, or the like—rests on the interest one person takes in another, on the ability to see into the other person.

[ 9 ] A person who possesses an understanding of humanity will derive their social and moral impulses precisely from this understanding. So one can also say that all moral life within earthly existence has been attained by the human being in pre-earthly existence—attained in such a way that, from living together with the gods, the urge remains to shape such a life together, at least in the soul, here on earth as well. And this shaping of such a life together—so that one human being, together with another, fulfills the earthly tasks and the earthly mission—is what alone truly leads to moral life on Earth. We see, then, that love and the effect of love—morality—are entirely a result, a consequence of what the human being has spiritually experienced in their pre-earthly existence.

[ 10 ] Let us now consider the other state, in which a person has dimmed their consciousness for coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies; in which, as it were, just as in earthly sleep, the impressions from the surroundings fall silent; in which this will-driven coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies falls silent; in which, therefore, a person returns to themselves between death and a new birth. This state, too, has a consequence, a resonance, a legacy here in earthly life, and that is the power of recollection, of memory.

[ 11 ] The ability to have experiences at a certain time and then, after some time has passed, to draw something up from the depths of our human being that brings images of these experiences into our consciousness—that is, the power of memory, which we so desperately need in our earthly life—is a faint reflection, a shadow of our independent life in the spiritual world. Here on Earth, we would only be able to live in the present moment—not in our entire earthly past, extending back a few years after birth—if we were not also able, between death and a new birth, to step out of the fabric of the world, so to speak, and be entirely with ourselves.

[ 12 ] When we sleep here on Earth, our physical and etheric bodies are in bed. Our astral body and our “I” are outside these physical and etheric bodies; they are able—albeit unconsciously—to experience what is taking place in the human being’s spiritual-soul environment. A person is unconscious between falling asleep and waking up. I have described to you that a person has experiences between falling asleep and waking up. I have also described the individual experiences to you, but these experiences do not enter into consciousness. This must be the case in earthly life. Why? If, from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, we were to experience what we go through in our I and in our astral body so intensely that we could bring it into consciousness, then every time we woke up, we would imprint what we had experienced in sleep onto our physical and etheric bodies as well, and we would want to transform our physical and etheric bodies into something entirely different every time. Anyone who has knowledge of what is experienced between falling asleep and waking up must cultivate great self-denial. For they must be able to say to themselves: I renounce the desire to imprint what I experience between falling asleep and waking up—with my I and my astral body—onto my physical and etheric bodies, for they cannot tolerate this during the course of earthly life.

[ 13 ] One could sometimes speak of these things in grotesque terms; then it almost seems comical, but these matters are meant very seriously. As I once described here, human beings actually experience afterimages of the cosmos. Because of this, they are always tempted, for example, to take on a different face as they emerge from sleep. If what does not come into consciousness were to enter a person’s consciousness, they would constantly want to change their face, because the face they have constantly reminds them of past earthly lives and of sins committed in those past lives. Even in the morning before waking up, there is already a strong urge within a person to do something with the physical body similar to putting on clothes. Anyone who is aware of this must consciously refrain from acting on it; otherwise, they would become completely disorganized and would constantly want to alter their entire organism, especially if that organism is not entirely healthy in some respect or the like.

[ 14 ] But when we are in the life between death and a new birth, we experience this so consciously that this consciousness leads us to shape our next physical body. If this were left entirely up to us, we would not shape this physical body in accordance with our karma. But we shape it in collaboration with the beings of the higher hierarchies who watch over our karma. And so, for example, we receive the eyes, the nose, and so on, that we would hardly give ourselves, for we are extraordinarily selfish at certain moments between death and a new birth—precisely when we have dampened this awareness of our connection with the beings of the higher hierarchies—because then we experience so intensely that the physical body can be shaped from the forces of this experience. We do, in fact, shape it. This is therefore a much more intense experience, a life that contains within itself the seed of creation. And precisely because it is greatly attenuated in earthly life, it is experienced partly as earthly love and partly, as I have described, as memory, the capacity to remember.

[ 15 ] It is on this memory that our sense of a true “I” here on earth depends. If we were to live only in the present, without any memories, our “I” would lack any inner coherence. We would not be able at all—as I have often explained—to feel ourselves as a distinct “I.” But you see at the same time that this memory arises as an earthly, shadow-like capacity because there exists in the spiritual world, in pre-earthly existence, a powerful capacity: the capacity that we, I would say, receive according to the instructions of the beings of the higher hierarchies when we live with them in that other state—the ability to prepare our body according to the instructions of these beings of the higher hierarchies when we come to ourselves.

[ 16 ] So what acts as a formative force within our body—what continues to act as a formative force in the child as long as the child lacks the consciousness that leads to memory, as is the case in the earliest stages of childhood—we see this stronger force as it is still integrated into the forces of growth. Then, in a sense, something separates itself from these stronger forces—something that is more subtle, more refined—and that is the human capacity for recollection; that is memory.

