| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourth Recapitulation Lesson
13 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
|---|
| As we push along to become knowers, we must know that our thinking is rooted in the battle between light and darkness. Then we find, if we understand what it means to strive toward the light, we find that evermore we must hold ourselves upright. |
| We have the progression [now underlined on the blackboard]: pillars, sculptors, nurturers, helpers. We have yet another progression. |
| Everything coincides with the inner meaning with which we should unite ourselves as we meditate such a mantric verse. We have a progression [the words were underlined on the board]: touch within, live within, feel within, think within. This is an exceptional progression. |
| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fourth Recapitulation Lesson
13 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
|---|
My dear brothers and sisters! It is not possible each time we meet here to give the corresponding introduction concerning the task and significance of the it school and concerning the nature of membership in the school. Despite the fact that again today there are here present a considerable number of new members, I will nevertheless not give the introduction but will continue from the point where we left off last time. Concerning the members who in the accustomed manner are to give the newly accepted members the mantric verses which have been heard so far, I must require, under the conditions I will mention at the close of this session, that they speak about the conditions which arise from acceptance into this school as they hand on the mantras. We begin once again by letting the words to meander before our souls, that from all beings of the world, out of all processes of the world, the words that speak to each human being who has an impartial sense of it, the words within which lie a demand to seek to live as a human being (to those who are worthy of being called human), a demand to seek through true self-awareness, self-awareness that leads to world-awareness. And we most certainly are called out to from all sides, by all the beings of all the realms of nature and all the realms of spirit, we are summoned to what in the true sense of the word is the obligation to self-awareness, which is the way to world-awareness. Just as all beings of nature and of spirit have demanded of the human being in the past, just so will the human being be demanded of in the future. These demanding words, which press upon the human soul from all sides of the world, from east and west, from south and north, from above and below, if a person will hear them, these words may also today serve to begin what this Michael School should signify for your hearts, for your souls:
We have seen how a person who seeks inner awareness approaches the Guardian of the Threshold, how after the seeker for inner awareness has stood there, shattered under the impressions of the three beasts which represent the true form of his present willing, feeling and thinking as they appear before the countenance of the spiritual world, and how the seeker after inner awareness is raised up, little by little, by the Guardian of the Threshold. We have already taken up what the Guardian of the Threshold says to the one whom he wishes to raise up, how the Guardian, on the one hand, directs one’s attention upward, indicating how light battles with dark powers in that realm out of which thinking’s force streams into our human being. The Guardian of the Threshold thinks that we need this picture. We need it, so that when we are intent on feeling the ultimate source of our thinking, when we seek awareness in the correct manner of the force driving our thinking in our human nature, that we can place ourselves in that realm from which our thinking comes, where, however, a fierce battle rages between the mighty powers of light, light that intends to bring thinking along the right track, and between mighty powers of darkness, that would draw thinking away from the right track, that would lead it along paths of error. Our thinking has its roots in this realm above us. As we push along to become knowers, we must know that our thinking is rooted in the battle between light and darkness. Then we find, if we understand what it means to strive toward the light, we find that evermore we must hold ourselves upright. We must know that we are placed into the battle between light and darkness: the light intends to take us, so to speak, into a spiritual light-filled powerless insensibility, whereas darkness intends to take us and arrange for us to lose our way in matter. We must seek the balance between both conditions. We must not allow ourselves to be taken by light, and we must not allow ourselves to be led astray by darkness into materiality. Instead, we must remain firmly and uniquely self-possessed as we find the balance in our thinking between light and darkness. On the other hand, as we contemplate our feeling, there we must see, in the realm which acts and lives more in the flat horizon of wide world-reaches, we must see how we are placed into the battle between soul-warmth and soul-coldness. In soul-warmth all the Luciferic powers work effectively, including the powers of beauty, the powers of brightness, the powers which want to bestow on all of us divine capacities without effort on our part. We should become dependent and lack freedom were they to catch us up within themselves. On the other side stand the powers of cold, of soul-coldness, which are permeated by Ahrimanic beings, which would like to bring us into coldness and also into loss of self-possession. Once again, we must find the balance between spirit-bliss, into which the powers of warmth, of heat, of fire, would like to take us, and those regions of seductive, persuasive Ahrimanic powers, who would like to lead us with an all-too-tempting intellectual seduction. In turn we must balance ourselves between both powers, in order to find the right feeling for inner awareness. Then, when we look out upon the source of our willing, we must look down. There is the realm of the earth and of massive gravity, out of which initially for our earthly life the force of our willing comes. For the earth not only has within it the force of its mass, it also has within it the force of willing of humanity. Once more we stand confronted by two powers, the powers of life and the powers of death. We can fall prey with our willing to the powers of life. Then it as if the powers of life would like to seize us. They want to will through our will forces in connection with the cosmos. We must maintain our self-possession, upright and alert, finding the balance between these powers of life on the one hand, and on the other hand the powers of death, which would like to confine us eternally by weaving our willing into material formations. The Guardian of the Threshold demands of us at this point that we maintain ourselves in a condition of balance between light and darkness, in a condition of balance between warmth and cold, in a condition of balance between life and death. Allying ourselves with the power of light alone, we would be stupefied, would be blinded. Giving ourselves to darkness alone is also something which we should not do, for then we would lose ourselves in the stuff of darkness. What we must aim for in a spiritual sense is aspired to all over the world . Wherever you look, my brothers and sisters, light and darkness work effectively inter-nested into one another. Look at your hair. Light inserts it for you into your head, but darkness must permeate it, for otherwise hair would be merely rays of light. Look at your entire body. It is woven out of light, but it would not be able to have earthly density if darkness were not woven into it. Look at every object, my brothers and sisters! The blossoming plants, they are created out of light, yet the powers of darkness must press their way upwards out of the ground in order that from light and darkness what the plants represent in their firm consistency as earthly creatures can emerge. Just as balancing between light and darkness is to be found in all of nature, so too the human being must strive toward balance spiritually, through soul activity, if the person really wants to become a seeker after inner awareness. The same thing is also true of striving for balance between warmth and cold, and also with striving toward balance between life and death. So we stand at the yawning abyss of existence, always beholding, always beholding. As we look back on the color-glittering realms of nature, to which we belong with our senses, it becomes ever darker and darker, as it becomes clear to us that in all the radiant realms of sense perception, there does not arise whatever is our own being, whatever leads us to self-knowledge. Before us, like a black wall, is the boundary of that dark domain into which we must enter, in order that it may light up, through the power which we ourselves bring into it. We still stand at the yawning abyss of existence, and yet we have already gained a certain courage, a confidence that through the admonitions of the Guardian, that wings will indeed grow which will enable us to cross the abyss, in order to enter that realm of darkness in confidence, and that the darkness will indeed become light. That is actually one of the final admonitions which the Guardian of the Threshold gives us, which sounds forth:
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard:]
A person will find, my dear brothers and sisters, if one gives oneself over to these mantric words with the right attitude of heart and mind, if one gives oneself to these words in inner quiet of soul, in full inner devotional empathy, in surrender to all that is spiritual, yeah, the person will find that within these words themselves there lies that which brings the soul into equilibrium. We stand at this point as seekers after inner awareness before the Guardian of the Threshold at the yawning abyss of existence. As we attempt to pursue the course between light and darkness, the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us also on how we can find ourselves rightfully within our own innate self between warmth and coldness, and between life and death. We can do this in no other way, my dear brothers and sisters, than by rightly considering the following: in order to genuinely know oneself inwardly, it is necessary to become one with the world, to gain a feeling in relation to the world such as a finger might have, if it could feel on its own, in relation with the whole human body. If the finger were able to feel, of itself, it would say: I am only a finger as long as I am part of the human body, as long as the body's blood is my blood, and the body's pulsation is my pulsation. If one cuts me off, I cease to be a finger. The finger loses its meaning in the separation from the organism to which it belongs and as part of which alone it can be a finger. Just so must the human being learn to feel in relation to the entire world. We are members of the spirit-soul organism of the whole world, and as human beings we only appear to be separate from the spirit-soul organism of the world. We must correctly find our way as part of the spirit-soul-organism of the world, and must know, to begin with, that there, spread out around us, are the elements earth, water, air, fire. We must learn to feel ourselves as one with the elements, as far as our bodily nature is concerned, for it is made up of these elements. The Guardian of the Threshold teaches us how we ought to do this, and how we can achieve it. Consider now exactly what flows into those instructive mantric verses which the Guardian of the Threshold gives us at the point we have now reached in our approach to the abyss of being. My dear brothers and sisters, just think of yourself pressing your finger, in a tentative, groping way, against some object or other. You know that the object is there when you press against it. You feel out the object. You have the sense of being one with this object, it is the sense of touch which unites your finger with the object you are presented with. Now imagine that your whole being is like a finger, like a touching, sensing organ. You stand on the earth, on the element earth. You stand because the earth’s chief attribute is the element of mass. You touch the earth with the soles of your feet, regardless of whether you are standing on the wooden floor a room, or whether you are standing outdoors on the surface of the earth. What is crucial is that in standing you feel the sense of touching, sensing the massive gravity element of earth. Even if you are standing high on a mountain or on a tower, you feel, just as you sense what is hard and what is soft, what is warm and what is cold through the tip of your finger in the process of touching, you sense the unity of your being when you imagine your whole self as a finger and through the soles of your feet experience the massive gravity.1 This is expressed by the Guardian of the Threshold, as he admonishes us, in the following way:
That the forces of earth are our pillars, that the earth element supports us, so that we do not sink down, this is what the Guardian of the Threshold tells us at this point. Then he guides us further, so that we feel not only how we stand below as a whole finger, but rather how we feel what is within the finger. This is, at first, the element of water, the fluid element. For everything which is in man, this can indeed in its external aspect be studied by means of physical science, everything is born out of the fluid element. The solid element is deposited out of the fluid element, as ice is out of water. We must ascend to feeling within ourselves the second element. Everywhere outside us is the liquid element in the world. Within us, our own formative forces are formed out of the fluid element. The formative forces fashion us, give us form. Our lungs and our livers are solid forms, but they take shape out of the fluid element. Just as we feel the earth as our support, similarly we experience our organs, we feel ourselves formed as human beings out of the water element. The fluid forces fashion us, they are our sculptors, and the earth is our support. Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:
Everywhere we can taste and feel our way through the world, but when we feel in ourselves this tasting:
Now the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us further. He instructs us how we can unite ourselves also with powers of air. We breathe in the air. If we breathe in the air abnormally, we can experience inner feeling-sensations of anxiety breaking into our coherent flow of existence. Just as the element of water forms and builds us, however, normally the element of air nurtures us. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs us:
Now the Guardian guides us further to the element of warmth. We feel ourselves, indeed, intimately united with warmth. The earth, as support, we still feel to be somehow outside us. In water’s fashioning us, during growth for example, we know but little, for that remains in the subconscious. The powers of air press into our feelings only when they become irregular, when they no longer function in a normal way. But in warmth, when we have it correctly with our human being, we simply feel at one with it. When we feel warmth externally, we become ensouled in warmth in our whole human being. And when we experience coldness externally, we become rigid within ourselves. Warmth and coldness are one with us in a very different way in the elemental world. They are neither supports, nor sculptors, nor nurturers; they are our true helpers in physical existence. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs:
If we follow all that lies in this challenge, we shall find the way consciously to unite our bodily being with the elements. For of course, our bodily being really is one with the elements. Our bodily being is one with the elements in varying degrees, however, initially with the element of earth in an external, mechanical manner. The earth element is a pillar for us, externally, mechanically. The process then grows more inward in regard to water, but still is something which exists in forms and configurations, which does not yet enter the soul realm. Water-beings build us; they are our sculptors.4 The process penetrates fully into the moral sphere, however, when we unite with the element of air. The air element is no longer merely an external sculptor, it is our nurturer, and our feelings become anxiety feelings when abnormal breathing fails to nurture us. The powers of air are nurturers. Helpers, that we actually can be earth beings, helpers are warmth and cold, that are fire-powers. Already this is completely elevated into the moral. The meaning of the admonitions is summarized from the place of the Guardian of the Threshold as the progression, the enhancement of the elements:
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard:]
We have the progression [now underlined on the blackboard]: pillars, sculptors, nurturers, helpers. We have yet another progression. For in a mantric verse each word stands in its rightful place, and no word is there merely to fill out a line. Everything coincides with the inner meaning with which we should unite ourselves as we meditate such a mantric verse. We have a progression [the words were underlined on the board]: touch within, live within, feel within, think within. This is an exceptional progression. So must we also experience, we must in meditating it experience the inner meaningful structure of such a mantric verse. When the Guardian has spoken this, he sums it up once again in a single line: [It was written on the board:]
In this way the Guardian of the Threshold has led us to the inner adventure of the verse, by means of which we can unite everything that belongs to our body with the elements, to which it belongs. He then guides us further upwards into the soul realm. Here he does not direct us to the elements earth, water, air, fire; here he directs us to the planets, to the wandering stars. Here he directs us toward the way in which we should feel that in the circles of the planets, in what through the planets will be drawn as circles around the earth, one or another planet draws each circle. The circles have their relationships and speak with one another, when the human being raises himself soulfully to this secret of the world-guiding planetary powers. Then he himself lives with his soul-nature in the spiritual realm of the cosmos, as he formerly lived with his bodily nature in the realm of the elements. To feel at one with the cosmos soulfully is only possible when we live ourselves into the realm of the wandering stars, of the planets, with their entrainment. This is what the Guardian of the Threshold tells us with these words:
[These two lines were written on the board:]
Once again, the Guardian of the Threshold sums up what lies in these two lines as the direction-giving strength, as the feeling of unity of the mysteries of the soul with the wandering stars, brought together in the line: [It was written on the board:]
That means, make yourself exist,
The world-orbits of the various planets are drawn together into a single world-circling. By this we have felt the unity of body and soul with the world, with the world, the body with the earthly elements, the soul with the wandering stars. If we want the spirit to feel at one with the World-All,5 we can neither look to the elements, nor can we look to the mysteries of the planets. In this case we must lift our gaze up to the fixed stars, to the resting stars. For there is the power with which we must feel our spirit at one out there in the vast World-All, if we in the true sense of the word would feel ourselves to be a member of this World-All. It is at this point that the world begins to sound in the music of world-spheres.6 Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us:
[These two lines were written on the board:]
Once again, the Guardian of the Threshold summarizes what lives in this challenge, in the single sentence:
Our existence as spirit is in every moment a creating of ourselves. [The line was then written on the board:]
We stand encased in this, if we correctly find and feel ourselves taken in before the Guardian of the Threshold. We recall how the word of self-knowledge sounded out to us from of all beings, albeit still in an abstract form, how it rang out to us from all sides of the natural and spiritual realms of existence. But this one saying O Man, know yourself is now laid out in its individual limbs. It now dissociates the single challenge into one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine limbs. The O Man, know yourself we should now see in a certain sense in nine rays. Then it will be filled with what we need for our meditation. So we should feel. And so in a certain sense we should be vow7 to the Guardian of the Threshold, that we will fulfill his admonition:
We take a kind of vow before the Guardian of the Threshold, that we will forevermore allow his admonitions to run as mantras in the soul. And let us look back, ever and again, for with every step forward we feel ourselves pledged8 to remember what takes place on this side of the threshold. For on this side of the threshold every stone, every plant, every tree, every cloud, every spring, every cliff, every stoke of lightning, every thunderclap calls out to us:
When with the full spiritual crafting force of the Guardian of the Threshold the words resound in this room, the words that he, as the serving arm of the Michael-Might, the reigning power of our time, the words that he calls out to us, when these words resound here, then since the might of Michael himself is in place in this esoteric school, then we can be certain that Michael dwells with his force, with his spirit, with his love, that Michael dwells in spirit and soul among us. This may be confirmed, one may responsibly feel that the might of Michael guides this school, so that nothing else streams through this school other than what lies in the holiness of the will of Michael himself. This may be confirmed through Michael's Sign and Michael's Seal, this Michael-Sign [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.] and the Michael-Seal, which confirms that the might of Michael is drawn into the true Rosicrucian-Teaching and so combined with what will be taught in the Michael-School. With Michael’s Seal, the Rosicrucian-Endowment sealed in the Rosicrucian-Maxim will be presented by being spoken.
[The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]
[The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]
[The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.] What this means is this:
[This was overwritten onto the lower seal gesture.]
[This was overwritten onto the middle seal gesture.]
[This was overwritten onto the upper seal gesture.] I honor the Father lives as a feeling, goes through our soul as a feeling as we speak the dictum “Ex Deo Nascimur”. I love the Son silently is felt drawing through the soul with the dictum “In Christo Morimur”. I unite with the Spirit is felt silently with the dictum “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus”. The dictums of the Guardian of the Threshold come to you, my brothers and sisters, with Michael’s Sign and Seal. [The Michael sign was made, and with the three seal gestures were spoken:]
The verses which are communicated in this School may only be rightly possessed by those who have been rightfully accepted as members in the school. Those who are unable to be present at a lesson, when verses are transmitted, may receive these verses from those who have themselves received them within the school. But, in order to receive the verses in this way, first the express permission must be obtained either from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself. This request for permission from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself can only be made by the one who intends to transmit the verses to someone else. It is, therefore, to be understood from the beginning that it is not the one who wishes to receive them; it would serve no purpose if the responsible person were he who requested them. He or she can go to someone else, and can ask this person to give them to him or her, but the one to give them must ask permission in each case. This is not an administrative regulation, but, rather, an occult procedure, which must be adhered to, because the handing on of the verses must begin with this real act. The request cannot be made in writing. Because this has happened it is necessary for me to mention it here. Unless there are particular reasons for it which would make a verbal understanding impossible, permission may not be requested in writing but must be requested orally. In esoteric matters (less than anywhere else in life) there may creep in even the appearance, the remotest hint, of bureaucratic methods. Everything must be founded in life, just as in all matters which concern the Anthroposophical Society. Then there remains to be said that anyone who writes down anything more than the mantric verses is obligated to keep what has been written down no more than eight days and then to burn it. For it is no good if these things somehow remain around. They can take all kinds of ways. Something that is esoteric must be handled in this way: this is not an arbitrary procedure. In esoteric matters everything arises out of true occult foundations. If esoteric, mantric verses find their way beyond the circle of those members who are entitled to have them, who are genuinely entitled to them by virtue of having received them directly here, or having received them in the rightful manner indicated above, if they come into the possession of others, who have not received them in this correct and rightful manner, the verses lose, for all who have them, their spiritual power. This is an occult law. It is simply a fact that there are laws in the spiritual world, laws which cannot be transgressed against with impunity, without consequences. It is, therefore, not a question of an arbitrary regulation, rather of adhering to an occult law. Now, I have to announce that tomorrow, once again at 9:30, the course on pastoral medicine will be held; at 12 noon, the course on speech formation and dramatic art; in the afternoon at 3:30, the course for theologians, and in the evening, at 8:15, a members' lecture will be given. The eurythmy performance will be given at 5 o'clock. The next esoteric Lesson, which will then round out the Michael Teachings which have been received, will take place on Monday at 8:30. [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW] [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fifth Recapitulation Lesson
15 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
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| You may not believe, when you enter the spiritual world with your thinking, when you return again and you undertake your work with your thinking in earthly surroundings, that you should fly around like a fantasy-filled dreamer within the earthly environment. |
| And precisely through taking stock of ourselves as earthly human beings stuck in self-delusion can we understand, being attentive in thinking, which absolutely is just what is needed to carry us over the abyss of existence, can we understand reflecting on the needs of earth with all its heavy burdens, and we will gradually find supports, in order to experience, to live into existence in thinking. |
| We must prepare the soul [The words set in quotation marks were underlined.]. For over there ,we find “light's radiant might”. It lives in our “thoughts.” But this does not suffice. |
| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Fifth Recapitulation Lesson
15 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
|---|
My dear brothers and sisters! Again, today, new members have come into the school. It is not possible each time to give the introduction, which concerns itself with the duties and the significance of this Michael School. Therefore, I must ask those members who undertake, in the manner about which I shall speak in conclusion, to give the mantric verses to the members who have newly entered, I must ask them to give to these new members the introduction which, of necessity, must be known to each one who wants to be a member of this school. So let us once again today begin without further introduction by inscribing the words in our soul which sound forth to human beings open-minded enough to receive them, words which sound forth from everything that surrounds us in the realms of nature and in the hierarchies of the world. In the past these words sounded forth to human beings from all the stones, plants, clouds, and stars, from the sun and the moon, from springs and from solid rock. They sound confronting him in the present, they will resound confronting him in the future.
