The Rudolf Steiner Archive

33. On Reading, Envy, and Deceit

[ 1 ] This will prove to be true as we discuss today some practical questions of life and aspects of human development. What we learn about the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I” should not remain a mere theory—like a collection of notes—but should come alive in our soul. It is best, therefore, to view what we first learn merely as a rough sketch, a charcoal drawing. Joy in life, health, and happiness—in both the moral and physical senses—depend on the harmony of these four members. —Yet there are many transgressions against this in the present day.

[ 2 ] We truly live in a time of transition; this is not just a cliché. It was not long ago that people still had some understanding of the workings of the astral body. In education, people still instinctively took into account the workings of the etheric body and the astral body. And what must now come is true knowledge to replace these instincts; to this end, theosophical knowledge must be disseminated. In the time of our fathers and grandfathers, people still knew instinctively about the workings of the astral body.

[ 3 ] Aristotle characterized the nature of drama back then. Lessing still struggled to understand this explanation of drama. Aristotle explains how the events in a tragedy unfold, how they are meant to arouse fear and pity in us, to evoke these emotions; catharsis—that is, purification—is supposed to result from these feelings in the audience. Lessing struggled to understand the word “catharsis.” An entire library has been written on the subject since then. It was thus assumed among the ancient Greeks that dramas were not performed merely for the entertainment of the audience, but that the audience was meant to experience fear; for example: What will become of us, of this one or that one?

[ 4 ] At that time, drama was intended as a means of healing for people—so that the soul would, as it were, be harmoniously attuned to fear and compassion, and so that people would also develop the proper attitude toward fear and compassion in their everyday lives. That was how it was in ancient Greece; it was not presented as plays are today.

[ 5 ] In the traveling circuses of old, the “foolish August” was the one who did nothing but foolish things. This is a final echo of what was intended in Greek tragedy. This foolishness then triggered in the soul what people needed in life: a healthy laugh. At a certain age and level of education, it works very well when, for example, someone sprinkles flour on the newspaper being read by the “foolish August,” causing him to sneeze and have all the flour fly into his face. This has an extraordinarily good effect. It affects the astral body. Everything we experience exerts an influence on the etheric body and the astral body. The clairvoyant observer can see—and this is very interesting—how this or that activity functions as a favorite pastime or as a necessary duty. If one knew this, one would do many things quite differently; for example: reading. One person, for example, reads a thrilling novel as quickly as possible; he reads in such a way that he skims over as much as possible. In doing so, the astral body is in constant motion, while the etheric body remains completely still. The astral body, as it were, lies down over the book, while the etheric body remains far behind.

[ 6 ] Another person immerses himself with great love in the individual characters, reflecting: How do I know people like this? How would fate unfold? How would I shape it? And so on. - The same applies to reading material that is not narrative but instructive, and so on. Here, the astral body fluctuates less, while the etheric body adapts to the individual movements of the astral body. This has entirely different effects. This way of reading is not temporary; rather, it becomes a habit.

[ 7 ] Most people forget others; that is already the case today: observing life is a very rare thing. People are even glad when they can forget. Theosophists should not be like that.

[ 8 ] Even within a single lifetime, one can observe how karma works; one can see how karma unfolds over the course of 15, 20, or 50 years.

[ 9 ] We see a person who is not particularly inclined to absorb deeper feelings; this is the result of karma. But such people cannot find their way in life. Reading in this manner—superficially and quickly—means that a reader of this disposition is not inclined to absorb deeper ideas. It also has physical effects. Such a person is never truly satisfied, is frequently unwell, or merely imagines that they are sick. Therefore, one does a young person a great favor by guiding them to dwell on details and to contemplate them lovingly while reading.

[ 10 ] In life, you meet people who have a certain skill, while others never quite know what to do. When they’ve written a letter, they want to tear it up; when they’ve bought a hat, they immediately stop liking it.

[ 11 ] A person who finds their way in life—both for themselves and for others—is someone who, even as a schoolchild, behaved quite differently from the other children. That’s what happened to me, for example, when I observed how children listened in history class, such as when Caesar was discussed. Then they would gather everything related to that topic, incorporating everything they themselves could contribute to it.

[ 12 ] Those who let everything come to them without seeking anything on their own will eventually ruin their careers; their resolutions today are different from those of tomorrow. All of this will become clear later on. That is far more important than the curriculum and so on. That is why Theosophy is so important.

[ 13 ] One should learn to think deeply about reading. What, after all, is reading? The Theosophist has a duty to reflect on just how profoundly important such a question is for life, and how profoundly important something like reading itself is.

[ 14 ] In the cycle of twenty-four hours, we all return once to where we came from—to the spiritual realm. Without sleep, we could not live. Waking life is a work of destruction; sleep is a immersion in the sources of life. During sleep, the astral body and the “I” are spread far, far out into the macrocosm. From this alone, a person could learn that he is not merely what his physical body is.

[ 15 ] In the Babylonian school, emphasis was placed on the idea that a person of sound constitution, walking neither too fast nor too slow, would circle the Earth in 365.5 days. If a person lived a healthy, normal life, he would walk and live at the same pace as the sun. The astral body truly reaches up to the sun while sleeping.