[ 17 ] This memory, in turn, is connected to the fact that human beings, above all else, live with themselves even here on Earth. However, this memory is also very closely linked to what is, on the one hand, human egoism and, on the other, human freedom. Freedom arises in a person who truly lives out what must be experienced in pre-earthly existence as a kind of rhythm: feeling at one with the beings of the higher hierarchies, stepping out of this feeling of oneness, then returning to it, and so on. Here, these two aspects coexist, not as a single rhythm, but as two parallel human capacities: the capacity for love and the capacity for memory. Yet a certain legacy of this rhythm from pre-earthly existence may remain within the human being. Then memory and love will also maintain the proper balance in earthly life. On the one hand, a person will be able to develop understanding—loving understanding—for other people, and on the other hand, they will also incorporate into their reflective thinking what can serve as a means of their own perfection and the strengthening of their own being, drawn from their experience of the world with other people.

[ 18 ] Such a proper relationship may stem from the necessary rhythm of pre-earthly existence, but this relationship may also be disrupted, so that a person, for example, constantly focuses on what he himself has experienced. This is particularly the case when a person has little interest in what others experience, when they are unable to look beyond their own perspective into the minds of others, and when they develop a preference for what gradually accumulates in their own recollections and memory—for this, in turn, is intimately connected with their “I,” which reinforces egoism.

[ 19 ] Such a person, in a sense, becomes out of balance with himself because he lacks this relationship—which is undoubtedly correct—between death and a new birth; that is, because he lacks a rhythm. And at the same time, if a person becomes interested only in what accumulates within their own soul, if they are, so to speak, always concerned only with themselves, then what accumulates, I would say, is a lack of aptitude for the experience between death and a new birth. Through this self-centeredness, the human being, in a certain sense, closes himself off from living in community with the beings of the higher hierarchies.

[ 20 ] But the person who strikes the right balance between love and memory develops a sense of human freedom instead of merely looking inward in a self-centered way. For this sense of human freedom is, in another sense, also an echo of the process of stepping out of the coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies between death and a new birth. One might say: The sense of freedom is the healthy aftereffect of this stepping out; egoism is the unhealthy aftereffect of this stepping out. — And just as coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies between death and a new birth is the foundation of human morality on earth, so too is the emergence from this coexistence—which is necessary— at the same time the foundation on Earth for human immorality, for the drifting apart of people, for people acting in such a way that one person’s actions interfere with another’s, and so on, for all immorality is based on this after all. You see that human beings must pay attention to the extent to which anything that may appear harmful here on Earth has a specific significance for the higher worlds. It is also the case here on Earth that the air we inhale is healthy, while the air we exhale is unhealthy—indeed, it causes illness—because we exhale carbon dioxide. Thus, what serves as the basis for immorality here on Earth is something that is necessary for our experience in the spiritual world.

[ 21 ] These connections must be considered from this perspective, because morality and immorality cannot actually be explained on the basis of earthly circumstances. Anyone who attempts such explanations is bound to fail. For by being moral or immoral, a person already establishes a spiritual connection to a world that lies beyond the physical. And we may say: By directing the human mind, in the manner indicated, toward contemplating this relationship to a supersensible world, anthroposophical spiritual science actually makes it possible for the first time to establish a foundation for grasping the moral. For a view of the world that acknowledges only knowledge of nature, morality can exist only in illusory images, in illusions arising from natural processes that are said to take place within human beings as well.

[ 22 ] Suppose for a moment that it were truly the case that, at the beginning of Earth’s existence, the Kant-Laplacean cosmic nebula stood there with its mechanical forces and mechanical laws, and suppose that, from these swirling nebular masses, the realms of earthly existence gradually emerged through indifferent, neutral laws of nature, and if, ultimately, humanity had emerged from all of this, then its moral impulses would indeed be nothing more than dreams. For everything that humanity calls “moral” would perish if the Earth, once again governed by mechanical laws, were to reach its end and vanish into heat death. From such a worldview, a justification for the moral life can never follow, if one is honest enough to acknowledge the ultimate consequences of this worldview. A justification for the moral arises solely from pointing out—as anthroposophical spiritual science does—those realms of existence where the moral possesses a reality just as tangible as the natural here in the life between birth and death. Just as plants grow and bloom here, so do certain activities unfold when a human being is among the gods between death and a new birth. And these activities are the moral in reality; they are the reality of the moral. The moral has reality there, whereas on Earth only a reflection of this reality exists. But human beings belong to both worlds. Therefore, for those who truly comprehend this in the spiritual-scientific sense, the moral world has just as much reality; it is simply that it can never be perceived from within physical existence.

[ 23 ] But in doing so, you have established the one necessity that explains why it is essential for human beings to acquire knowledge of spiritual science. Without this spiritual science, a person could not be honest with his knowledge, for he would be unable to recognize the reality of the moral world because he is unwilling to explore the realm to which the reality of the moral world belongs. It is immensely significant to understand such a statement correctly.