Now, my dear brothers and sisters, in describing the path of knowing we have arrived standing at the abyss of existence before the Guardian. The Guardian of the Threshold has made clear to us how all that surrounds us in the outer world can never reveal to us our own being. All gazing at the realms of nature, at all that appears downward emerging from the earth living and moving, at all that shines and speaks overhead from the realm of the stars, insofar as we can observe with the senses and with understanding, that gazing at all this can give us nothing which can give us clarity about the nature of our intrinsic self. In contrast to this brilliance in the sunshine, to this moving and living in the external world, which is so great and mighty, so beautiful and magnificent, our intrinsic self remains dark and distant for our true self-awareness. Then is described to us how we approach closer and closer to the Guardian, who forms up for us as if out of cloudy conscious existence, emerging as a spirit-formation, showing our own counterpart, while also showing us what we as human beings must strive for, in order to come to true self-awareness. We then stepped forth before the Guardian of the Threshold. He has shown us how the true form of our willing, feeling, and thinking reveals itself before the countenance of the gods. He has shown us how what lives within us as lack of courage and fear of knowing, as hate of knowing, as doubt in knowing, how these are indeed within us, because the configuration of the times in which we live has planted them in us. He has shown us the animal forms of our willing, feeling, and thinking. The Guardian of the Threshold worked upon us with shattering force, in order that this crushing, shattering experience might wake, out of the weaving and working of our own soul, might wake the very forces which lead to true self-awareness. Then the Guardian of the Threshold raised us, showing us initially how our thinking that we have in ordinary life is the corpse of that living thinking which we bore within us before we descended out of spiritual-soul worlds into physical sense-existence. He shows us, the Guardian of the Threshold, how in our bodily being we are coffins for that living thinking that dies as we enter earth life, this thinking which lies as a corpse within the coffin. We use this corpse in ordinary abstract thinking that we carry within us between birth and death, to grasp the things of the physical sense world. Precisely when we capture in mind how dead this thinking is, then we will proceed to capture in the dead thinking what we can learn about the corpse that lies before us. We look upon this corpse. We say to ourselves, as it lies there before us, as a corpse, it could never have come into existence. It is left over as the remains of a human being who was living in him spiritually, soulfully. The living human being, the ensouled human being, the thoroughly-spirited human being had to precede what lies here as a corpse. We only recognize the reality of the corpse when we are conscious of what went before it. And we approach the reality of our thinking when we become aware of it in its deadness and know that it is the corpse of that living thinking which was within us before we descended into physical-sensory conscious earth existence. Then the Guardian reminds us how our feeling is only half living, but our willing is fully living, but that all this living comes to our consciousness externally. In this way the Guardian of the Threshold reminds us that in order gradually to realize the living nature of thinking, we should look upward into the heights of heaven, that in order to realize the nature of feeling, we must look out into the widths of the world, and that we must look to the world depths, to the depths of earth, in order to approach the nature of willing. But at the same time the Guardian shows us how we are placed with our thinking. As we look up into world-thinking, within which our earthly human thinking is rooted, between light and darkness, he shows how light can become dangerous for us if we give ourselves up to it one-sidedly, how darkness can become dangerous for us if we give ourselves up to it one-sidedly, how we must seek direction and purpose for our thinking between light and darkness. If it would find the truth, then in our feeling we stand midway between warmth and cold, and that if we give ourselves up to warmth, in the lustful glow of feeling, we ourselves can disappear, and on the other hand in the cold we can be hardened. The Guardian of the Threshold points out to us how we should walk the path of Christ between soul warmth and soul coldness. The Guardian of the Threshold then instructs us that that when we seek willing in earth-depths we find ourselves between life and death, how life would let us vanish in powerlessness, how death would confine us in nothingness, how also for willing we must find the way in between. That, my dear brothers and sisters, since the most ancient mysteries, that is what has been described as the middle way along which the soul of man must walk, if the person would go further into the spiritual along its preordained paths. We stand before the Guardian of the Threshold, the earnest first representative of Michael (for the actual leader of this our school is Michael) as he gives us further guidance as to how we can emerge from the appearance of thinking, from dead thinking into living thinking fraught with being. But we must become comfortable, we must first of all strictly abide by the laws which are inscribed for each esoteric student in golden letters, the gold which each student must grasp, which the Guardian of the Threshold now recapitulates for us. He makes us aware how the yawning abyss of being is before us, how we must fly over it, as we cannot step across it with earthly feet, how we then will come into the spiritual world, which before us over there on the other side of the abyss of existence is deep night-bedecked darkness. But we must proceed across the yawning abyss of being into the deep, night-bedecked, cold darkness. Out of it must warmth, must light come into being for us, light which illuminates our own self, which warms our own self. We cannot find the stable support-point in the spirit, if we do not on each side, when we come into existence over there, if we do not remember the pledge that our soul takes on, when it is now in this situation, after having taken up the earlier admonition before the stern Guardian of the Threshold stand, who says to it: Never forget that as long as you are a person of earth and cross over into the spiritual worlds, when you again return to this side you must submit to the laws of earth. You may not believe, when you enter the spiritual world with your thinking, when you return again and you undertake your work with your thinking in earthly surroundings, that you should fly around like a fantasy-filled dreamer within the earthly environment. You must keep the flying for your thinking when you are in the spiritual world. You must practice deep, inner, intimate modesty, always to want to be once again a human being among human beings, when you cross back over into the ordinary world of everyday consciousness. It is precisely out of such a modest wanting to remain in the world, not applying the laws of spiritual life to the customary world, that you will gain the strength to latch on to thinking in such a manner that it can serve you in ghostly, in spiritual worlds. In this regard the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us further about thinking.
We must undergo this, as we allow the mantric dictum to work on us, we must experience it. We must, if we want to enter into earth being’s helm, which means the spirit of the earth, we must, my dear brothers and sisters, come initially to looking at our thinking as still animalistic. Fear of our intrinsic self that is still animal we must live into. Then the fear will give birth to its opposite courage, which we need. That is now the strong but serious admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold, pressing, cutting deeply into our hearts. He admonishes us to feel this when we enter the element of the earth. In this way we begin to hear from the Guardian of the Threshold about the stepping into the elements. He admonishes us further, that if we give ourselves over as feeling beings to the fluid element, to the world of water beings, while present there we should be aware, not of fear of our self, but should be aware that we sleep dreaming, that we are sleeping dreaming sleeping in this water element, in this fluid element, which sculpts us, as we have seen. And as soon as we become aware, that in this our human earth-feeling our existence-awareness is plant-like, then this feeling will bring us to awakening. Then it will show us how lame our self is. Then we will awaken, if we seriously have the modesty to look into the lameness of our selves. The third is to feel ourselves in the air with our willing, first with thinking in the earth element, then with feeling in the water element, then with willing in the air element. In the air element we initially feel that we have only what our ordinary memory gives us, memory picture-formations. As picture-formations they rest in our thoughts, they are passive in our thoughts. Willingly, inwardly we must grasp them, and then grasp the air nature within the pictures. And a particular characteristic of soul will appear to us, when we feel ourselves in this way in the nature of air, as though the soul were frozen solid. Similar to thinking ourselves along the path of the earth, as we breath will and think ourselves along the path of the air into the essence of air, then we will appear to ourselves as if frozen solid. But precisely out of sensing this frigid death, there we go through, to us will come the spirit-fire we need in order in inner reality to grasp our willing. They are profound dictums that the Guardian of the Threshold places there before the soul. Only if we regard them rightly and face the fear of ourselves, how we become insignificant when we feel ourselves thinking only in regard to the earth, only then will courage of soul for living thinking awaken in us. If we feel how lame we are, when we feel ourselves half-alive, lamed upon the earth, then the strength will grow in us that will let us awaken, so that we are as though awakened into spirited life with the feeling in which we were before we descended into physical earth existence. Then, when we descend into our memory, willing with our memory into air-weaving,1 in that moment we feel ourselves sclerotic and shivering with cold. But precisely when we feel this cold shiver in us, out of the cold the opposite once again will awaken, spirit-fire, which will show us how upon the earth willing is sleeping in us, even though rooted in living willing, in which we were before we descended into earthly consciousness. Remembering we must know ourselves in our existence before we descended into physical earth existence. In regard to this the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us. In regard to feeling is his word:
In regard to willing the Guardian speaks.
[The mantra was now written on the blackboard, including corresponding underlined words.]
We step from thinking into feeling, down into memory, when we allow this verse to work on us. And as we come down into the depths of memory, where otherwise the soul's life vanishes, as the memory pictures again come forth, there is the boundary, as a mirror is a boundary. What from outside comes into us, comes over something like a memory wall, then it returns back again. Just as one does not see behind the mirror, so one does not see behind the memory wall. But here the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us that we are to break through what is otherwise a boundary in order to enter into the spiritual realm. After the Guardian of the Threshold has led us further into our inner life with his admonishing dictums, and has allowed us time to process in the soul the content of these dictums, as we use these dictums in meditation, remaining at this stage for a long, long time, so that their inner force takes effect in us and really carries our “I” down through thinking, feeling, and remembering into what lies behind all remembering, then the Guardian directs us as to how we should behave, how we should conduct ourselves in regard to the external world. He points us once again up to light, which lives in us merely in the apparent life of thoughts. It is the light which thinks in us. Light it is, that thinks in us. When light floods into us, it thinks in us. But in life on earth, light is mere appearance which thinks itself. If we go no further than this, untruthful spirit-being will bring us into self-delusion instead of into the truth of self-awareness. But it is just this we need to penetrate, that otherwise submerging in thinking in thinking we come only into self-delusion. We must infuse ourselves with the realization that when we merely sink down into thinking, we only come upon self-delusion. And precisely through taking stock of ourselves as earthly human beings stuck in self-delusion can we understand, being attentive in thinking, which absolutely is just what is needed to carry us over the abyss of existence, can we understand reflecting on the needs of earth with all its heavy burdens, and we will gradually find supports, in order to experience, to live into existence in thinking.
Let us proceed. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs us how initially in feeling we merely hold onto the wonderful universal fabric of the world chemism.2 But if we merely hold onto this world forming in feeling, our spirit experience remains powerless. Self-possession is stifled, smothered if we merely stare fixedly in feeling at what has been crafted, has formed in the world. But if we begin to love, to love all that is already of value of the earth around us, then in feeling we find existence, and we save, save our humanity.
Usually, we try to catch a glimpse of the value of the earth in thought, but we only hold fast to the appearance of light, if we don’t contemplate what the earth’s heavy needs are. We hold fast to what forms itself in the world only in vague feelings if we do not experience, if we do not live into this earth fabric in love in its forming and configuring. And of world life, what can we hold fast through our willing? Our will remains in world life. But if initially we only hold on to it in willing, we once again do not penetrate into existence. If world living fully captures us, so will ruinous spirit rapture slay our self-experiencing. Yielding oneself up to the world's willing engenders spirit rapture, which kills us. Yet when we develop the will, spirit-devoted to higher worlds, if we align our will to just that, to thinking in the physical-sensory world that gods wield authority3 in us, who inspire, stimulate our willing, if we would be in service to the gods, then God allows his existence to wield authority in us as human beings, and we catch the scent, we sense4 in god-infused willing a true existence.
These are the three admonitions which in this most earnest moment the Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us. [The mantra was now written on the board.]
It is as if the Guardian would make us take note of what we are actually doing. We are, he says, not yet beyond the mere forming of thoughts from light's appearance. [The writing continued:]
Once again, the admonition that only in vague blurry feelings do we have what is wonderfully forming the entire world. Into the micro-cosmos comes world-formation initially in the vagueness of feelings.
not, therefore, when we in our feelings feel the world's form, but rather when world-form penetrates into us, the macrocosm penetrates into the microcosm –
Through this we become aware of our own powerlessness. [The writing continued.]
We need this rescue, for we are just about to cross over. If we carry over only the thoughts contained in light’s appearance, if we carry over only the feelings contained in vague world forming, then the true light over there destroys the delusion of selfhood, destroys the powerless feeling, the sleeping, the spirit experience. We need to reflect on the needs of earth, on all that suffers on the earth, in order that we may pass over worthily into the spiritual world and not be destroyed by world thinking. We need love for all that is of worth on earth, in order that we are not ground to dust, if we cross over with our feelings vague and undistinguished. And on to the third, we need the following for our willing. [The mantra was written on the blackboard.]
And it will do so over there.
We may not carry over there what we simply have here on this side. In the spiritual world we must carry over a stronger soul than we have over here. We must prepare the soul [The words set in quotation marks were underlined.]. For over there ,we find “light's radiant might”. It lives in our “thoughts.” But this does not suffice. We need to be “reflecting on the needs of earth.” Compassion toward all the woes of earth will hold us in “humanity”. We need over there, as we come over into “world forming”, not merely our “feelings”, we need to be “loving the value of the earth”, for all that is already worthy on earth, then will our “human soul” be saved. Here [in the first verse] human existence is upheld. Here [in the second verse] the human soul is saved. We must enter into full “world life” that in our “willing” has only a weak reflection, which is too thin to be able to cross over. And we must develop “spirit-devoted earth-willing” so that the “God in man” can rule. This is the progression.
We need
Then we need
That, my dear brothers and sisters, is just what the Guardian lays on our soul, in order to develop what specifically is referred to as wings of the soul, in order to cross over. We now have only one more obligation in the next esoteric lesson to be held on Wednesday, that we receive those mantras for our soul through the Guardian of the Threshold, who in this instance is Michael's representative at the threshold to the spirit land, those mantras which are the first which one speaks when one has arrived over there into the spiritual, which still remains before the human being as in these mantras, as deep, night-bedecked, cold darkness. Today, however, after this has passed before our soul, we should reflect back on what speaks to from all beings, challenging us to all that the Guardian of the Threshold has set before us with such determination.
And what comes before us in this way with the words of the Guardian of the Threshold, when we take it up in the right attitude, then it is indeed the Michael presentation of this rightfully established Michael School. Then Michael's existence wields in this room, blessing and strengthening all that here comes before our souls. In light of this, what in this way comes before our souls becomes furnished with Michael's Sign and Michael's Seal. This is Michael's Sign [The Michael Sign was drawn on the blackboard.] and Michael's Seal, which he impressed upon what has been the Rosicrucian sentiment of soul for hundreds of years, and what is expressed as the Rosicrucian sentiment in the following dictum.
This is so spoken with Michael's Seal, that we accompany the first words with this gesture [The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], and we accompany the second words with another gesture [The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard], and the third words we accompany with yet another gesture. [The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard]. The first gesture signifies [upon the lower seal gesture was written]
the second gesture [upon the middle seal gesture was written]
the third gesture [upon the upper seal gesture was written]
In this way we may consider what has been spoken as having been spoken while being confirmed through Michael's sign, while being confirmed and attested through Michael's Seal, that just with this, and this, and this [The three seal gestures overwritten with the phrases above were indicated.], which is impressed on the Rosicrucian-Words.8 The dictums should be living in this way, through the sign of Michael, and should be sealed for all your souls, that which lives through the Michaelic-Rosicrucian-School. [The Michael sign was made, and accompanying the three seal gestures with overwritten word, the following words were spoken.]
My dear brothers and sisters, the mantric dictums which are given in this school may only be possessed by one who is a rightful member of this school, that is, whomever is in possession of a blue membership card. One who is not present at a lesson at which he or she might have been present according to the date of reception into the school, please take note, the verses of those lessons at which the person might have been present according to the date of that person’s admittance, such a one may receive these verses from another member who has received them in the proper way within the school. But, in this regard, it is necessary to obtain permission either from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself. It is not an administrative regulation, but is fundamental in an occult school, that a real act should precede the handing on of something of this nature. The one, however, who wishes to ask permission from Frau Dr. Wegman or myself, can only be the one who wishes to give the dictums to another, not the one who wishes to receive them. One can, however, ask someone for the dictums. But one cannot then, as the one who wishes to receive them, ask further. One must then let that person who intends to hand them on ask further. It is of no use if the recipient asks. Whomever writes down anything other than the mantras may keep it eight days, but after this one is in duty bound to burn it, because what should live in this school should live only within the school and should not leave it. All of these procedures have nothing to do with power or control, they are not arbitrary regulations. This is all grounded in occult laws. For if something of this kind gets into unauthorized hands, it ceases to have effectiveness for all those who have received it for effective use. If, therefore, misuse occurs, inasmuch as mantric dictums, or the content of what is given here, are transmitted to unauthorized persons, these mantric dictums and what is given here lose their effectiveness for those who are sitting here. This has to do with facts, not with something which is an arbitrary regulation. I have still to announce the program for tomorrow. Once again at 9:30 the course on pastoral medicine, at 12 noon the course on speech formation, at 5:30 the theologians' course, and at 8 o'clock the members' lecture. [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW] [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Sixth Recapitulation Lesson
17 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
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| The intensification is: [The following six words were underlined:] experience, feel, think, gestalt, beat, force. The three lines must be strengthened by concentrating on these figures. |
| [The third verse was now written on the board and “limbs” was underlined.] The limb’s strength, You can think it; And thinking becomes for you Willing's goal-directed human striving. |
| In this way Michael's Sign and Seal may marshal the broader way, which here in this school for spiritual development will be undergone. [The Michael sign was made and the three seal gestures were made as the Rosea et Crucis was spoken.] |
| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Sixth Recapitulation Lesson
17 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
|---|
My dear friends, brothers and sisters! For those who are here today for the first time it must be said once again that it is not possible in every instance, when new members enter the school, to give the introduction which deals with the nature of obligation inherent in the school, and that I must require of those members who have been here before, and who will give the mantric verses to those who have newly entered, that they will convey what is the essential content of this introduction. And so, we begin again today in this Michael School with those words which contain the basic demand, the fundamental demand to the human being, which resound to him from all realms of nature and from all the hierarchies of the spirit, if he has a sense and a receptivity for them, and which demand that he seeks his own being, but which also demand of him to come to know the world in its spirit-sustained form and structure by penetrating through his own being. They resound out of all that lives and moves in the depths of earth, in water and air, in warmth and light, in all that lives in mountains and springs, in rocks, in all that lives in plants, in animals, in physical human form, in human souls, in human spirits, in all that lives in the dwellers in the stars, in the hierarchies of the spirit. They sound as follows.