[ 16 ] To forget oneself, to be absorbed in the spiritual world—that is sleep. Reading or listening to a play or a piece of music is, in a small way, the same as being self-forgetful and absorbed in sleep. Likewise, when reading, one does not think much of oneself. If we were to think of ourselves while sleeping, the effect of the spiritual would be lost. Every time we have listened to a piece of music or something similar, we bring something into our astral body and thus into our etheric body, and we remain connected to it—connected to it for life, so to speak. A whole world lies within every human soul through all the impressions of life. That is why reading is so immensely important.

[ 17 ] Suppose we did nothing to overcome our indifference—or even our feelings of hatred—toward another person. Lack of love and indifference manifest in the afterlife as a certain anxiety or fear.

[ 18 ] Being content means having a secure footing in life and also hoping that everything will turn out well. Those who were taught from childhood to be loving will never feel hopeless.

[ 19 ] Even the simplest person has a sense of envy and deceitfulness. We can observe a great deal about karma in envy and deceitfulness. Goethe says that he does not know envy, no matter how closely he observes himself. And Benvenuto Cellini says that he has never been deceitful, no matter what else he may have done.

[ 20 ] Envy and deceit are what undermine compassion and empathy throughout the human race. When we envy someone, we set ourselves apart from them; we no longer empathize with them. And this is even more true of deceit. When envy and deceit are deeply rooted in the soul, it is not easy to overcome them.

[ 21 ] We were once incarnated for the first time, and then—the second time—Lucifer and Ahriman exerted their influence on us. Envy—Lucifer; Ahriman—falsehood; envy—Lucifer—astral body; falsehood—Ahriman—etheric body.

[ 22 ] Every soul that is not entirely corrupted struggles against envy and deceitfulness. Lucifer and Ahriman are good friends. They take turns ruling. When someone fights against envy, Lucifer says: “He is fighting against envy; there’s nothing I can do about that.” “You take him,” he says to Ahriman. — And then envy transforms; it appears under a mask. Then the person who believes they have overcome envy says: “So-and-so has this bad trait,” and so on. Envy then appears in the guise of a tendency to criticize. The person believes it is right to criticize, but does not realize that it is envy in disguise—that traits are being perceived and criticized that are not as they appear to this person.

[ 23 ] Whether this trait manifests as envy or a tendency to criticize, it has the same karmic consequence. These people then become unable to form relationships with others. They cannot get anything started, nor can they bring anything to completion. - And along with their tendency to lie comes a certain shyness; they cannot look people straight in the eye.

[ 24 ] In one lifetime, these effects manifest as psychological effects. But as we pass through death and move toward a new birth, those qualities become physically apparent. The soul is the architect of the physical body. A person who is spiritually weak and unstable will become a helpless child in the next incarnation, unable to help themselves, and so on.

[ 25 ] Those who have been deceitful become shy later in life; in their next incarnation, they will be people who cannot connect with others. This is due to physical reasons; they are already weak by virtue of their physical constitution, which prevents them from getting along well with other people.

[ 26 ] A person is born into a very specific environment; edelweiss does not grow on the plain, but on the mountain. The same is true of human beings. It is precisely into the environment of those people whom we have lied to, envied, criticized, and so on that we are born. It is not [merely] a matter of knowing this, but rather of living accordingly.

[ 27 ] What is the right thing to do, in a higher moral sense, when you know that someone envies you, gossips about you, and so on?—Not to seek revenge, but to help others; that is the right thing to do. You do the other person the greatest good when you forgive them—truly forgive them! Do not let yourself be provoked; do not say, “I will not forgive.” By doing so, I would become entangled in that person’s karma. No, to the extent that we can help turn that karma for the better, we should do so. That is the right thing to do: to put the other person to shame by being especially kind to them. This is evident in the fact that we have been of immense benefit to them. They will then not be helpless in their later life. We can achieve this only through forgiveness. If a weak person is born into our midst, then we try to surround them with the positive feeling of forgiveness.

[ 28 ] Don’t just say theoretically, “Yes, I forgive you.” — Instead, direct your feelings daily toward the frail child, for example, and then we will see that the child flourishes, that the sallow skin becomes healthy, and so on. We help change and promote the child’s physical condition. - Only when we live out Theosophy in this way does it truly become what it is meant to be. If, for example, someone on a train makes a certain remark, we should consider whether this gives rise to a duty for us. Directing our spiritual powers toward the spiritual source—that is the task.

[ 29 ] Four to five thousand years ago, it was still possible to tell people: “You come from the spiritual realm!”—This knowledge, this sense of it, was increasingly lost. It was least present in the time of Christ. But since then, it can be directed toward the future—toward what makes human beings similar to what happened in the event at Golgotha. In the past, people turned back to the spiritual; after Christ, the message is: In every life, you must take in more and more of the Christ-being. When the Earth turns away from the spiritual, you will go along with the spiritual. Through the Christ impulse, we take in something that enables us to influence those who treat us with envy—to influence them in such a way that the Christ impulse can take root in them. Thus, the words “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” have become truth. This is made possible through Christ Jesus.

[ 30 ] Buddha, in 600 B.C., still pointed to the ancient spiritual origin when he said: “Beams are falling, pillars are cracking, the temple of the body is collapsing; I no longer need to return to this earthly life.” - Christ, on the other hand, says: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up again in three days.”

[ 31 ] We must become more and more like Christ, and to do so, we must return to Earth again and again. That is how the Christ impulse continues to inspire us far into the future.