[ 24 ] But in yet another respect, I would like to emphasize to you today just how much the knowledge that can be gained through spiritual science is a necessity for human beings. Here, too, we must once again turn our gaze to the realities of another world. Even if one ascends only to the level of imaginative cognition—that is, to the level of cognition that allows one to live in the etheric world rather than in the physical world, so that one perceives the activities in the ether instead of physical objects (for they are activities)—even if one ascends to that level, space as we know it here on Earth ceases to exist. Three-dimensional space ceases to exist for us. It makes no sense to speak of three-dimensional space, for in essence we then live in time. That is why I have also described the etheric body to you here, in other contexts, as a temporal organism. Just as we have, for example, the head and—let’s say—the leg here in the spatial organism, and just as you feel it in your head when you prick or cut your leg—that is, just as one organ is spatially connected to another within this spatial body—so, too, in the temporal body, which consists of events—events of everything that lies deeper at the foundation of our human being between birth and death—all these details are interconnected.

[ 25 ] Do you remember how I said in lectures—on pedagogy, for example—that: If one has learned to revere during a certain period of childhood, this power of reverence transforms in later life into a certain blessing-giving gentleness that one can have toward other people, whereas someone who never had the opportunity to truly revere during childhood cannot develop this blessing-giving gentleness in later life. — Just as the foot or the leg is connected to the head within the spatial organism, so too is youth connected to old age—and I might also say that old age is connected to youth. For it is only to the outer, physical perception that the world flows in one direction, from the past toward the future. To the higher perception, there is also the reverse current: from the future into the past. We enter this current, as I have described, after death, moving backward. Everything is interconnected within this organism of time as well. Just as you cannot remove certain organs from the organism of space—since they must be there for the entire organism to function properly, just as you cannot, for example, remove a large part of your face without destroying the organism—so too can you not remove anything from what flows away from the human being in time.

[ 26 ] Now imagine that, in the spatial organism, at the point where your eyes are located, there were a completely different kind of growth—so that instead of eyes, some sort of tumors would form. Then you would not be able to see. Just as the eyes are located at a specific point on the spatial organism, so too is incorporated into the temporal organism—and by that I mean not only the temporal organism between birth and death, but the temporal organism that extends beyond all deaths and all births in human beings— that which lies between birth and death is integrated, and which develops in this existence between birth and death through concepts, through ideas, through mental images of a spiritual world. And what develops there are the eyes for the supersensible existence. If you do not develop any knowledge of the supersensible world here between birth and death, this means that in the supersensible world between death and a new birth, you will be blinded, just as the absence of eyes in the spatial organism means being blinded. One passes through death even if one does not develop any knowledge of the supersensible world here on Earth, but one enters a world in which one sees nothing, but can only feel one’s way forward.

[ 27 ] This is the immense pain that, I would say, appears as the antithesis of the materialistic age to anyone who truly looks into the science of initiation today. He sees how people on Earth are sinking into materialism. But he also knows what this sinking into materialism means for spiritual existence; he knows that it is like having one’s eyes gouged out, that it means people can only grope their way through the existence that awaits them after death. In earlier times of human development, when there was an instinctive knowledge of the supersensible world, people passed through the gate of death with the ability to see. This ancient instinctive supersensible knowledge has died out. Today, spiritual knowledge must be acquired consciously—mind you: spiritual knowledge, not clairvoyance! I have always emphasized: Clairvoyance can also be acquired, but that is not what matters; rather, it is the understanding of what is brought about through clairvoyant research, through ordinary, sound common sense, for it can be understood in this way.

[ 28 ] Anyone who claims that ordinary knowledge, based on common sense, does not give one the ability to perceive the supersensible realm—that one needs clairvoyance for this—[Clairvoyance is needed to investigate things, but it is not needed to acquire the ability to see in the supersensible world after death]—anyone who makes this claim might as well claim right away that that one cannot think unless the eyes think. Just as the eyes here in physical life do not need to think, so too does knowledge of the supersensible worlds not require clairvoyance for what I have indicated today. Of course, there would be no supersensible knowledge on Earth if there were no clairvoyance, but even the clairvoyant must translate what he sees in the supersensible realm into ordinary understanding. No matter how clairvoyant a person might be here on Earth, no matter how clearly he might see into the spiritual world—if he were too lazy to transform what he sees in the spiritual world into orderly, logically comprehensible concepts, he would nevertheless be blinded in the spiritual world after death.

[ 29 ] That, I say, is the great pain for anyone who looks into the initiatory science of the present day—that they must admit to themselves: Materialism blinds people as they pass through the gate of death. — And here again we have something that shows that it matters for reality—for the entire existence of the world—whether people today are inclined toward supersensible knowledge or not. The time has now come for them to do so. It is part of humanity’s progress to ascend to supersensible knowledge today.