My dear brothers and sisters! The description of the spiritual path that should lead out of our sun-drenched world, in which we live on earth, which is bright in comparison to what initially appears to us on the other side of the yawning abyss of existence as gloomy night-bedecked darkness, on this path leading us forth when we seek our intrinsic being we become aware that in all that upon the earth lives in the depths, moves in the air, that creeps and flies, but also in all that our senses perceive in the majestic shining of the stars, in the mighty depths of world spaces, in the immeasurable reaches of time moving on, that all this does not contain our existence, the actual source of our human essence. This all becomes dark when we look about us in search of our human essence. The description of this path has led us to the point where it shows us that we must find the way over to the Guardian of the Threshold, who has said so much to us about the significance of the spiritual path, over into what is still night-bedecked, black darkness, in order that it becomes bright and that within this brightness light appears to us that illuminates our own existence, and thereby illuminates existence and being and interweaving of the world, illuminating it for the eyes of our soul. Yet we must be clear that in the moment, and please note we are still in the description, in the moment in which we are to cross over the abyss of existence, over to the Guardian of the Threshold, that in this moment with the person, therefore with our self, a significant change is taking place. Let us look, my dear brothers and sisters, at our human existence as it is between birth and death in physical earth-life. We measure the world by thinking, we grasp the world by feeling, we affect the world by willing. But thinking, feeling and willing are profoundly interwoven together in our human existence. When we wish to carry out an action momentarily, first we think it, and whatever we carry out is already present as a seed in our thought. We see it shoot out into impulses of will. We feel that something has value for us. We feel love for this or that being springing up within us. Therefore, in that we are feeling, we make a thought of the being for ourselves. Or else we go about bringing love of this being to fruition. we let love inspire us, stimulate us, which then passes over into willing. But all this, thinking, feeling, willing hangs closely connected in our human nature, in so far as this human being progresses between birth and death here in the physical world. We are a unity in thinking, feeling, and willing. And it is true, that we are only really awake in our thoughts. They are bright and clear, despite the fact that the Guardian of the Threshold has revealed them as appearance only. They are bright and clear; we are awake in them. Feeling lives in us darker and less clear. We are nearer to existence in feeling, but the content we feel is like a dream, so that we can only speak from bright awake thinking and therefore only while awake can we speak of dreaming feeling. Willing, however, as it liberates itself from the nature of our humanity, initially for ordinary consciousness remains fully unclear. The human being has the thought that he wants to do this or that, the thought shoots down and lays hold on the organism, the organism bestirs itself, carries out the thought, and the person sees again with a thought what he has done. But willing itself rests in its own nature as that aspect of our soul that between falling asleep and waking is in deep sleep. But he who beholds these things as an initiate, sees thoughts in their aliveness, as they were before the human being descended from supersensible worlds into the sensory. He beholds radiant essential being in thoughts. This radiant essential being, however, does not rest in him as do the sheen of thoughts that he has in customary thinking. We stand beside the Guardian of the Threshold. The abyss of being is there before us. Beyond the abyss, beyond the threshold lies black, night-bedecked darkness, but brightening and gathering itself out of the darkness a formation stirs, a living formation. We say, in that we are catching the scent of, sensing our thoughts, as they were in us as physical human beings, which we have left behind, we say to ourselves that that is our moving, living thinking, that belongs now not to us, that belongs to the world. Light on light the thought casts itself loose from the black darkness. We know that the thought, the thought of all our thinking, is there in the black darkness as the first clarity we come upon. And then we gaze somewhat further down. We have the feeling, and the Guardian of the Threshold shows us with his admonishing gesture as we look yet further down, how the glow of firelight appears under the darkness. Fire, dark fire, yet fire that we can sense, that we feel with clair-sentience spreads out below us. Across the abyss of being there comes toward us what we know to be our willing. For the initiate gradually learns to recognize how it actually is when thinking passes over into willing. When thinking passes over into willing there the thought becomes willed, is gathered up, but then this thought streams over into the bodily organism, in clair-sentience one observes this, streaming in as beneficent fire. It is warmth that the will brings there into conscious existence. It is warmth, fire as which our intrinsic will encounters us out of the darkness. And in between this warmth that our will streams out, confronting us – for our will that goes forth from us as man is only the reflex of our intrinsic will as cosmic man that confronts us now streaming beyond the abyss of existence – in between this warm dark minimally bluish-violet out-stream below and the bright gathering thought-lights above, in between the two undulates and weaves warmth rising up and light descending. Light-drenched warmth rising up, warmth-entrenched light streaming down, that is our feeling. This is a mighty picture which the Guardian of the Threshold shows us. And now we know, that if we pass over from the world of the senses, from the world of physical reality, in which we are between birth and death, into the world of spirit, then in thinking, feeling, and willing we no longer have the unity which we have here. There we are three. In the world-all we are three. Our thinking goes to the light as we cross the threshold, our willing goes to fire, and our feeling goes to light-borne light-interwoven fire. And we must have the courage to expand, to intensify this self, this “I,” so that it holds the three together when we cross over. We can do this if we correctly infuse ourselves with what otherwise could be for us merely picture-substantiality, if we correctly infuse ourselves with the notion that our head is the wellspring of all our sensory life, of all our life of thought, that although all sense-life and thought-life most certainly spreads throughout the body, but is particularly expressed in the head, that our head in its roundness with its downward opening is formed in accordance with the world-gestalt. If we could say to ourselves earnestly, with inner intensity that our head, within and without, emulates the world-gestalt, we could then feel, by being willing to look at the head to a certain extent as within, how this perspective broadens itself to the world-all, which is infused all-together in our head only for our earthly perspective. If we could feel then with full intensity how our heart, the physical expression of our soul, does not merely beat through what is in our body, in the skin-confined human being. We breathe in the air, which is the motivator of heart-beating. We breathe it out again. The world in its greatness, in its majesty participates in our heart beating. It is the world beating which will be felt in our heart, not merely what we carry within us. When we think how our limbs work, running freely in the will, then what gives us this force in willing is not simply what resides in us personally. Just think how the forces of heredity are built into us when we are born, how the forces of karma which we have acquired through many, many lives on earth, how these live in our willing. Think about all that, and feel how we may think, that in our limbs, if we will, world forces live, not merely human forces. Now think, my dear brothers and sisters, still on this side, hard beside the Guardian of the Threshold, who points across to light gleaming, world living, world weaving thoughts, to what surges up as warmth, light bearing, to what surges down as light, warmth imprinted, warmth permeated, streams down like warm wind over us on this side from over yonder streams toward us, spiritedly streaming as fire of the world-all, that is the primal force of willing. So, as we stand here, there comes to us, resounding, what the Guardian of the Threshold has to say to us in this situation. O show the three —thinking, feeling, willing; the human being is split, has become a trinity—
The Guardian makes this sign △ so that we halt, so that we feel the head’s world-gestalt in this upwardly-directed triangle. Concentrate on this. [It was drawn on the blackboard.]
The Guardian makes this sign, ⧖ that we feel in this sign the undulating beat of the world, which crosses itself in the heart.[It was drawn on the blackboard.]
The Guardian of the Threshold makes another sign, ▽ [It was drawn on the blackboard.] on which we should concentrate along with this line of the mantra, so that we feel the force of the line, the whole mantric force of the whole speech. Then the Guardian of the Threshold reinforces this once again.
This is the verse through which the Guardian announces how we should prepare ourselves, through strong courage, through enthusiastic striving for awareness, to feel over there how one becomes three. We are a unity in the physical. The three step forth in the imaginative picture, for in the spiritual world we are three. [The mantra and heading were now written on the blackboard.]
[Next to the first sign on the board was written:]
The world-gestalt can be experienced in the head. [Next to the second sign on the board was written:]
The world's beat can be felt in the heart. [Next to the third sign on the board was written:]
The world's force can be thought inwardly in the movement of the limbs. The intensification is: [The following six words were underlined:] experience, feel, think, gestalt, beat, force. The three lines must be strengthened by concentrating on these figures. [Writing continued:]
My dear friends, when we stand there in earth consciousness, and we are certainly still standing there, we are only in preparation for crossing over into the spiritual world. When we stand there in earth consciousness, then we ascribe to our head, inasmuch as it contains the thoughts, we ascribe our spirit to it. We certainly have this spirit initially as mere appearance. The thought, however, the thoughts are just the appearance of the spirit. We ascribe thoughts to our head, which means to the spirit, as the spirit lives just in the form of thoughts in earth consciousness. But we can also do something else, and this we must do, due to the admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold in this situation, where we are preparing to cross over the abyss of existence, we must make the effort, concerning the force we otherwise bring forth when we move one of our limbs, when we walk or stand, when we send the will through our person, we must make the effort to concentrate so fully on this willing that we actually will each individual thought, as if we were pounding it out. We must feel that the thought is pounded out much as we would stretch out our arm. Reality goes through the will into the thought. Then all that lives in our senses, while it previously sent us merely colorful images and tones, for us the entire multi-formed sensory sheen will be presently-streaming cosmic willing. My dear brothers and sisters, learn to stretch thoughts out into the world just as you learn to stick your hands out by means of the will. Just as you come up against fixed things of the world when you exert your will, and have resistance, so also the spirits resist when you stretch out thoughts, if you send the will through them. If we do this, then we really move in wisdom. Accordingly, the Guardian exhorts us to do it. The ultimate admonition of the Guardian infuses into us. [The first verse was written on the board; the title as well as the words “head” and “will”, were underlined.]
Otherwise, we only think it, but now we will it, and if we do this, then willing becomes something else.
the willing of the thoughts
The next instruction of the Guardian of the Threshold concerns our heart, our heart in which is concentrated all that we are as rhythmic human beings. Into the heart we can carry nothing other than feeling, feeling as it is here in the sense world between birth and death. But we must also meet feeling and its content with the heart when we are in the spiritual world. If we could merely feel the heart with empathy, as if the world is felt in our heart, for we are certainly in the world, then our feeling becomes something else. Just as willing becomes the sensing’s multi-varied heavenly weaving, so will feeling be¬come for us something which yet must be grappled, so we may say see that thinking, therefore the head’s spirit turned to willing, but that feeling remains feeling, but it rays out on one hand toward thinking and on the other hand toward willing, for it is both at once. Therefore, we must accustom ourselves at this point to think a line in which we interweave one into the other, radiating upward and downward. This line must so sound, “And feeling becomes for you thinking's willing, willing's thinking, seed-awakening world living.” Then one lives in the brilliance. This is no longer an apparent radiance which fades away, but rather the revelation of the world in beauty, which one can therefore call radiance, which can be stated as glory. For brilliance here has the meaning of glory. The second, therefore, about which the Guardian admonishes, is
[This second verse was now written on the blackboard, and “heart” and “feel” were underlined.]
You must try, my dear brothers and sisters, as you practice this, to be able to think simultaneously that it interweaves thinking's willing, willing's thinking together, that it passes one-into-another into one, just as it stands there before the world. The third, about which the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us, is the force of our limbs. In this we want something else. The Guardian of the Threshold now wishes for us, if we would step out of ourselves and rest peacefully, that we should think our limb’s force, that we should think the spirit of our limbs, by what we do now not feeling the exertion of our force, but rather by looking at it from afar, as if we were standing next to ourselves. Then thinking of willing, the thinking that we deploy here, becomes willing's goal-directed human striving. And we now recognize virtue, in the sense of the human capacity, as what humankind can will in world evolution. The Guardian of the Threshold so admonishes us. [The third verse was now written on the board and “limbs” was underlined.]
The progression is [The following three words were underlined.] weaving, living, striving. The other progression is wisdom, glory, virtue. Now I shall read the lines as they first appear to us, as the Guardian speaks them to us:
This is the final admonition of the Guardian of the Threshold. That is the decisive point, which may be indicated by the word, the word most certainly expressed here as the word that Michael himself speaks, as this esoteric school is founded and sustained by Michael and his force. Now the instruction stands at that important point where we have taken everything into ourselves, which, if it will be thoroughly practiced gives us the wings to cross over the yawning deep abyss of existence. Everything which has been spoken in this Michael School should once again be accompanied by Michael’s Sign and Seal. For everything will be given in such a way that Michael is present while it resounds through the room of this school, which may be confirmed by his sign, [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.] and which may be confirmed by his seal, that he has impressed on the threefold Rosicrucian maxim, Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. The seal is such, that we feel the first part of the maxim in this gesture, [The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard], the second part of the maxim in this gesture, [The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], the third part of the maxim in this gesture, [The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], and know that the first gesture implies [beside the lower seal gesture was written]
which we feel as we say Ex Deo Nascimur, and confirm it with the gesture that is Michael’s Seal. The second gesture implies [beside the middle seal gesture was written]
which we feel it as we say In Christo Morimur, impressing the feeling by what lies in Michael’s Seal. The third gesture implies, [beside the upper seal gesture was written]
which accompanies as a feeling Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. It is the gesture which is Michael's Seal upon the third part of the Rosicrucian maxim. In this way Michael's Sign and Seal may marshal the broader way, which here in this school for spiritual development will be undergone. [The Michael sign was made and the three seal gestures were made as the Rosea et Crucis was spoken.] Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. Then the moment is present in which the word of the Guardian of the Threshold sounds decisively, the word of the Guardian of the Threshold, sounding as if it came from Michael himself, as if it came from world's far reaches. After the Guardian has told us how we have to prepare ourselves, and we should feel that such preparation must occur, then will his word resound, as if from Michael, as if from world’s reaches.
We must interweave ourselves in the feeling that we do not speak it ourselves, but rather, as we speak it, it should become objective, so that we hear it as if it were spoken from another place. [The following is written on the blackboard in red diagonally to the mantra “O show the three”:]
What will subsequently take place in the following lessons, the next which will as usual be on Saturday at half past eight, what will take place in the following lessons shall reflect what resounds over there on the other side of the Threshold. But now let us consider once again, for all true development leads ever again back to its starting point, how from all beings of the world the challenge sounds to us, which we currently have to experience from the mouth of the Guardian:
Once more – confirming all this, confirming Michael's presence – the sign and seal of Michael: [the Michael sign was made and with the three seal gestures was spoken:]
The mantric maxims which are given here to be practiced, and which carry the force to experience in oneself what is here described, may only be possessed by the rightful members of this class, by no one else. He who belongs to this school and cannot be present at a lesson, when he could have received the corresponding verse, can receive it from another member who was present. But for each such handing on of a verse special permission must be obtained either from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me personally. He who wishes to receive the verse, however, may not request permission, but only the one who is to pass on the verse. When once one has received permission to give the verse to someone, this continues to hold good for that particular person. For every other person the same permission must be obtained either from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me. It is useless to ask permission if one wishes the verses for oneself, for one may ask only in order to hand them on. One must turn therefore, if one wishes to receive the verses, to someone who rightfully possesses them. The rightful possessor must then ask permission, for each person to whom they are to be given. Also, if someone writes something down as we go along, he or she only has the right to keep it for eight days. Then it must be burned. Except for the maxims, anything else which has been written down here must be burned. For we must, for once, keep to the occult rules. There is an occult rule in everything which I have now said and to which I hold. We must adhere to the occult rule. So, it is not a matter of an arbitrary administrative procedure; rather, if something esoteric comes into the wrong hands, then, my dear brothers and sisters, for those who possess it rightfully, the mantra concerned loses its effective power. This is simply a matter which is founded in occult law. Tomorrow at 12 noon, the speech-formation course will be given, at 10:45 the course for theologians, at 5 o'clock, the pastoral medicine course, and at 8 o'clock the members' cycle. [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW] [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]
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| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Seventh Recapitulation Lesson
20 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
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| Then what had been brought forth in Greece through the Mysteries, both the underworld Chthonic and the celestial Mysteries, that this was to be carried abroad into Asia, carried abroad into Africa. |
| [In the second verse Living was underlined.] Through calm of heart in sleep Let human feeling waft away; It progresses. |
| Here it is world living. [In the second verse world living was underlined.] As human-being's-power. The progression is in contrast to world-thought-creating. |
| 270. Esoteric Instructions: Seventh Recapitulation Lesson
20 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by John Riedel |
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My dear brothers and sisters! Since the Christmas Conference an esoteric impulse goes through the entire Anthroposophical Society, and those members of the Anthroposophical Society who have recently taken part in the general members' lectures will have noticed just how this esoteric impulse flows through all that is worked on within the Anthroposophical Movement and through all that is still to be worked on. This was a necessity, a necessity which above all has been given out of the spiritual world, from which certainly flow the revelations which should live in the Anthroposophical Movement. It was a necessity which arose out of the spiritual world. With this, however, an imperative emerged, in particular out of the spiritual world, out of which the revelations flow which should live in the Anthroposophical movement. This emerged out of the spiritual world. This imperative was fashioned as a specific kernel for Anthroposophical esoteric life, to make a kernel for true esoteric living. Thereby the imperative was given in a certain measure to build a bridge over to the spiritual world itself. The spiritual world in a certain sense revealed itself in having to fashion such a school. For an esoteric school cannot be made out of human caprice, or what people might call human idealism. Rather this Esoteric School must be the body of something flowing out of spiritual life itself, so that in all that happens in such a school, it presents itself as the external expression what happens from an activity specifically in the supersensible, in the spiritual world itself. In this fashion this esoteric school could not have been made without having surveyed the will, which frequently has been brought forth in members' lectures, the will which since the last third of the nineteenth century has actually been guiding human spiritual affairs, the Will of Michael. This Michael Will is one of those forces which in the course of time has intervened out of the spiritual world in sequence ever and again in the cycles of human destiny. When we look back in time at evolution, we find that this same Michael Will, which we can also call the Michael Regency, was active in the spiritual affairs of humanity, in the great questions of civilization, before the Mystery of Golgotha during the time of Alexander. Then what had been brought forth in Greece through the Mysteries, both the underworld Chthonic and the celestial Mysteries, that this was to be carried abroad into Asia, carried abroad into Africa. Whenever and wherever the Will of Michael has dominion, a cosmopolitan spirit is always present. The differentiations among people on earth are overcome in an era of Michael. After this deeply significant activity, linked with the spreading of Aristotelianism and of Alexandrianism, which was an activity of Michael, after this followed other activities linked with Oriphiel.1 After the Oriphiel-linked activity came the Anael activity, the Zachariel activity, then the significant Raphael activity, then the Samael activity, then the Gabriel activity, which extended into the nineteenth century. Since the late seventies of the nineteenth century, we stand once again under the sign of Michael's regency. It is beginning, but the Michael-Impulses must flow in, and can certainly become clear to you, my brothers and sisters, through the general members' lectures, Michael-Impulses must flow in a conscious way into all genuine, rightfully constituted esoteric work. And through all that is connected with the impulse of the Christmas Conference, through all that has been brought forth, is the possibility of this being the kernel of the Anthroposophical Movement’s forming an esoteric school to be seen as the esoteric school inspired and guided by Michael himself. Thereby it rightfully stands its ground in our time as a spiritual institution. And a person must feel, a person who would rightfully become a member of this school, that this must become a part of one’s life in deepest sincerity. And a person who would rightfully become a member of this school must feel not merely belonging to an earthly community, but also to a supersensible community, whose leader and guide is Michael himself. As a consequence, what is communicated here should not be taken as my word, but rather in so far as it is the content of the lesson it should be taken as that which Michael has to make known esoterically in this age to those who feel themselves belonging to him. Therefore, what these lessons contain will be the Michael communication for our era. And thereby, since it is that, the Anthroposophical Movement will contain its specific spiritual vigor. To this end it is necessary that what may be called membership in this school will be acquired with utmost sincerity. It is still necessary, my dear brothers and sisters, fundamentally and deeply necessary, that in an ever more earnest way, it is necessary to point to the holy sincerity with which the school must be taken up. Here within this school, it must be said once again, and ever and again, that in Anthroposophical circles much too little seriousness prevails for what actually flows through the Anthroposophical Movement, and, at least among the esoteric members of this esoteric school, a kernel of humanity will be drawn forth, which will gradually rise to the necessary earnest sincerity. Therefore, it is necessary that the leadership of this school really reserves to itself the responsibility to recognize only those as rightful, worthy members of the school who, in every detail of their lives, would be worthy representatives of Anthroposophical endeavors, and the decision as to whether or not that is the case must rest with the leadership of the school. Do not see this, my dear brothers and sisters, as a limitation of freedom. The leadership of the school must have freedom and be free to recognize who belongs to this school and who does not, just as much as each of you will freely choose whether or not to belong to this school. But it must throughout be an idealistic spiritual freely-borne pact, so to speak, that will be made between the members of the school and the leadership. In no other way could the esoteric development be considered healthy, and especially in no other way worthy of the actuality of this esoteric school standing under the immediate impact of the potency of Michael himself. The leadership of the school must, in the strictest sense of the word, manage what has just been said. That it does so may become evident to you, my dear friends, through what has taken place since the relatively brief existence of the school, that eighteen to twenty expulsions have occurred, because the earnest serious quality which is essential to the school was not adhered to. Conscientious care of the mantric maxims, so that they do not fall into unauthorized hands, is the first obligation, but also to actually be a worthy representative of Anthroposophical affairs. I need only mention a few facts in order to indicate how little, in actuality, the Anthroposophical Movement is grasped fully in earnest, how little earnestness penetrates the Anthroposophical Movement. I have mentioned this to some of you individually. It has happened that members of the school have reserved their seats here with the blue certificates which give them the right to be present in the school. It has happened in the Anthroposophical Society that whole piles of News Sheets, intended only for members, have been found in the tram running from Dornach to Basel. I could enlarge this list in the greatest variety of ways. Again and again, it happens that the most dumbfounding incidents occur as a result of the lack of seriousness. Even things which are taken seriously in everyday life, as soon as the same things practiced seriously in ordinary life are practiced within the Anthroposophical Movement, they are not taken seriously. These are all matters which must be taken into account in relation to the firm structure which this school must have. Therefore, these things must be said, for if one fails to pay attention to these matters, one cannot worthily receive the revelations from the spiritual world which are given here in this school. At the close of each lesson attention is expressly drawn to the fact that the individuality of Michael himself is present while the revelations of the school are being given, and this is confirmed through the Sign and Seal of Michael. All these things must live in the hearts of the members. Dignity, profound dignity, must prevail in everything, even to what connects one’s thoughts to the school. For in all of this there can live only what today an esoteric streaming through the world should carry. And all this is included in the responsibilities each individual has. The mantric maxims written here on the board can only be possessed, in the strictest sense of the word, by those who have the right to participate in the school. If a member of the school is prevented on some occasion from taking part in the lessons in which mantric verses are given, another member who has received these verses in the school can communicate the verses. In every single case, however, for every single person to whom the verses are to be given, permission must be requested either from Frau Dr. Wegman or from myself. When permission has been given for one person it then remains in effect. But for every other person permission must again be requested from Frau Dr. Wegman or from me. This is not an administrative regulation, it is something which is demanded, in the strictest sense, by the rules of occult life. For it must be understood that every act of the school must remain connected with the school's leadership, and this begins with the fact that one requests permission if something is to occur which belongs to the sphere of responsibility of the school. Not the one who is to receive the mantras should request permission, but the one who transmits them, according to the procedures which I have just described. If someone writes down anything during the lesson, other than the mantric verses, something which has been said, that person is obligated to keep it only eight days and then to burn it. All these things are not arbitrary regulations, but are connected with the occult fact that esoteric matters are only effective when they are encompassed by a certain attitude of heart and mind, which those who are recognized as responsible members of the school have. The mantras lose their effectiveness when they come into unauthorized hands. This rule is so firmly inscribed into the world's order that the following incident once occurred and a whole series of mantras became ineffective, which had been current within the Anthroposophical Movement. It was possible for me to give to a number of people some mantric verses. I gave the mantras also to a certain person. This person had a friend who was clairvoyant to a certain degree. It then came about, as both friends were sleeping in the same room, that the clairvoyant friend, during the time that the other was merely repeating the mantra in his mind, the clairvoyant read it mentally and then misused it by giving it to others as coming from him. One first had to investigate the incident, which then brought to light why the mantras in question became ineffective for all those who possessed them. You may not, therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, take these matters lightly, because the rules of esoteric life are strict, and no one who has committed such a mistake should excuse himself with the thought that he couldn't help himself. If someone lets a mantra pass through his head in thought, and someone else observes this clairvoyantly, the one who thinks the mantra certainly cannot do anything about this. But the events occur, nevertheless, according to an iron law of necessity. I mention this incident in order that you may see how little arbitrariness is involved in these matters, and to show how in these matters there is contained what is read directly from the spiritual world, what corresponds with the habits and customs of the spiritual world. Nothing is arbitrary in what takes its course in a rightfully constituted esoteric school. And there should ray out from the esoteric school into the rest of the Anthroposophical Movement that earnest quality about which we have spoken. Only then will this school be for the Anthroposophical Movement what it should be. But it will be necessary to be honest with oneself, and acknowledge that one acts sometimes out of personal motives, and if so, one should not dress the matter up as if it were inspired by devotion to the Anthroposophical Movement. Naturally, I certainly don't intend to say that nothing should occur out of personal motives, for it is a matter of course that people today must be personal. But then it is necessary that in what is personal the truth must be acknowledged. For instance, if someone travels here to Dornach for personal pleasure, he or she should therefore admit this and not make out otherwise. There's nothing wrong with traveling to Dornach for personal pleasure! Indeed, it is, by the way, very good when one comes here. But one should admit the personal pleasure and not dress it up as pure devotion to spiritual life. I mention this, but I might equally well have chosen a different example, which might be closer to reality, for it is, in fact, true that when most of our friends travel to Dornach, the readiness to sacrifice, the spirit of sacrifice, is indeed involved, and that in this particular example, the traveling to Dornach, in at least some degree, untruthfulness played a role. But I chose this example precisely because of the fact that it hits home least and is thus less hurtful. If I had chosen other examples, the basic quite calm mood of soul, a truly serene mood in the hearts and souls of all those who are sitting here, would have been less likely to rise to the occasion. After this introduction I would like to start with the verse which is both the beginning and the end of what comes before you here as the declaration of Michael, which contains what is spoken to all human beings who have an unencumbered sense for it, by all things and beings in the world, if one listens to what is said with the soul. For everything that lives in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, that sparkles down from the stars, that works into our soul from the realm of the hierarchies, from all that crawls on the earth worm-like, that moves living upon the earth, out of all that speaks in rock and spring, in forest and field and mountains and thunder and clouds and lightning, out of all this spoke to the open-minded human being in the past, speaks to him in the present, will speak in all futures:
The last lesson concluded, my dear brothers and sisters, following the final admonitions that the Guardian of the Threshold imparts before crossing the yawning abyss of being, with the Guardian of the Threshold having spoken weighty, human-heart-moving words:
Weighty, portentous, significant experiences have entered our hearts, through all that the Guardian of the Threshold has spoken at Michael's behest. All that he has spoken was spoken in order to prepare us for the demeanor which we must have, when after the door is opened, we cross over the yawning abyss of existence, where one does not go by walking with earthly feet, where one only goes by flying with the soul, when the soul out of a spiritual attitude, out of spiritual love, out of spiritual feeling grows wings. So now, my dear brothers and sisters, will be described what the human being experiences when he stands beyond the yawning abyss of existence. The Guardian of the Threshold instructs, “Turn around and look back! Until now you have looked toward what appeared to you a black, night-bedecked darkness, concerning which you had to surmise that it will become bright and will illumine the source of your own self. I allowed it, on the occasion of the last admonitions, so says the Guardian of the Threshold, I allowed it to grow brighter, at first very gently. First you feel light dawning around you. But turn around, look back!” As one who has crossed the yawning abyss of being now turns around and looks back, he beholds his person of earth, what he is during physical incarnation, over there in that part of existence which he has left, that now lies yonder in the province of the earth. He beholds his own person of earth over there. He has entered and embodies himself with his spirit-soul being in spirit existence. The earthly sheath, the earthly formation, now stands over yonder. It stands yonder in that region in which we were at first with our entire human being, where we have seen all that crawls below and flies above, where we have seen the sparkling stars, the warm sun, where we have seen what lives in wind and weather, and where we have stood, knowing that in all of this, despite all that is so majestic that rays out and gives light in the sun, despite all its beauty and greatness, there in the field of sense-existence, where we have stood and said to ourselves that our own human being's essence is not within it, that you must seek beyond the yawning abyss of existence, in what from the other, from the sense-bound side appears to you as black, night-bedecked darkness. The Guardian of the Threshold has shown us in the three beasts what we actually are. Now there is described how, within the darkness which is growing bright, which is beginning to lighten up, we should begin by looking back on what we are as human beings in the sense-world, together with what was formerly our only world in sense-bound earth existence. Now the Guardian of the Threshold points in a very definite way to the one who stands over there as the earth-person, who is ourself, in earth existence, that being to whom we must return again and again, into whom we must penetrate over and over again when we step forth from the spiritual world and enter into the duties of our work on earth, when we return to earth existence. For we may not become dreamers and light-headed enthusiasts. We must return, in every respect, to earthly life and obligations. For this reason, the Guardian of the Threshold directs us to look on the person who stands over yonder, who we ourselves are, in such a way that he makes us attentive, at first, to who and what this person is. [An outline of the human form was drawn on the blackboard.] The human being is aware that he perceives the outer world through the senses [the eye is drawn] which are localized, primarily, in the head and that he perceives his thinking through the activity of his head. But the Guardian of the Threshold now remarks, “Look inside this head.” It is as if you look into a dark cell, for you do not see the light which is working within it. But the truth is that what you carried within you as thinking over there in the sense world is the mere appearance of reality, is mere picture-images, not much more than mirror-pictures. The Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us to be very conscious of this fact, but also to be conscious of the fact that what lives in earthly thinking only as appearance, as we learned in earlier lessons, is the corpse of living thinking, in which we lived in the spiritual-soul world before we descended into this earth-existence. In that existence thinking was alive. Now, thinking rests as dead thinking, as the semblance of thinking, in the coffin of our body. All thinking which we make use of in the sense world is dead thinking. It was alive before we descended to earth. What did this thinking make? It first made all that, which within the top of the body, within the head, within this dark cell, so it shows itself for sensory appearance, all that is light-making being.2 The brain, which sits there inside as the supporting pillar of thinking, has been made out of living thinking. [The interior of the head, yellow, was drawn on the blackboard.] And living thinking it is that first makes the supporting pillar for our semblance of thinking on earth. Look at the convolutions of the brain, look at all you bear within you in the dark cell of the head, which makes earthly thinking possible for you, my brothers and sisters. Look behind that thinking, which is only appearance in the cabinet of the head, and you will then discover how into what here above is felt as thinking [drawing, red arrows] there streams the force of willing, there pours up into thinking the force of willing, so that each thought is irradiated by will. It can be felt how the will flows into thinking. We look back thus from beyond the threshold and see how that other human being, who we ourselves are, has streaming out of the body into the head the willing’s undulations, willing at work, and eventually, if we follow it back in time, traveling as far as our former incarnations on earth, at work over here from past worlds into the present incarnation are thought-undulations which build our head, finally passing over into the appearance of thinking here in this incarnation. Therefore, we should be stout and strong,3 the Guardian of the Threshold says to us, and imagine the dead thinking thrown out into world-nothingness, for it is mere appearance. And the willing which arises there we should regard as that which from former earth-incarnations crosses over to dwell and move and work and make4 us finally into a thinker. There, within [see drawing, yellow] are the formative world-thoughts.5 These formative world-thoughts first take effect, that we can have intrinsically human thoughts. Therefore, the first word of the Guardian of the Threshold after he has allowed us to cross the threshold, after he has informed us that the door is opened, that we can become a true human being, therefore the first word which he there speaks is:
The first words that we hear over there, as we look back upon the form, the gestalt which we ourselves are, which stands here before our soul's gaze, which we direct back from over there: [The heading and the first verse with the underlined words were written on the blackboard.]
Then the Guardian of the Threshold adds to this, and one must exert oneself in order to hear it. Just imagine yourself looking back at what you yourself are, who stands over yonder, then turn again and look into the darkness and try with all possible inner imaginative force of memory, as when you retain an after-image, a physical after-image held in your eye, try with maximum force to sketch there something like a kind of gray outline form of what you have seen over yonder, but avoid making a sketch of anything else other than a gray outline. [Drawing continued.] There then appears, if one succeeds in seeing this gray outline-figure, there appears behind this gray outline the image of the moon [the sickle moon is drawn, yellow] with the gray silhouette in front of it. If one is now able to maintain inner quiet, one sees in the distance the moon. The gray silhouette becomes something that is both over there and at the same time arises within one. If we practice in this way, again and again, we feel approaching the spirit-form of the head, which one has yonder, not the physical form, but the spirit-form of the head, which we have over there, then will the person feel coming toward him what karma brings him from former incarnations on earth [yellow arrow to the right of the sickle moon]. Therefore, in meditating, you should meditate on the image I have drawn here in gold, the sickle moon with this arrow. Let the mantra run, let it play out, then bring up the image as a reminder for what can gradually lead one to become familiar with what emerges in force from prior lives on earth. As a second step the Guardian of the Threshold instructs with a more forceful gesture, pointing to what lives as feeling in the person over there, who we ourselves are, and he admonishes us to correctly see this feeling as a dream dawning. And in the act, we will see feeling, which in spite of this person over there is made much more real than is thinking, for thinking is appearance, yet feeling is half real. However, we see the feeling of the day-person unfolding in dream pictures that are louder, purer, and we learn to know through the observation, that feeling as seen from the spirit, and in the spirit, is dreaming. But what kind of dreaming is feeling? In this feeling the person dreams not alone the individual person, but therein dreams the whole surrounding world-consciousness.6 Our thinking is ours alone, therefore it is also only appearance. Our feeling is something in which the world to some extent lives. World-consciousness is within it. Now we must look to acquiring the greatest possible restfulness of heart, which the Guardian admonishes us to do. If we acquire the greatest possible restfulness of heart, so that we can extinguish what moves and lives as feeling in dream pictures, just as dreaming is extinguished in deep sleep, then we come upon the truth of feeling and can see personal feeling interwoven with world living that is present in spirit around us. And then the true spirit-person appears to us, which lives and moves in the body, initially in its half-existence. Emerging from the sleeping feeling appears to us the person. We feel ourselves over there on the other side of the Threshold in this way, on the other side of the yawning abyss of existence in our essence as a human being, since feeling has fallen asleep and world-creative might has appeared around us, might that lives in feeling. Therefore, the Guardian admonishes us:
[The second stanza was written on the board and compared with the first.]
Here [in the first verse] it was behind, here it is into [into was underlined]. Every word is significant in mantric verses.
Here it is thinking, here feeling, here sensory-light, here wafting of soul. Wafting is much more real than light’s appearance. [In the second verse feeling's was underlined but not wafting of soul.]
Here it says Willing ascends from bodily depths, and here Living streams from world afar. [In the second verse Living was underlined.]
It progresses. Here [in the first verse] there is let flow through the strength of your soul. Here [in the second verse] one must let human feeling waft away. [waft away was underlined.]
There [in the first verse] it was willing, which is still within the person. Here it is world living. [In the second verse world living was underlined.]
The progression is in contrast to world-thought-creating. [In the second verse human being's power was underlined.] The Guardian of the Threshold instructs us to look back once again on the form, the gestalt that stands over there, the one we ourselves are in earth existence, and once again we should take up the gray image, but now take it up in such a way that we retain it, after having turned away from ourselves, and in our soul-life we turn it in a circle, so that it persists as we turn it. We shall find that when we rotate the image in this way in a circle, the sun appears, in its appearance behind the silhouette turning in the circle. [drawing, red]. In this experience we become aware how in the moment we are drawn out of spiritual worlds into physical earth consciousness, our etheric body has drawn itself together out of the world ether. Therefore, just as the previous picture belongs to the first verse [The drawing of the gray silhouette and the first verse were numbered 1.], we should add this picture to the second verse [The red drawing of the rotating image and the second verse were numbered 2.]. Then the Guardian of the Threshold directs us to our willing, that acts in our limbs. He sternly makes us aware that everything connected with the will is sleeping in us when we are awake. For just as the thought works downward, as I explained last time and therefore may say today, just as the thought warms downward into the limb’s movement, just so willing emerges, which becomes clear in spiritual discernment, in spiritual observation. This is hidden from ordinary consciousness just as life is hidden in sleep. Now we are to look, and from the start, to behold willing within our limbs sunk in deep sleep. There willing sleeps. The limbs sleep. This we should have as a firm thought in mind. For then, when we have this, we are able to realize how thinking, that is the origin of willing in earthly man, sinks down into the limbs. Then it becomes light in the human being. Willing becomes bright. It wakes up. When we first see it in its sleeping condition, we find that it awakens when thinking sinks downward and light streams upward from below, light which is indeed none other than the forces of gravity. Feel in your legs, feel in your arms the force of gravity when you just let everything hang down. That is what streams upward, what unites itself with the downward streaming thinking. We see human willing transforming itself into its reality and thinking appearing as what, in a mysterious, magical way ignites the will in man. This is, in actuality, the magical activity, the magical effect of thinking, which the will carries out. There is magic. This we now realize. The Guardian of the Threshold says:
in the surrounding aura
[This third verse, with certain words underlined, was now written on the board.]
To that, imagine the Guardian of the Threshold again beckoning us to look down at what is over there, who we ourselves are, to retain an image, but this time not to turn round but rather to allow this image to sink into the earth beneath the form that stands there. We look over there. There stands over there, who we ourselves are. We form the image for ourselves and form within us the powerful force to look downward, as though a lake were there and we would see this image by looking down and under, so that we see it now as if within the earth, but not as a reflected image, but as an upright picture. We imagine the earth, [The arc was drawn.] with the third verse. [This drawing and the third verse were numbered 3.] We imagine the earth, how its gravity-forces ascend, how the gravity-forces shine into the limbs, feet, and arms [arrows]. In what we perceive later we have a foreshadowing of how the gods work together with human beings between death and a new birth, in order to fulfill karma. It is this about which the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us, when he speaks to us for the first time after we have crossed the yawning abyss of existence:
Always, the circle closes. Again, we look back upon the point from which we set out, hearing out of all beings and all processes of the world:
With his communication, Michael is present in this rightly constituted school. His presence is confirmed by his sign, which should have dominion over all that will be given in this school [The Michael sign was drawn on the blackboard.], and it is confirmed through his seal which he has impressed upon the esoteric striving of the Rosicrucian School, which lives symbolically in the threefold maxim Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. And as Michael impresses his seal, the first sentence is spoken in this gesture [The lower seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], the second sentence in this gesture [The middle seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.], and the third sentence in this gesture [The upper seal gesture was drawn on the blackboard.]. The first gesture signifies [Beside the lower seal gesture was written:]
It lives silently while we speak the Ex Deo Nascimur. The second gesture signifies [Beside the middle seal gesture was written:]
It lives silently while we speak the In Christo Morimur. The third gesture signifies [beside the upper seal gesture was written:]
It lives silently in the sign, that there is Michael's Seal, as we speak the Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. And so is confirmed today’s Michael proclamation substance through the Sign and Seal of Michael. [The Michael sign was made and with the three seal gestures was spoken:] Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. I have to announce that the course for theologians will take place tomorrow at 10:45. The speech formation and dramatic course at 12 o'clock. In the afternoon at 5 there will be a eurythmy presentation, and at 8 o'clock in the evening, or, if the eurythmy finishes late, at 8:15 or 8:30, the members' lecture. [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW] [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW] The Guardian is heard in the gradually brightening darkness:
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| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: First Hour
15 Feb 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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| It will be necessary to investigate how one finds the path to his own obstinacy, which hinders understanding what the School should be. For many still don't think correctly about the School. This must be gradually corrected. |
| And on the other hand, we must follow a difficult path in face of the opposition and undermining forces which are increasing day by day. The members of the School are by no means sufficiently attentive to this. |
| This is veiled at first in darkness for human understanding, and can only be revealed by the countenance of the Spirit-Messenger, who appears at first to be similar to the human being, but transformed into one of gigantic stature. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: First Hour
15 Feb 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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My dear friends, With this lesson, I would like to restore to the Free School for Spiritual Science as an esoteric institution the task which it has been in danger of being deprived of during the past years. In this introductory lecture, I will not go further into explaining that situation, but I wanted to stress the importance of this moment by indicating the seriousness with which our movement—which is daily being endangered and undermined—must be imbued, especially in this School. This is no unnecessary observation, for such seriousness has not been apparent everywhere. A kind of preparatory introduction will be given today, my dear friends. And I would like to emphasize that in this School spiritual life is to be revealed in its true meaning, so that you will be able to consider this School as an institution which can provide for the revealed spiritual needs of our times. This spiritual life can be deepened in all its aspects. But a center must exist from out of which this deepening derives, and the Center can be seen by those who wish to be members of the School to be the Goetheanum in Dornach. Therefore, I wish to begin the School today, with those members for whom it has so far been possible to issue the membership card, to begin in a way that will make you conscious of the fact that every word spoken within this School is based on the full responsibility towards the spirit revealed to our times—that same spirit which has been revealed to humanity throughout the centuries and millennia, but revealed in each epoch in a special way. And this spirit will only give to humanity what it is able to receive. We must be clear from the very beginning that it is not animosity towards what the sense-world has accomplished for humanity when in a School for Spiritual Science we attend to the revelations of the spirit. We must also clearly recognize that the sense-world has provided necessary, practical revelations to humanity and this fact should not cause us to undervalue those contributions in any way. But it is nevertheless important that the spiritual revelations are received with all earnestness. For this—I must say it at the outset—much prejudice and obstinacy, which is deeply ingrained in the School's members, will have to go. It will be necessary to investigate how one finds the path to his own obstinacy, which hinders understanding what the School should be. For many still don't think correctly about the School. This must be gradually corrected. For it is only possible for those to be in the School who take it in all earnestness. The matter itself demands this. And on the other hand, we must follow a difficult path in face of the opposition and undermining forces which are increasing day by day. The members of the School are by no means sufficiently attentive to this. All this, my dear friends, must be kept in mind. The first and foremost thing to be observed in this School must of course be what it is possible for the spirit to give us. It will however be demanded of the members of the School that they accompany us on the difficult path strewn with obstacles and attempts at undermining it. I have gone into these things in our weekly periodical, What is Happening in the Anthroposophical Society, and have also explicitly differentiated there between the General Anthroposophical Society and this School. And it is necessary that this difference be felt in all its explicitness by the members of the School, so that eventually only those persons are members who really want to be representatives of anthroposophy in all aspects of life. I say this now in order to emphasize the seriousness of the matter. First of all, I would like to present to your hearts and to your souls what should stand over our School as a kind of engraving. That we really identify with what emerges from the life of the spirit onto our soul's ear and our soul's understanding. We shall begin with the words:
I will repeat it:
These words tell us that the world is beautiful and glorious and sublime and the endless glow of revelation in all that lives in leaf and blossom flows to our eyes with color on color from the visible universe; it is meant to remind us how the divine is manifested in what is lifeless in earthly matter, in the thousands upon thousands of crystalline and non-crystalline forms at our feet, in the water and air, in clouds and stars; it makes clearer to us that the animal life that frolics in the world and delights in its own existence and the warmth of its existence—that all that is divine-spiritual revelation. And it reminds us that we owe our own bodies to all those shapes, to all that is greening and growing, color on color. And it should also make us conscious of that fact that although all that is beautiful and glorious and grand and divine to the senses, it is futile to ask it what we ourselves are as human beings. Nature, although it glows to us as grand and powerful in tone and strength and warmth, can never give us information about ourselves, although it does give us a huge amount of information about many divine aspects of the world. So we must evermore repeat to ourselves: what we feel as our innermost self is not woven from what we perceive as the beauty and grandeur and greatness and power of nature. And the question arises: Why does the reality of being all around us, of which we are also a part, remain dim and silent? And what we might feel to be a kind of privation, we must experience as a blessing, so that we can say in all seriousness and sternness: We must first make ourselves truly human, warm in soul and strong of spirit, so that we, as spirit in humanity, may find the spirit in the world. For this it is necessary that we prepare ourselves, without levity, to come to the frontier of the sense-world, where the spirit's revelation can rise in us. We must say to ourselves: If we arrive at this frontier unprepared and the full light of the spirit comes upon us at once, then, because we have not yet developed the strength of spirit and the warmth of soul necessary for receiving the spirit, it would shatter us and cast us back to our nothingness. Therefore, at the frontier between the sense-world and the spirit-world stands that messenger of the gods, that messenger of the spirit, about whom we will hear more and more during the next lessons, whom we will want to know always better and better. That messenger of the spirit stands there and warningly speaks, telling us how we should be and what we must set aside so that we may approach the revelations of the spiritual world in the right way. And when we have grasped, my dear friends, that the beauty, the greatness and the sublimity of nature is, at first, spiritual darkness for human knowledge, from which the light must be born which tells us what we are and were and will be; then we must know that the first thing to come from the darkness that must be grasped is that Spirit-Messenger who sends us the appropriate warning. Therefore, let this Spirit-Messenger's words resound in our souls, and let the Spirit-Messenger's description shine out before our soul's eye.
It must be clear to us that we must take seriously all that comes as warning from the Spirit-Messenger before daring to fathom what is found not on this side of the yawning abyss, that is, in the area of the senses, but on the other side spreading out as spirituality. This is veiled at first in darkness for human understanding, and can only be revealed by the countenance of the Spirit-Messenger, who appears at first to be similar to the human being, but transformed into one of gigantic stature. Then, although he is so similar to man, his form is shadowy, as though he were a mere parable of man. He warns that without the appropriate seriousness, no one should seek what lies beyond the yawning abyss. The earnest messenger entreats us to be earnest as well. And then, when we hear that voice and have grasped it with due seriousness, we should be aware of how at first softly, most softly, and in abstractions, it wishes to give us indications and orientation from the spiritual world about the abyss which yawns before us and from which the Messenger holds us back less we take a careless step. The voice resounds:
I will say it again:
These words can make it clear to us how the secrets of existence must be fathomed from all that acts and works in the depths of space and which from the depths of space manifest how real knowledge must be fathomed from what is revealed in the march of time as creative action, and how all that is revealed of the world in the human heart must be revealed by the soul's honest seeking. For all this can only constitute a basis for what one needs for fathoming one's self, in which the world has planted the sum of its secrets. Thus, they can be discovered through human self-knowledge. Everything man needs in sickness and in health on his journey between birth and death, and what he will also have to use on that other existential journey between death and a new birth. But all those who consider themselves members of this School should clearly realize that everything that is not acquired in this way is not real knowledge, but only pseudo-knowledge, that what usually passes for science, what man learns before he has acquired an awareness of the Guardian of the Threshold's warnings regarding spiritual knowledge, is all pseudo-knowledge. It doesn't have to stay pseudo-knowledge though. We do not scorn this pseudo-knowledge. But we must realize that it will only emerge from the stage of pseudo-knowledge once it has been transformed by all man can know about that purification and metamorphosis of his being, which he achieves when he understands what the Spirit-Messenger warns at the yawning abyss of knowledge—what the shining spirit warningly calls out from the darkness on behalf of the best spiritualinhabitants of the spiritual world. Whoever does not acquire the awareness that between the sojourn in the fields of sense—which we must live during our earthly existence between birth and death—and the spiritual fields, a yawning abyss exists, cannot achieve true knowledge. For only by means of this awareness can true knowledge be acquired. He doesn't have to become clairvoyant, although knowledge from the spiritual world comes by true clairvoyance. But he must acquire an awareness ofwhat exists as a warning at the yawning abyss of the secrets of space, the secrets of time, the secrets of the human heart itself. For whether wego out into space, the abyss is there; or if we wander in the turning points of time, the abyss is there; if we enter into the heart itself, the abyss is there. And these three abysses, they are not three abysses, they are only one abyss. For if we wander out into space so far that we come to where the expanses of space merge, we find the spirit; if we wander in the turning points of time to where they originate at the beginning of their cycles, if we wander into the depths of the human heart, so deep that we can only fathom ourselves: these three ways lead to only one goal, to one last stop, not to three different stops. They all lead to the same divine-spirituality that bubbles from the spring that fructifies and feeds all being, but also teaches man to recognize the ground of existence in knowledge. In such earnest awareness, we shall stand in thought where the earnest Spirit-Messenger speaks and listen to what he relates about the obstacles relative to our times, which we must sweep away in order to come to true spiritual knowledge. Obstacles to spiritual knowledge, my dear friends, have existed in all times. In all times the people have had to overcome this and that, put aside this and that according to the warnings of the earnest Guardian of the Threshold to the spiritual world. But there are obstacles peculiar to each age. What proceeds from human civilization is to a large extent not helpful, but rather hindrance for access to the spiritual world. And man must find the particular obstacles that emerge from each earthly civilization, and are implanted in his nature by that very civilization, and which he must put aside before he can cross the yawning abyss. Therefore, let us now hear the earnest watchful Messenger of the gods speak about this:
I will read it again:
These, my dear friends, are the three greatest enemies of knowledge for contemporary humanity. The human being of today is afraid of the spirit's creativity. Fear sits deep in his soul. And he would like to conjure it away. So he dresses his fear in all kinds of pseudo-logical arguments by which he tries to refute spiritual revelations. You will hear, my dear friends, from this or that side arguments against spiritual knowledge. It is sometimes dressed in clever, sometimes in sly, sometimes in foolish logical rules. Never, however, are the logical rules the reason why spiritual knowledge is refuted. Rather is it the spirit of fear that lives and works deep into humanity's inner life which, when it rises to the head, translates into logical reasons. It is fear! But it is not sufficient to say: I am not afraid. Everyone can of course say that. We must first comprehend the nature and the seat of this fear. We must tell ourselves that we were born and educated according to the present time, in which the Ahrimanic side has installed spirits of fear, and that we are tainted by these spirits. And conjuring them away doesn't mean that they really go. We must find the ways and the means—and this School will provide guidance—to bravery and knowledge against those spirits of fear which reside as monsters in our will. For it is not what often leads people to knowledge nowadays—or what they say does—that can provide true knowledge, but rather only courage, the inner courage of soul which provides the strength and the capacity to follow the path that leads to true, real, light-filled spiritual knowledge. And the second beast, which creeps into the human soul from the spirit of the times to become an enemy of knowledge, this beast lurks everywhere we go—in most of the literary works of the day, in most of the art galleries, in most sculpture and art in general and music. It wreaks its havoc in the schools and in society. In order to avoid having to confess its fear of the spirit, it resorts to mocking spiritual knowledge. This mockery is not always openly expressed, because people are not conscious of what is within them. But I would say that only a thin wall, the thickness of a spiderweb, separates what is in people's consciousness and what is in their hearts wanting to mock true spiritual knowledge. And when the mockery is open, it is only when the more or less conscious impertinence of modern man is able to suppress the fear. But basically, everyone today is vaccinated against the spirit's revelations. And the mockery is manifested in the most unusual ways. The third beast is lazy thinking, the kind of thinking that would make the whole world a movie, because then no one is required to think—everything is reeled out and all one has to do is follow what is reeled out. Even science would like to follow the world's phenomena with passive thinking. Man is too lazy and comfortable to activate his thinking. Humanity's thinking nowadays can be compared to someone who wants to pick something up from the floor and stands there with his hands in his pockets and thinks he can pick the thing up that way. But he cannot. And existence cannot be comprehended by thinking with its hands in its pockets. We must move our arms and hands if we want to grasp something from the floor. We must activate our thinking if we want to grasp the spirit. The Guardian of the Threshold characterizes the first beast, which lurks as fear in your will, as a beast with a crooked back and a bony face and scrawny body. This beast, with its dull blue skin, is verily what rises from the abyss and stands alongside the Guardian of the Threshold for today's humanity. And the Guardian of the Threshold makes it quite clear to the humanity of today that this beast is actually in you! It rises from out of the yawning abyss which lies in front of the knowledge fields, and reflects what lurks in your will as an enemy of knowledge. And the second beast, which is connected to the desire to mock the spiritual world, is characterized by the Guardian of the Threshold in a similar way. It emerges alongside the other monster, but its whole attitude is one of weakness and sleepiness. With this sleepy posture and gray-greenish body, it bares its teeth in a warped face. And this baring of teeth is meant to indicate laughter, but lies, because to mock is to lie. So it grins at us as the reflection of the beast that lives in our own feeling and, as the enemy of knowledge, hinders our search for knowledge. And the Guardian of the Threshold characterizes the third beast, which will not approach the world in spirit, as emerging from the abyss with cloven muzzle, dull glassy eyes, slouching posture and dirty-red form. Such is the doubt which speaks through the cloven muzzle and doubt in the power of spirit-light which expresses itself in the dirty-red form. This is the third of the knowledge enemies that lurks in us. They make us earthbound. If we approach spirit-knowledge accompanied by them, ignoring the Guardian of the Threshold's warning, we encounter the yawning abyss. One cannot pass over it earthbound, nor with fear nor mockery, nor with doubt. One can pass over it by grasping in thought thespirituality of being, by experiencing in feeling the soul of being, by strengthening the activity of being in the will. Then the spirit, the soul and the activity of being give us wings of release from the weight of earth. Then we can cross over the abyss. The steps of prejudice are threefold and will cast us into the abyss if we fail to acquire courage, fire and creative knowledge. If, however, we do acquire creative knowledge in thinking and we want to activate thinking, if we do not wish to approach the spirit in dreamy lassitude, but receive the spirit with inner heartfelt fire, and when we have the courage to really grasp the spirit as spirit, not merely letting it approach us as a materialistic picture, then will the wings grow which will carry us over the abyss, where every human heart that is honest with itself today desires to go. That is what I wish to bring before your souls, my dear friends, by means of this first introductory lesson, with which this School for Spiritual Science begins. In closing, let us review once more the beginning, middle and end of the experiences with the Guardian of the Threshold.
As to what we will experience when we have passed the Guardian of the Threshold, what is necessary in feeling, willing, thinking to experience in order to pass by the Guardian's light, and enter into the darkness from out of which that light shines in which we recognize the light of our own humanity, and thus arrive at “O man, know thyself!”—which calls out, which manifests from the spirit that enlightens the darkness. About all that, my dear friends, next Friday during the next lesson of the First Class. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Second Hour
22 Feb 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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| And perhaps it would not be unimportant if a large number of our friends were to undertake something in this direction now. The Christmas Conference [1923] was to be the beginning of true esotericism pouring into the entire anthroposophical worldview stream, supported by the Anthroposophical Society. |
| From all this you can judge how different spiritual realities are - which under the surface of life work today as always - from what everyday life shows, patched up as it is with so many lies. |
| Note that in all three stanzas the word “evil” echoes. [The word is underlined.] And if you observe and feel the critical points in the escalations and in the difference between thinking, feeling and willing [the words are underlined], and if you correctly sense how all three are united by the always recurring word “evil”, then, my dear friends, each stanza will become a mantram for you, according to its inner meaning. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Second Hour
22 Feb 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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My dear friends, We will relate what is said today to the previous lesson, partly to preserve the thread, and partly because there are members present who were not here last time. We shall therefore start with a short recapitulation of the last lesson. We proceeded in thought to the place where the human being - who with normal consciousness can grasp the sense-world, which is the world that surrounds him - can feel himself related to the super-sensible, related to a being which corresponds to his own being. And we want to first develop this sensation before proceeding to the mysteries of the spiritual life, which we will do shortly. The first sensation should make us aware of how the human being, in his normal condition, lives surrounded by the world of the senses, which however he is not able to identify with his own being. We shall therefore develop this theme. And although the words “Know thyself!” have been enunciated throughout the ages, encouraging man to perform his noblest deeds, still he can find no answers, no satisfaction if, under the influence of “Know thyself”, he only sees what the senses provide - the exterior world. Now, however, he is directed towards something else, something beyond the exterior world. If with this sensation, which one can have when one gazes out to the depths of cosmic space with the question of his own being in mind, when in thought we approach super-sensible being, which is one with the inner human being, then the corresponding sensation will be given through the words I provided to you the last time:
We can now observe and feel in our souls the beauty, the greatness and the sublimity of the external world, but we also realize that we can never find our own being in this world. For the person who seeks the spirit, it is necessary to repeatedly feel this sensation in his soul. Because by deeply experiencing the sensation that by looking out into the external world we gain no answer to the question of who we are, feeling this sensation again and again gives the soul the impulse and the strength that can carry us into the spiritual world. Yet just as by having this sensation we will be carried up into the spiritual world, we must also bear in mind that the person of normal consciousness in normal life is unprepared to encounter that world, which in reality is the world of his own being. Therefore on the border between the sense-world and the spiritual world that guardian stands who earnestly warns people against crossing over into the spiritual world unprepared. And it is the case, my dear friends, that we must always keep in mind the fact that the Guardian stands before the [entrance to] the spiritual world for the well-being of unprepared human beings. And we must therefore be quite clear about the necessity for a certain attitude of soul in order to achieve real knowledge and insight. If such insight were provided to everyone walking down the street it would be terrible for them because they wouldn't be prepared. They would be receiving it without the preparatory attitude of soul. Therefore we must deeply feel the second sensation which over and over again tells us how we must approach the Guardian:
Then the Guardian himself speaks while we are still on this side, in the sense-fields. He points to the other side where for us is unmitigated darkness while we are on this side, but which is to become light-filled, which must become light to us through spirit-knowledge, from out of which he speaks who alone is bright. He speaks, indicating the apparent darkness, this maya-darkness:
Whoever can feel deeply enough the words which resound from the Guardian's mouth, if he looks back upon himself, will realize that this looking back, the perception in looking back, constitutes the first stage of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge which is preparatory for the true self-knowledge which reveals spiritual cosmic knowledge of the being which is one with our own humanity. And then the knowledge arises which one can obtain on this side of the threshold of spiritual existence, knowledge which reveals the contamination in our own thinking, feeling and willing in terrible but true images; as three beasts arising from the yawning abyss between the sense-world and the spirit-world. What we should feel at the abyss of being between the maya, the illusion, and the real world, should appear before our souls as the fourth sensation.
We must be quite clear, my dear friends, that bravery in acquiring knowledge is not present at first in the soul, but cowardice for acquiring knowledge is what dominates. Especially in our time that cowardice is what holds back most people from even approaching an insight into the spiritual world.
That is the second thing that we have within us - which plants doubt in our soul, every kind of uncertainty about the spiritual world. It is inherent in feeling, because feeling is weak and cannot rise to enthusiasm. True knowledge must outgrow superficial enthusiasm which trails all kinds of cheap external life. Inner enthusiasm, inner fire which becomes a burning thirst for knowledge; that is what overcomes the second beast.
We must find the courage and the fire to bring activity to our thinking. When we create with ordinary consciousness we create arbitrarily, we create what is not real. When, however, we correctly prepare ourselves for creative thinking, the spiritual world streams into our creative thinking. And then, due to knowledge-bravery, to a burning thirst for knowledge and to creative knowledge, we are truly standing in the spiritual world.
Such sensations can lead to feeling what we must activate in ourselves in order to enter the spiritual world as genuine, living human beings. In ordinary life it is often the most banal things which cause us to realize that life is serious and not a mere game. But what leads to knowledge does not impress us as much as exterior life does. It is all too easily made a game. And one is convinced that the game is in earnest. But one harms one's self and others greatly by playing at spiritual striving, by not being completely earnest about it. This earnestness should not be expressed as sentimentality. Humor may be called for with respect to some aspects of life. But the humor must then be serious. When we compare earnestness with mere game-playing, it is not sentimentality, false piety or the rolling of eyes as opposed to games. Rather is it the possibility of really concentrating on spiritual striving and consistently and wholeheartedly living in it. In order to sense the importance of what I am saying, my dear friends, it would be really good for spiritual striving if all the friends who are sitting here - especially those who have been in the Anthroposophical Society for a long time - to ask themselves the following question: How often have I resolved to undertake some task related to anthroposophical life, and how often have I completely forgotten about it after a short time? Perhaps I would have done it if I had thought about it, but I did not think about it any more. It was extinguished, just as a dream is extinguished. It is neither meaningless nor unimportant to ask yourselves such a question. And perhaps it would not be unimportant if a large number of our friends were to undertake something in this direction now. The Christmas Conference [1923] was to be the beginning of true esotericism pouring into the entire anthroposophical worldview stream, supported by the Anthroposophical Society. How often - one can ask - have I forgotten what I found to be quite beautiful during the Christmas Conference and in my thoughts and feelings continued as though the Anthroposophical Society were the same as it was before the Christmas Conference. And if someone says: that is not the case with me, it could be quite important for that person to ask himself: Am I fooling myself to think it is not the case with me? In respect to all anthroposophical activity have I realized that a new phase of the Anthroposophical Society has begun? To ask this question is very significant, for then the correct earnestness enters the soul. And you see, this is connected to the life-blood of the Anthroposophical Society and therefore to the life-blood of every member who has requested acceptance in the Class; and it is good if it relates to something which exerts a strong influence in life. Therefore it would be good if all those who wish to belong to the Class ask themselves: Isn't there something I can do - now that the Anthroposophical Society has been re-founded - do differently than previously. Couldn't I introduce something new into my life as an anthroposophist? Couldn't I change the way I acted previously by introducing something new? That would be enormously important, if taken seriously, for every individual who belongs to the Class. For thereby it would be possible for the Class to continue without being burdened by such heavy baggage. For everyone who keeps to the old humdrum routine burdens the progress of the Class. It is perhaps not noticeable, but true nevertheless. In esoteric life there is no possibility of introducing what is so prevalent in life: interpreting lies as truth. If one tries to do this in esoteric life it is not the interpretation which matters, but the truth. In esoteric life only the truth works, nothing else. You may color something because of vanity, but what has been colored makes no impression on the spiritual world. The unvarnished truth is what is effective in the spiritual world. From all this you can judge how different spiritual realities are - which under the surface of life work today as always - from what everyday life shows, patched up as it is with so many lies. Very little of what passes today between people is true. To continually remind ourselves of this belongs to the beginning of work within the Class. For only with this notion can we find the strength to cooperate here in the Class with what will be unfolded in our souls from lesson to lesson in order that we may find the path to the spiritual world. For we will only be able to recognize what must be cultivated in our thinking, feeling and willing in order for the three beasts to be defeated: thinking, the thought - phantom; feeling - mockery; willing - the bony crookedness of spirit. For these three beasts are the enemies of knowledge. We see them in the mirror, but as realities from the yawning abyss of being. And deeply rooted with our humanity is everything which hinders us from real knowledge, firstly in our thinking. Normal human thinking is reflected in the thought-phantom of the first beast, the form of which was described thus:
It is the image of ordinary human thinking which thinks about things of the outside world and doesn't realize that such thinking is a corpse. Where did the being live whose corpse this ordinary thinking is? Yes, my dear friends, nowadays - in accordance with contemporary civilization - when thinking from waking in the morning till retiring at night according to the guidance given us in school and in life itself, our thinking is a corpse. It is dead. When did it live, and where? It lived before we were born; it lived when our souls were in pre-earthly existence. Just as you imagine, dear friends, that the human being lives on the physical earth animated by his soul within and he goes around in this physical body until his death, when the animating soul is invisible to external observation and the corpse is visible - the dead form of the human figure. You must imagine this related to thinking. A living, organic, growing, moving being possessed it before the human being entered into earthly existence. Then it becomes a corpse buried in our own heads, in our brains. And just as if a corpse in the tomb were to declare: I am the man! so declares our thinking when it lies buried in the brain as a corpse and thinks about the external things of the world. It is a corpse. It is perhaps depressing to realize that it is a corpse, but it is true, and esoteric knowledge must hold to the truth. That is the meaning of the Guardian of the Threshold's words. After he has described the warning of the three beasts, he continues. And the words which resound in our hearts are these:
I will repeat it:
Thinking, with which we achieve so much here in the sense-world, for the gods of the cosmos is the corpse of our soul's being. By entering into an earthly existence we have died in thinking during this time on earth. The death of thinking had gradually been preparing itself since the year 333 A.D. The middle of the fourth post-Atlantean period. Before that life had poured into thinking, which was the heritage of pre-earthly existence. The Greeks felt that vitality, as did the Orientals, in that they thought of thinking as being the work of the spirit, of the gods. They knew, in that they thought, that in every thought the god lived. That has been lost. Thinking has become dead. And we must heed the message of the times that reaches us through the Guardian:
This cosmic age began in the year 333 after Christianity began, after the first third of the fourth century had passed. And now thinking, devoid of the force of life, is clearly present in everything. And the dead thinking of the nineteenth century forced dead materialism to the surface of human civilization. It is different with feeling. The greatest enemy of humanity, Ahriman, has not yet been able to kill feeling in the same way he killed thinking. Feeling also lives in human beings in the present cosmic age. But man has to a great extent driven this feeling down from full consciousness into the halfway unconscious. Feeling arises in the soul. Who has it in his power, as he has thinking in his power? To whom is it clear what lives in feeling as it is clear to him what lives in thinking? Take one of the saddest - to the spirit saddest - occurrences of our times, my dear friends. When people think clearly they are citizens of the world, for they well know that thinking makes you human, even when it is dead in the present age. But people are separated by their feeling into nations, and especially today they let this unconscious feeling dominate in the worst possible way. Because people feel themselves as only belonging to a certain group, all kinds of conflicts arise. Nevertheless, world karma places us in a certain human group, and it is our feeling that acts as an instrument of world karma when we are placed in this tribe, in that class, in that nation. It is not through thinking that we are so placed. Thinking, if it is not colored by feeling and willing, is the same thinking everywhere. Feeling, however, is graduated according to the different regions of the world. Feeling lies halfway in the unconscious, alive yes, but in the unconscious. Therefore the ahrimanic spirit, unable to exert influence on the living part, uses the opportunity to agitate in the unconscious. And he concentrates this agitation on the confusion between truth and error. All our prejudices based on feeling are colored by ahrimanic influences and impulses. If we want to enter the spiritual world this feeling must rise up before our souls. We must be able to include feeling in the development of knowledge. Through constant review of our own being, we must be able to know what kind of persons we are as feeling human beings. This is not easy. With thinking it is relatively easy to achieve clarity about ourselves. We don't always do it, but it is still easier to admit: you are not exactly a genius, or you lack clear thinking about this or that. At the most, it is either vanity or opportunism which prevents us from achieving clarity about our thinking. But with feeling we never really get to the point of observing ourselves in our souls. We are always convinced that the direction of our feeling is the correct one. We must delve most intimately into our souls if we wish to know ourselves as feeling human beings. Only by facing ourselves directly with complete conscientiousness do we lift ourselves up, do we lift ourselves up over the obstacles which the second beast places before us on the path to the spiritual world. Otherwise, if we do not occasionally practice this self-knowledge as feeling human beings, then we will always develop a mocking countenance with respect to the spiritual world. Because we are not conscious of our ailing feeling capacity, we are also unconscious of being mockers of the spiritual world. We disguise the mockery in all possible forms, but we are still mocking the spiritual world. And it is just those, of whom I spoke previously, who lack earnestness, who are the scoffers. They are sometimes embarrassed to express the mockery even to themselves, but they are still mocking the spiritual world. For how can one lack seriousness regarding the spiritual world, playing games about it, without mocking it. To such as they the Guardian speaks:
The first beast is the reflection of our will. The will does not only dream, it does not lie only half in the unconscious; it lies completely in the unconscious. I have often described to you, my dear friends, how the will lies deep in the unconscious. And deep in the unconscious is where man seeks the paths of his karma, at least for ordinary consciousness. Every step that a person takes in life related to karma is measured. But he knows nothing about it. It is all unconscious. Previous earth-lives work forcefully into his karma. Karma leads us to our life's crises, to our decisions, to our doubts. Here we meet the individual's aberrations, the person who lives only for himself, and seeks only his own way. In thinking: one seeks the path which all men seek. In feeling: one seeks the path which his group seeks. In feeling we recognize if someone is from the north, from the west or the south, from eastern, southern or central Europe. One must concentrate on the will's unconscious impulses in order to see another human being as a single individual, rather than merely a human being in general or a member of a group. This is an act of will - but also deep in the unconscious. The first beast shows the aberrations of the will. The Guardian reminds us:
In our willing work the spiritual powers which want to strip our bodies from us during our earthly existence and therewith take a portion of our souls with it, in order to build an earth which does not continue to develop as Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. Rather the earth is to be sundered from divine intentions and stolen at some point in the future. Together with the earth stolen from the gods, the human being would be united with certain powers which work in his will ... the same will through which he seeks his karma. The first beast is surely capable of revealing in a mirror-image what is working in the will: bony head, dried-out body with dull blue skin, the crooked back. It is the Ahrimanic spirit, which acts in the will when karma is being sought and which can only be overcome by the courage of knowledge. So the Guardian of the Threshold speaks about this beast as I have just described. I will read it again:
In these words from the Guardian of the Threshold's mouth resound further the warning to the human being seeking knowledge and insight. Let the following words live most intensively in our souls, my dear friends, and let us listen often to the Guardian's words:
Once again, you must grasp the concordance in these verses: (The first stanza of this mantram is written on the blackboard)
At first we feel what each stanza contains. The second stanza refers to feeling: (The second stanza is written on the blackboard)
Now we feel first: “denies”, and then “hollows out” and feel the nuance that enters into the verses by “denies” becoming “hollows out”. The Guardian's words directed to willing:
This third stanza is written on the blackboard:
Note that in all three stanzas the word “evil” echoes. [The word is underlined.] And if you observe and feel the critical points in the escalations and in the difference between thinking, feeling and willing [the words are underlined], and if you correctly sense how all three are united by the always recurring word “evil”, then, my dear friends, each stanza will become a mantram for you, according to its inner meaning. And they can become a guide on the three stages to the spiritual world - that of the third beast, of the second beast and of the first beast. And if you never omit these three concordances and never fail to unite the three by the one decisive word towards an inner soul- then they will become your guide, my dear friends, on the path past the Guardian of the Threshold and into the spiritual world. We will get to know him better in the following lessons.
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| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Third Hour
29 Feb 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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| And at the same time you have impressions from the physical world, which in a certain sense slip under your thoughts, supporting them. You don't have to do very much in order to live in reality. Reality accepts you as a physical reality. |
| It shows how one can be full of all kinds of vanity and overestimation of one's self and underestimation of others. Also, one judges people not only because they have something important to say, but because one wishes to bask in the good opinion of others. |
| Now that we have contemplated the first two, the last one will be easy to understand. [The third verse is written on the blackboard.] Let strive in you with thrust of will: Which rises out of semblance-being With creative self it rises up; it surges up from the will to what gives the self substance, content ... |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Third Hour
29 Feb 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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Let us begin, my dear friends, with the words the Guardian speaks - words we already know - when pointing in the direction of the spiritual world, which characterize what the human being can feel on the threshold of the spiritual world as he strides past the Guardian.
It's about the path one should follow in thought, the path which one will actually take when seeking access to the spiritual world. And we should not say that when someone experiences in thought - if he honestly and earnestly lives in his thoughts - what the person in process of initiation realizes in reality by entering the spiritual world, that the former does not actually participate in what is revealed to the human soul when entering the spiritual world, because it is only a reflected ideation. One should not say: Let's leave gaining entrance into the spiritual world to those who are striving to be initiates and stand with their souls in the spiritual world as people stand in physical existence with their senses. Rather should one say: When even in thought one approaches the description of the path that leads to the spiritual world, and provided the thinking is not superficial, he will experience and feel fully what it means to leave the world of the senses behind, a world only the intellect can grasp, and enter the spiritual world. That is what I will speak to you about today, my dear friends, and not merely for those who already seek the transformation which will lead them into the spiritual world, but also for those who, at first, only experience the transformation in their thoughts. And that includes all of you, else you wouldn't be sitting here. Therefore the following must be said: When man makes his observations in the world of senses - life consists of such observations - when man uses the things that he encounters in the sense world to unfold his will, when he proceeds from observation to action, and when he lets the combination of such observations and actions have an effect on his feelings, he stands to a certain extent on firm ground, for this process has been implanted in him as a physical being on earth between birth and death. Wherever he doesn't have this firm ground, he looks for it. When he is expected to believe something, he looks everywhere for the facts behind it. He asks: What experience proves this or that? He doesn't like to accept something in ordinary life which is not proven by this or that outward experience. He stands on firm ground because he says to himself: What is true is what is seen, what is real is what is held in the hand. The world, the world order itself, provides a certain security in human life. And because of this security, man differentiates - insofar as it is necessary for ordinary life between birth and death - he differentiates between truth and illusion, truth and semblance, truth and dream. When verification cannot be found, he calls it semblance. And only by differentiating between true and false, reality and semblance, is life secure. Just imagine, my dear friends, that you were to go through life between birth and death in a way that you could never really know whether something that confronts you is truth or illusion. You could not determine whether a person who stands before you and speaks to you is a real person or the semblance of one. You could not differentiate between something happening to you being real or merely a dream. Just imagine what insecurity, what terrible insecurity that would cause in your life. But exactly as you would feel if life were to withdraw the possibility of knowing whether you were dreaming or confronting reality, is also the way the adept feels standing at the threshold of the spiritual world. That is the very first important experience he has when he realizes that on the other side of the threshold is the spiritual world. As we have already seen, only darkness streams at first from this spiritual world. Yet although here or there brilliant flashes of light emanate from the darkness - in which the Guardian of the Threshold's words are heard, as we learned last time - with all the knowledge of the senses and reason you may have gleaned in the physical world, you would never be able to know whether a real spiritual being, a real spiritual fact stands before you or a shape in a dream. That is the first experience of the spiritual world, that semblance and reality are mixed up and to differentiate between semblance and reality is problematic at first. That is something which should be borne in mind especially by those who have experienced impressions from the spiritual world not through normal spiritual training, but due to elementary forces, which can be the result of any number of things, such as shattering events, illness and the like. He shouldn't deceive himself by saying: well, now you have the spiritual world, because it could well be that whatever it is that seems to suddenly shine from out of the spiritual world is merely an illusion. Therefore the first thing one must learn in order to enter the spiritual world is the ability to distinguish between truth and error, between reality and illusion - independent of what is experienced in the physical world. One must acquire completely new capacities for distinguishing between reality and illusion. In our times, when people no longer pay much attention to how the spiritual world illuminates life, in which they only pay attention to what is palpable, to what can only be seen by physical eyes; in our times, when people are completely attuned to the overt security which life between birth an death provides; in these times it is especially difficult to acquire this capacity to distinguish between truth and error, reality and semblance in respect to the spiritual world. It is in this area where the most earnestness is required. And where does this come from? You see, when you confront the outer world as a physical person, you think about this outer world. And at the same time you have impressions from the physical world, which in a certain sense slip under your thoughts, supporting them. You don't have to do very much in order to live in reality. Reality accepts you as a physical reality. It is quite different in the spiritual world. You must first grow into the spiritual world. For the spiritual world you must acquire the correct feeling of your own true reality. Then you will gradually be able to differentiate between truth and error, between reality and semblance of reality. When you sit down on a chair - at the moment you don't fall on the floor, but are able to sit safely on the chair, you know that in the physical world the chair is a real chair and not merely an imagined chair. The chair itself provides proof of its reality. That is not the case in the spiritual world. For why is it so in the physical world? Because in the physical world your thinking, your feeling, your willing are held together by the physical body. You are a threefold human being: a thinking, feeling and a willing human being. But they are all unified within each other by the physical body. At the moment when the human being enters the spiritual world, he immediately becomes a triple being. His thinking goes its own way, his feeling goes its own way, his willing goes its own way. So you can think in the spiritual world, have thoughts which have nothing to do with your willing; but these thoughts are illusions. You can have feelings which have nothing to do with your willing; but these feelings contribute to your undoing, not to your advancement. That is the essential thing, that when a person approaches the threshold of the spiritual world it seems to him that his thinking flies out into distant space and that his feeling goes beyond his memory. Consider for a moment what I just said. You see, memory is really something which comes very close to the threshold of the spiritual world. Let's say you experienced something ten years ago. It returns in memory. The experience is there again. You are justifiably satisfied, as far as the physical world is concerned, if you have a vivid memory of it. For someone who has entered the spiritual world, however, it is as though he pushes through the memory, as though he goes farther than the memory reaches. In any case he goes farther back than his memory of physical earthly life can reach. He goes back beyond birth. And when one enters the spiritual world, he immediately senses that his feeling does not stay with him. Thinking at least goes out into the presently existing universe. It disperses, as it were, in cosmic space. Feeling goes out of the universe and if one wants to follow feeling one must ask: Where are you now? When you have become 50 years old, then you have gone back in time farther than 50 years; you have gone back 70 years, 100 years, 150 years. Feeling leads you completely out of the time in which you have lived since childhood. And willing, if you take it seriously, leads you ever farther back in time, back to your previous earth lives. That is something which happens immediately, dear friends, when you really come to the threshold of the spiritual world. The physical body ceases holding you together. One no longer feels within the confines of the skin; one feels split into parts. You feel as though your thoughts, which were previously confined by feelings, are streaming out into cosmic space and becoming cosmic thoughts. Your feelings seem to go back in time in the spiritual world between your last death and your present earth life. And with your volition you feel yourself in your previous earth life. It is just this splitting of the human being - I described it in my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds—which causes difficulties upon entering the spiritual world, because your thoughts expand. They had previously been held together and now stream out into cosmos space. At the same time they become almost imperceptible. So one must achieve the ability to perceive the thoughts which have thus expanded. Feeling is no longer permeated by thoughts, for the thoughts have gone, so to speak. So your feeling can only turn prayerfully, with reverence and devotion, to the beings with whom you pass your life between death and a new birth on earth. This is possible if one has cultivated such reverence for the spiritual world in life. But the moment one's volition, which wants to proceed to previous earth-lives, takes over, the person meets a great difficulty in that he feels an enormous attraction for the contents of his lower nature. And here works most strongly what I previously said about the difficulty in being able to to differentiate between semblance and reality. For the person acquires a strong preference for semblance. I'll describe it as follows. When a person begins to meditate, when he or she is really dedicated to the meditation, he would like to continue in tranquility. He does not want it to deprive him of life's comforts. Well, this desire not to be deprived of life's comforts is a strong producer of illusions and semblances. Because when you dedicate yourself completely to meditation, necessarily from the depths of your soul the question arises about your capacity for evil. One cannot do otherwise than to feel through meditation, through that penetration into the depths, everything you are capable of perpetrating. But the urge to deny this is so strong that one submits to the illusion that one is essentially a very good person. The real experience of meditation does not indicate such a result. It shows how one can be full of all kinds of vanity and overestimation of one's self and underestimation of others. Also, one judges people not only because they have something important to say, but because one wishes to bask in the good opinion of others. But that is the least of things. He who really meditates honestly will see what drives live in his soul and what he is therefore capable of. Man's lower nature appears strongly before the soul's inner vision. And this honesty must exist in mediation. When it is there we can see what the will's disposition really is, which is reflected in the words we have already heard:
Because the human being tends to succumb to illusion, he suppresses the impression that necessarily arises in meditation, and he feels the urge to mock the spiritual world. Only by honestly facing these opposing forces can he stand in the spiritual world in the right way. Then the sight of the second beast appears on the threshold:
And then when we are helpless to follow the thoughts we had in our heads during earth life and are now cosmic thoughts, because of this inability to bestride our cosmic thoughts, that the third beast appears:
The less we succumb to illusions about this trinity, which reflects our own being, the more we find in us the true human who can receive the light from the spiritual world and who is in a position to really solve the riddle, insofar as it is possible on earth to do so, which is conceded to us with the words: “O man, know thyself!”. For through this self-knowledge streams forth the true knowledge of the world which can lead us in the right way through life. Therefore, this threefold splitting in which one's thinking goes its way, feeling goes its way and willing goes its way, which otherwise are united by exterior forces, may be expressed by the words the Guardian of the Threshold says to the adept. We heard them the last time:
These are the words spoken by the Guardian as a warning so that we know how we should not enter the spiritual world. Upon entering the spiritual world we must have become accustomed to a different way of judging, a different way of feeling and a different way of willing from what prevails in the physical world. And for that it is really necessary that we grasp this threefold element within us, that we firmly direct our gaze within in order to be alert to what our thinking really is, what our feeling really is, what our willing really is and what they must become for us to be able to step across the threshold into the spiritual world, if only in our thoughts. For the fact is that the gods place will-power before the bliss of knowledge and they require it. Therefore, directly after the Guardian has spoken these discouraging, perhaps frightening words, he continues with the other words which tell us what we should do. At this point the first lessons of this class also become practical in that they instruct us what should enter into our thinking, feeling and willing forces in order to enter the spiritual world in the right way. And the verse should also be threefold which should flow into us in a way that we can live with it. For in living with it we are setting out on the path to the spiritual world. In the same way that we eat and drink , that we see and hear, must something be evoked in us by what the Guardian of the Threshold, standing before the spiritual world, says with earnest visage.
Let us examine the verse. When the human being lives in the sense-world between birth and death, he feels to be within his physical body. He knows that his legs carry him through the world. He knows that blood circulation gives him life. He knows that his breathing awakens life. He commits himself to this breathing, blood circulation and the movement of the members that carry him through the world. In doing so, he is a physical being on the earth. Just as he commits himself to these things physically, he must also commit with his soul to the leading powers of the spiritual world if he wants to participate in it, knowledgeably enter into it. Just as I must say that for physical health your blood must circulate in the correct way, your breathing must be in order, I must also advise the person who wishes to stand correctly in the spiritual world, that his soul must follow, be sustained and led by his own spiritual guides: [The first verse, beginning with the last words, is written on the blackboard:] Guiding beings of your spirit But, my dear friends, you are committed to your blood by the force of nature, as you are to the movement of your limbs, also your breathing. But you cannot be committed in this way to your spirit's guiding beings in the spiritual world. Inner activity is required. You don't reach them as you achieve breathing by movement of the lungs; you reach them, however, by learning to revere them. [Over “Guiding beings of your spirit” “revere” is written:] revere Guiding beings of your spirit. Revere with what is deepest in you, with your selfhood. [“Selfhood” is written in front of “revere”.] selfhood revere Guiding beings of your spirit. Selfhood as such should revere Guiding beings of your spirit. [When spoken, the missing words are added, then written on the blackboard:] selfhood as such should revere Guiding beings of your spirit. Thus, you have the manner in which you must stand within the spiritual world, given in the words spoken by the Guardian of the Threshold. And how do you stand within? Not as though you were standing with your legs on solid ground; not through the warmth of your blood in physical life; not by drawing breath. You stand there by virtue of feeling yourself in the half-spiritual etheric essence flowing through you: Etheric essence flows in you The feeling is as though one were a small cloud around which a spiritual wind blows, that one is carried by this wind in which selfhood, one's own I, reveres the spiritual guides which approach with the wind from all sides. We are invited to submerge into it. But what is it initially? As long as we remain in our meditation in what I have just described, it is mere semblance. We must submerge in this semblance fully conscious that the wind and the reverence for the spiritual guides is only semblance. [The fourth line from the bottom is written on the blackboard.] Plunge beneath the semblances Why should we do all this? Well, in earth-life initially we have only a vague sense of our I - “Selfhood” - we define it with the word “I”, but in reality it is an undefined, dim, hidden feeling. [The fifth line from the bottom is written.] Selfhood as such hides from you We don't know much about it. And what we do know is not cosmic-being, it is cosmic-semblance. [The sixth line from the bottom is written.] Cosmic semblance confronts you When we follow the Guardian of the Threshold's indications ... [The seventh line from the bottom is written.] See in yourself the weaving thoughts it all becomes the weaving of our own thoughts. Now we have the first mantric verse which can give us the strength in our thinking to accept the challenge with our selfhood which can initially be expressed in the words:
This is the invitation to us when observing our thoughts in retrospection. If you close yourself off from the outside world and observe how your thoughts fluctuate and then you follow the invitation in these seven lines, you have complied with the Guardian of the Threshold's first demand.
Just as through the first mantric verse we enter thinking, we enter the inner world of thinking through the second. [The second verse is written on the blackboard.] To hear within the flow of feeling Put aside thinking and try to observe your own feelings. In thinking everything is semblance. But when we descend into feeling semblance and being blend, intermix. That is immediately apparent. when semblance and being within you blend Only our I, selfhood, does not wish to enter real existence. It is used to outside semblance and appearance. It tends towards semblance, still retaining this from the world of the senses:
in what results from feeling. It is seemingly being, a mixture of semblance and being. “So plunge into what's seemingly being”: when we will feel the mood which lies in these four lines, we will realize that it has become serious as we plunge into the semblance: In you the cosmic-psychic forces First of all, selfhood had to “revere” by sinking into thought; now selfhood should “consider”. The thoughts are to be brought down into feeling. We then encounter something which assures us of true being:
No longer “semblance”, but “living powers”. Whereas our self, our I tends towards semblance, the gods give us the rock of being in the depths of feeling. In order to convert the verse into a mantram, it would be good to revisit such correspondences.
—in the third verse we will see how it increases—
Here [first verse] is only semblance; and here [second verse]
the beings who guide us through the ether; the living powers who guide us back to pre-earthly existence - where feeling goes. If you wish to make it into a true mantram however, you must take something else into consideration. Read the first verse:
Clearly this is a trochaic rhythm, which I beg you to observe. If you stress this strongly and this weakly [the iambic rhythm symbols breve and macron—are placed above the beginning of each line and then spoken with the appropriate stress], it corresponds to the correct etheric movement in the soul where reverence for the higher beings requires such a tone. Thus you will be led into the spiritual world.
The way in which the soul feels these words, either trochaic or iambic - here [in the first verse] there is a distinctly trochaic beat, and here [in the second verse] a distinctly iambic beat - gives the soul the corresponding verve. It is not a question of merely acquiring intellectual information, even when the soul is making its way to the spiritual world only in thought. Rather is it important that the soul enters with the right breathing and rhythm of cosmic being. If you use an iambic rhythm in striving to enter cosmic thought, you have misunderstood the Guardian of the Threshold. If you use a trochaic verse and not an iambic one for entrance into the world of cosmic feeling, again you have misunderstood the Guardian of the Threshold. The third element we must plunge into is willing. And the Guardian of the Threshold also gives us a verse for this. Now that we have contemplated the first two, the last one will be easy to understand. [The third verse is written on the blackboard.]
it surges up from the will to what gives the self substance, content ...
Feel again the escalation:
You will feel that all three are mantric verses if you pay attention to the trochaic element here [the first verse], the iambic here [the second verse]. Here however [the third verse] we have two stressed syllables. [on the line beginnings on blackboard the spondaic symbols - - are placed and spoken with the corresponding emphasis:]
Here you have a spondee rhythm. This is what must be observed. You must release yourself from the mere intellectual content and attend to the trochee, iambus and spondee rhythms. At the moment, we are able to move on from the intellectual meaning to commitment to the rhythm, from that moment it is possible to leave the physical world and really enter the spiritual one. For the spiritual, cannot be grasped only using the words whose meanings apply to the physical world; but only if we use the opportunity to carry the rhythms of these words out to the living cosmos. Therefore, self-observation is exercised on the soul in a threefold sequence of thinking, feeling and willing. The soul will then express itself correctly if it experiences this as it does eating and drinking by the body, as it experiences blood circulation and breathing, if it experiences the rhythm in these words:
In words you have at first the blood; with the corresponding rhythms you have the circulating blood. Seek the sense of these rhythms, let them act in your soul and you will come near to the Guardian's first warning - which I told you at the beginning of these lessons, my dear friends:
And if we wish to find the light that emerges from the darkness, we will find it if we seek it by this threefold path, filling ourselves with this lifeblood for the soul that wishes to tread the path to true knowledge of the spirit and of God. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Fourth Hour
07 Mar 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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| If you reflect on this, my dear friends, it will be of great help in understanding true esoteric life as we continue. For what must be taken seriously is that in the moment that we accept the esoteric, our very understanding of it brings about a different relationship of thinking, feeling and willing in us than our everyday consciousness is accustomed to. |
| With this kind of attitude it is not possible to understand esoteric truths correctly. Such truths can only be understood correctly when, for example, the following happens. |
| And when we understand the words, the thoughts they are meant to express come to us because they are contained in the words. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Fourth Hour
07 Mar 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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My dear friends, In the previous lessons, we were concerned with meeting the Guardian of the Threshold. And we must understand this meeting well, to the extent that its earnestness can really occupy our minds. For here we enter an area which is essentially different from other areas of spiritual life, what is called spiritual life by today's civilization, that is. The encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold is the first thing one experiences when a relationship with the spiritual world truly and earnestly takes place. A relationship with the spiritual world cannot take place without this understanding of the meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold, because the spiritual world is on the other side of this threshold. So when communications are received from the spiritual world, they should be understood as merely in preparation for a relationship with the spiritual world. As an example of what we will receive today, my dear friends, I would like to tell you a story taken from ancient esoteric tradition. Once upon a time a student was accepted into the mysteries. He completed the preliminary stages. And when he had achieved a certain stage of maturity - not that he became what most people nowadays consider clairvoyant, but he entered into a relationship with the spiritual world, the relationship where, as far as feeling is concerned, one correctly receives communications from the spiritual world - the teacher said to him: Behold, when I talk to you the words I speak are not human words; what I have to say is merely clothed in human words. What I have to say to you are the gods' thoughts, and these gods' thoughts are imparted to you by human words. But it must be clear to you that I am thus appealing to everything in your soul. You must meet the words which I direct to you on behalf of the gods with all your thinking, all your feeling, all your willing. You must receive these words with all your soul's enthusiasm, all its inner warmth, all its inner fire. You must receive them with total alertness, to the limit of your mind's capacity. But there is one soul-force in you to which I am not appealing. Your memory. And I will be satisfied if you do not hold in your memory what I am now saying to you. I will be satisfied if tomorrow you forget what I have said today. Because what you usually call your memory, and what others call your memory, is only meant for earthly things, and not for godly things. So, when you appear before me again tomorrow, and when I again speak to you, appealing to your thinking, feeling, willing, and to all your enthusiasm, all your warmth, all your inner fire, to your mind's alertness, then these soul forces will be renewed for what is to be received. Everything should be new and freshly vital the next day, and the day after, and every day. I said that I do not appeal to your memory, to your capacity for remembering. That does not mean that tomorrow you should remember nothing of what is said to you today. But you should not preserve it in your memory alone. You should wait and see what your memory makes of it. What should lead you to me tomorrow in a new attitude, however, should be your feelings, the innermost feelings of your soul; they should preserve what is said to you today. For you see, memory, that capacity for remembrance, is for learning. What the esoteric has to say, however, is not merely for learning, but for life, and every time it approaches you it should be relived without the help of memory's concepts. [Although there is no indication in the original, this appears to be the end of the story. Trans.] It is in fact true that whenever we are dealing with esoteric truths we should not think: Oh, I know that already. For the essence of the esoteric does not lie in knowledge, but in direct experience. And inwardly, in deeper levels of our souls than where memory has its roots, is where we should grasp and retain the esoteric. If you reflect on this, my dear friends, it will be of great help in understanding true esoteric life as we continue. For what must be taken seriously is that in the moment that we accept the esoteric, our very understanding of it brings about a different relationship of thinking, feeling and willing in us than our everyday consciousness is accustomed to. For everyday consciousness, thinking, feeling and willing are bound together. A trivial example may be used to demonstrate how closely bound together thinking, feeling and willing are in normal consciousness. Let's say you know someone, anyone, with whom you had an intimate or a more distant relationship. The things you experienced with him or her have been retained in your memory and permeate your feelings. When you are together with her these things lead you to certain actions in your behavior towards her. You go on in life with such thoughts and feelings. One day someone reminds you of this person, says something about her and your memory is stimulated. If you had loved her, your love is recalled; if you hated her, your hate is recalled. If you had wanted to undertake something together with her, this is also recalled. You cannot separate what you feel and will towards this person with what you think about her. [In German, the gender of this person is not specified; it is immaterial. Trans.] With this kind of attitude it is not possible to understand esoteric truths correctly. Such truths can only be understood correctly when, for example, the following happens. You know someone with whom you have a certain relationship. Certain aspects of this person are most antipathetic to you. When you are reminded of this person, you can think of her without the antipathy arising. You can simply think about her. It is quite difficult, my dear friends, to just think about your enemy without letting the animosity towards him arise. One can practice this with a correct grasp of art. You could ask yourself: Am I able to exclusively think about certain despicable characters in Shakespeare's works? If I were to meet such characters in real life, I would feel great antipathy towards them. When artistically presented, however, I can regard them objectively, perhaps just because they are such excellent villains. This is possible in the artistic area, for people do not always feel the urge to jump across the footlights and throttle these Shakespearean villains. It is possible to separate thinking from feeling in the artistic area. But in order to be a true esotericist one must also be able to do so in real life. At the moment when something derived from the esoteric is said, it must be possible to separate thinking from feeling in this way in order for it to be absorbed by the soul. For they do not separate on their own. At first when we think esoteric things, they are so strongly present within the thoughts, and they are so distant from personal feelings, that we do not understand them if we do not use pure thinking to do so. So if we do not wish to listen to the esoteric like couch potatoes and let everything pass over us with indifference, we must develop feelings and will-impulses apart from those engendered through thinking. Such feelings should be developed in order that the esoteric not remain a cold, icy field, which merely pours through our understanding, when it should immerse us in the brightest enthusiasm. But this enthusiasm, this world of feeling, must come from somewhere else if it does not come from thinking. For you see, if we want to make our feelings warm in the right way, we must be clear about the fact that when one speaks correctly from out of the esoteric, he is speaking from the godly sphere and therefore our feelings do not encounter thoughts, but realities. That is why when I gave the first lesson I said that it is the School that speaks here, that is, the true spirit which goes through the School, and that it is necessary to realize that the School has not been born of some personal intention, but that it has been willed and instated by the spiritual world. If we see it in this way, the School's existence will give us the enthusiasm we need. And then we will understand something else. Yes, my dear friends, in ordinary life and in ordinary science, we are spoken to in words. And when we understand the words, the thoughts they are meant to express come to us because they are contained in the words. The esotericist must also use words, for he must speak. But he uses words only as a means to show how the spirit flows toward us in streams and seeks to pour itself into human hearts. Therefore, it is necessary that in an Esoteric School a sense is gradually developed to hear beyond the words. And when this sense has been developed it will be possible to acquire - in respect to the esoteric - what has been called in esoteric streams of all times with an attitude of holiness: silence - the silence which preserves holiness. And this holiness-preserving silence is connected with something else, without which the esoteric can not further humanity. It is connected with innermost humility. And without this innermost humility it is not possible to approach the esoteric. Why? Well, when we are exhorted to hear beyond the words, it is an appeal to the innermost essence of our souls, not to our memory. Then our capacity comes into play, to what extent we are capable of hearing beyond the words. And it is good for our souls to hear much. But we should not jump to the conclusion that what dawns in our souls as a result is necessarily valid and should be relayed to the world. We will need much time, even when we hear beyond the words, before we come to terms with ourselves. We should develop the idea that the esoteric must first live and weave wordlessly in the soul before it can be considered to be mature enough. Therefore, in the esoteric we must go back from what words mean in ordinary life to the deeper understanding in the soul. And that is what I did in the last lesson, my dear friends, when I provided mantric verses for you, in which scanning is used. The first verse had a trochaic rhythm, the second an iambic rhythm and the third a spondaic rhythm. We should feel as though we were descending from the mountain into the valley with the trochaic rhythm, and we should understand how this rhythm, which pertains to thinking, can by grasped only when we feel this descent within the soul. That is why this verse is trochaic, beginning with a stressed syllable and descending to an unstressed one. It was meant to instill in us a kind of psychic blood circulation in spiritual space. We don't just stand still when such mantras penetrate our souls, or voice certain thoughts, but we move together with the spiritual movement of the cosmos, in that human thoughts weave into human souls. So we learned the first verse, which is related to thinking:
Yes, the gods have raised us to themselves by giving us thoughts. And we descend from the peaks upon which the gods have placed us down into the valleys, where we encompass and grasp earthly things with these thoughts. It is different with feeling. We act correctly if, standing below in the valley, we wish to ascend with our feelings on a spiritual ladder to the gods. Feeling puts us in the opposite wave movement: from below to above. Therefore, the mantric verse has an iambic rhythm. It begins with an unstressed syllable and rises to a stressed one. We should feel it:
And it's again different when we come to the will. To do so, we must be aware that our humanity is split within us. Then we must move close to the gods in feeling and, halfway there, through feeling's strength give birth to the will-impulse. That is only possible if we meditate in the spondaic, beginning with two stressed syllables:
As I said last time, it is not a question of understanding the meaning of words, but that we also grasp what lies in the words' movements and that our souls enter into that movement. In that way, we no longer depend only on ourselves, but we grow into the universe. Words whose meanings alone are grasped leave us unto ourselves. When the esoteric is concerned, however, it is a matter of growing together with the world, that we more and more come out of ourselves. For only so, by coming out of ourselves, are we able to withstand the separation of thinking, feeling and willing. Within ourselves, our corporeal “I” holds thinking, feeling and willing together for everyday consciousness. Outside, they must be held together by the gods. For this, however, we must enter the divine being. And we must grow together with the world. We must learn to develop a sense through which we can say to ourselves in all honesty and earnestness: Here I have my hand; I contemplate it. Over there stands a tree; I contemplate it. I contemplate my hand: it is I. I contemplate the tree: it is I. I contemplate the cloud: it is I. I contemplate the rainbow: it is I. I contemplate the thunder: it is I. I contemplate the lightning: it is I. I feel myself one with the world. Abstractly, meaning dishonestly, this is easy to achieve. Concretely, meaning honestly, one must overcome many inner aspects. If, however, one does not shy away from overcoming these things, the desired goal will be achieved. For the question the esotericist must ask himself is: I contemplate my hand; it belongs to me. What would my life - which began a few decades ago - have become if I didn't have the hand? It is necessary for all I have become. But the tree: it is as it stands before us today - its conception originally from the Ancient Moon - grown out of the whole earth organism. What was present in the Ancient Moon organism could not have existed had the conception of the tree not been developed. But at that time the conception of my thinking also arose. If the tree didn't exist, I would not be thinking today. My hand is only necessary for my present earthly existence. The tree is necessary in order that I can be a thinking being. Why should the hand be worth more to me than the tree? Why should I reckon the hand more to my physicality than the tree? Little by little I am able to realize that what I call the outer world is much more my inner world than what I considered to be the interior of my physicality in this incarnation. To feel this deeply and sincerely must be learned. So today we will consider three verses, mantric verses, through which this feeling-one with the whole so-called “outer being” can gradually penetrate deeply into the soul. What is our attitude initially towards outer being? We look down at the earth. We feel dependent on this earth; it gives us what we need to live. We look into space. The sun rises in the morning; it goes down in the evening; its light streams across the earth; it comes from afar, it goes afar. We look up at night: the heavenly sky speaks mysteriously to us. In this threefold gaze our relationship to the world is determined. I look downward, I look out afar, I look upward. But let us do this with intensive consciousness, let us do it as indicated in the following mantric verses:
[These lines are written on the blackboard.]
You see, my dear friends, we do not consciously relate what binds us to the earth with our own humanity. We look down at the earth, knowing that crystals are formed in it, knowing that it moves through space, that it exerts a force of gravity, that it attracts the stone that falls to earth, knowing that it attracts even us. We think about all this. What we don't think about are the urges, instincts, cravings and passions that live in us, what we ascribe to lower human nature, and which also belong to the earth. When we look down and ask what the earth causes in us, we should remember: something exists in us, created by the earth, which would drag us down below the human level, which would darken our I, which would push us into the subhuman region. We must be aware that we are so bound to the earth that, despite all its beauty and majesty that spreads over its surface, for us humans the downward force is at the same time a sub-humanizing force. By honestly recognizing this we develop into true human beings. Then we will be able to not only look downward in our development, but also to look afar in the distance at our own height and to see what surrounds the earth on all sides and describes our humanity within a circle. Thus, something begins physically, which to a certain extent lifts us above the downward pulling earthly forces. Through the downward pulling earthly forces man can become evil; but not so easily through the breath, which also belongs to what encircles the earth. And even less through the light which the sun lets encircle the earth. We consider breath and light as things that have no spiritual importance. But gods live in breath and light. And we must be aware that godly forces are especially active in light and, because they pass through us humans, act differently than the deep earthly forces. This brings the second mantric verse to our consciousness:
We are not always aware that we can love what flows over our earth as light, be it sunlight or starlight. But we are aware that we can love the sunlight, love it as warmly as a friend, then we also learn how gods in garments of light circle round the earth. Then the opinion that sunlight is merely what illuminates the earth changes for good; sunlight becomes the garment of the gods. And the gods wander over the earth in shining garments. And what we experience from the light becomes wisdom. The gods bring their wisdom to our hearts, into our souls. And now, because of this differentiation in feelings, we have ascended higher. First, we developed the appropriate feelings in respect to the deep earthly forces. We sensed correctly the part of our humanity that belongs to the deep earthly forces. Then we raised ourselves to that higher part of our humanity which belongs to the godly beings in shining garments moving over the earth, who do not wish to leave man in the earthly sphere but, even while he is walks on the earth, raise him to their spheres, so that when he passes through the gates of death, he can continue to walk in them. For the gods do not want to leave us alone on earth, but want to bring us into their spheres. They want to make us into beings who live among them. The deep earth forces want to separate us from the godly forces. Therefore, a previous mantra communicated to you:
We must, however, also feel this when we are in the world and feel ourselves to be one with the world. But we have not yet reached our full humanity in consciousness if we cannot look upward. We must gaze into the depths, we must gaze into the distance, we must gaze into the heights. From everyday consciousness which mixes the depth, the distant and the height, we must differentiate depth-consciousness, distant-consciousness, height-consciousness. [The third verse is written on the blackboard.]
We can feel that we are gazing up into the heights with full consciousness. Think, my dear friends, about standing outside in a field looking up at a star-bedecked sky. It becomes clearer when we have the opportunity to choose; it can also happen in daylight, but it is clearer at night. We feel at one with the world; we feel: that is you. But the point on earth we stand on, which we consider to be so important that it only encompasses our individual self, dissolves when we gaze up into space. It expands to the hemisphere. If we do this in the right way, then narrow selfhood ends and becomes selfless, for it is infinitely expanded in the heights of space:
[writing continues.]
Who really feels how the gods in shining garments move around the earth with the steaming sunlight and with every breath breathes in and breathes out of the human soul, and who gazes skywards feeling selfless in his selfhood, is soon able to also develop the distance of space within. The following lines are pertinent:
[writing continues.]
The heights are speaking. And just as we can grow in love together with the gods who move around the earth in shining garments, we can also grow together with the words resounding from the heights, if we develop the capacity to strive together with the forces of thinking in the heavenly heights. But, my dear friends, you will only be able to correctly achieve these inner feelings, which convert your consciousness to a depth, spatial and heights-consciousness, if you make the corresponding verses [about the third, second and first beasts] so deep and visible for your souls as contrasted with these verses [the three verses on the blackboard]. You come before the Guardian of the Threshold. Living thought-images about it should be active in your minds. The Guardian of the Threshold shows you the third beast of which we spoke in the previous lesson. What this beast characterizes resounds within you:
It is what draws us downward. We escape from it by saying with inner courage:
At first glance there seems to be little difference between looking at the beast and what liberates you from it. Both mantras sound similar in that they both characterize the drawing under, except that one specifically describes the beast, while the other indicates watchfulness. But let us go on to the second beast and take what rescues us from it; place both mantric verses alongside each other: the mood is completely different. In one the gruesome description of the second beast, in the other an appeal to the gods who approach us in shining garments. And we hear these two mantric verses alongside each other, how different their styles are:
Because we begin by describing the third beast, we must place ourselves, as in this mantric verse [Feel how the earth's depths ...], next to the third beast. At first we can not free ourselves, we are only prompted to be aware of where the beast wants to lead us. When we turn to the second beast, and the helping mantric verse [Feel how from cosmic distance ...], the verse is already able to lead us far away from the beast whose ghastliness is characterized by its mocking face. And when we approach the first beast, which wants to hinder us from hallowing our humanity by gazing up to the heavenly heights, and how we can escape in our innermost being from this beast, if we turn to the mantric verse which leads us upwards to the heavenly heights:
And yet: As though we wished to burn up all that this verse says and lift ourselves up in flame, the other verse exists - comforter and grace-giving as opposed to what the first beast is, by means of our own courageous soul-force:
You see, the last time we saw that we practice an inner rhythm when we integrate our own being into the shining light-being of the world, so today we must recognize how the esoteric things which we are learning have an inner connection, so that we must always go back to the previous elements - not only in respect to the meaning of the words, which remain earthly, but to the inner disposition. And this disposition, this mood, comes both from the whole and from the details. Take for example the first verse: “Feel how the earth's depths”. Here we are directed to the earth's depths. And the other verse directs us to “ The third beast's glassy eye”. They belong together. In the second verse “Feel how from cosmic distance”: We feel how the gods approach in shining garments. Here we are raised up - if we can really feel it - and away from what mocks the divine in the world. “The second beast's mocking countenance” is truly wiped away by radiant sunshine, if we wish to grasp “radiant sunshine” spiritually. And the third verse, which begins: “The first beast's bony spirit” ossifies us. We become warm if we are freed from the ossification by gazing at the heavenly heights. So we can also say:
My dear friends, it is necessary to add something, because the School must be taken seriously, and what I said that Wednesday about its conditions must be taken seriously. So I have been obliged to withdraw the membership card from a person who, by neglecting to do what is necessary on duty here, could have caused a great misfortune. I mention this here because I wish to show that the intentions indicated during the Christmas Meeting must be taken seriously. And I request that in the future this should not be understood as a mere manner of speaking, if the fact that this Esoteric School is desired in all earnestness by the spiritual world is deemed valid, and in the moment when someone does not want to be a representative of the anthroposophical movement in the right way, the School must reserve the right to withdraw his membership card. I wish to indicate in all earnestness that the membership card had to be withdrawn from a person - at least for a period of time, until that person shows by his attitude that the opposite is the case. We will grow into the School in the right way if we reject all the flippant views about the anthroposophical movement which have brought so much mischief into the movement. We must grow into the esoteric in full earnestness. And I must say here again that what was meant in the Christmas Meeting has not been understood by everyone. But the School's leadership will be alert and will take the School seriously. Let us bear this in mind as part of today's lesson. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Fifth Hour
14 Mar 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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| And whether he or she is able to approach and come to an understanding of the spiritual world in any form, depends upon understanding the essence of this Guardian. |
| The way it appears to the senses, and how reason understands it, it is certainly not divine. One would like to say: divinity is hidden within nature. It only appears to lack divinity. |
| And now we live in an age when, if human beings are not made aware of the meaning of these words during their life on earth, they will not understand the words called out to them in spirit-language. But that is what can happen to man if he confronts a future in which he passes through a world where these words are called out to him and he does not understand them and must therefore live through the torments of not understanding. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Fifth Hour
14 Mar 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
|---|
My dear friends, We have seen the changes which take place in a person who encounters the Guardian of the Threshold. And whether he or she is able to approach and come to an understanding of the spiritual world in any form, depends upon understanding the essence of this Guardian. In particular, we have seen how what constitutes man's inner self - thinking, feeling, willing - undergoes a substantial transformation in the Guardian of the Threshold's domain. Especially in the last lesson here, it became clear to us how in a certain respect thinking, feeling and willing go different ways upon entering the spiritual world, how they enter into different relationships than those which usually prevail for earthly consciousness. We have seen how through his will man is greatly influenced by earthly conditions. At the moment when the person approaches the spiritual world, in a certain sense thinking, feeling and willing become separated. The will, now living much more independently than previously in the soul, shows itself to be much more related to the forces which attract man to the earth. Feeling shows itself to be related to the forces which hold man in the periphery of the earth through which the light penetrates when it shines upon the earth in the morning, and which disappears from sight on the opposite side in the evening. Thinking, however, is the force which relates upwards to the heavenly. So that in the moment that man stands before the Guardian of the Threshold, this Guardian draws his attention to how he belongs to the whole world: through his will the earth, through his feeling the periphery, through his thinking the higher powers. But that, my dear friends, is exactly what must be made clear - that upon entering the spiritual world a growing together with the universe occurs. For normal consciousness we stand here in the world while outside of us are the forces which are active in the plant, mineral, animal kingdoms, to which we have access through our senses, but which at first indicate no relationship to human beings. So here we stand, apart, looking inwards at our thinking, feeling and willing, aware that our thinking, feeling and willing are somewhat separated, apart from external nature. And we feel a deep chasm between our human nature and the expansive nature around us. But this chasm must be bridged. For this chasm, only the exterior aspects of which are perceived by normal consciousness, is the threshold itself. And our being able to perceive the threshold depends on our ceasing to simply accept this unconsciousness, when we look within ourselves, concerning an external nature which we perceive as being foreign to humanity. For this chasm needs to be understood as being not only extremely important for human life, but also for the entire universe. Well, you see, at the moment when one enters the esoteric, a bridge over this must be built. We must, in a sense, merge with nature. We must stop saying to ourselves: Out there is nature, which has nothing to do with morality. We don't ask the minerals about morality, although it is of prime interest to us, nor do we ask the plants, or the animals - and in this materialistic age we have even ceased asking humans, because only human physicality is taken into consideration. And also when looking into the inner human we see what for normal consciousness is passive thinking, with which we can indeed visualize the world pictorially, but which is nevertheless powerless. Our thoughts are at first things we own which allow us to recognize the objects in the world. As thoughts they have no power. Our feeling is our inner life. To a certain extent we are separated through it from the world. Our will does communicate external objects to us, but in so doing the external objects take on something foreign to their nature. Something truly great happens to a person when he becomes aware of the abyss which exists between himself and nature: something great. Something which has been expressed since ancient times with these words, words which must be understood anew in every age: Nature must appear as divine, and the human must be a magical being. What does it mean, that nature must be able to appear as divine? Nature must be able to appear as divine. The way it appears to the senses, and how reason understands it, it is certainly not divine. One would like to say: divinity is hidden within nature. It only appears to lack divinity. At most in dreams do we see a relationship between nature and the inner life of man. We can become aware of how an irregularity in our breathing process in one direction or the other can cause happy dreams or fearful and anxiety-filled ones. We can be aware of how the purely natural overheating of a room can give a kind of moral content to certain dreams. Dreams pull nature into the psyche. However, we also know that in dreams our consciousness is submerged, and dreams are not what can directly describe the spiritual to us. Rather than the sleeping consciousness, we must see how the awakened consciousness presents nature. Now in nature, my dear friends, we have a relationship of the human physical body with what is solid, with what is characteristic of the earthly element. We have a relationship of the human etheric body with what is characteristic of water. However, this relationship of the human physical body with the earthly, and the relationship of the human etheric body with the liquid element lie deep beneath what people experience. What is closer to man is his breathing process, which is dependent upon the air. So it is from the breathing process upwards where the region begins where man can feel himself- when he is approaching the spiritual - related to nature. The breathing process contains the air element, in which we exist. air Above the element of air we have the quality of warmth. warmth And above the element of warmth we have the essence of light: warmth-ether, light-ether. light When we go even higher we come to a region - which we will speak about later - which does not lie so close to humans. That man lives and moves in the element of air is obvious from a completely exterior point of view. One needs only to look at dreams to see how dependent they are on irregularities, abnormalities in the breathing process. When the breathing process takes place while awake, we don't notice it, because in general we pay little attention to normal life processes. That the element of warmth is extremely essential to man is obvious to even superficial observation. If we dab our skin with an object that is colder than our body, a cold knitting needle for example, we feel the cold places that have been touched as separate even though they are very close to each other. We are very sensitive to the cold. If we touch our skin with an object that is warmer than our body, we don't feel the difference so clearly. We can hold two cold knitting needles very close to each other and feel the coldness of both. If we hold two warmed needles, the close contacts flow together at one point, and we must hold them quite far apart in order to sense them as separate. In fact we are far more sensitive to cold than to warmth. Why? We endure warmth much better then cold because we are creatures of warmth, because warmth is our own nature and we live and act in it. Cold is foreign to us and we are very sensitive to it. It is more difficult for normal consciousness to understand light. Today we want to approach these things esoterically. So it may be sufficient that I have indicated what air and warmth means to normal consciousness. But with this consciousness man feels air as something external, natural. He also feels warmth as something that touches him from without, and he also feels that light comes to him from outside himself. In the moment when a person takes the leap in his life which brings him near to the Guardian of the Threshold, he becomes aware of how intimately he is related to what otherwise seems alien to him. I have often pointed out how in every moment of our lives, also for normal consciousness, we can become aware of our relationship to the universe through our relation to the air. The air is outside, the same air which is inside me a moment later, then it is again outside, the same air which was within me. But we are not aware of the fact that, in the sense that we are beings of air, that what we hold within us we let out again, then take what was external into us again, so that we become one with the whole life and being of the element of air in which we exist as earthly beings. Whereas we always carry our muscles and bones within us, so we are only conscious of their origination and passing away during the embryonic and dying stages. At the moment we enter the spiritual region this is no longer the case. We then feel how with every exhalation we fly out on the wings of the exhaled air into the expanse of being into which the exhaled air disperses. And how by inhaling we take into us the spiritual beings who live in the circulating air. The spiritual world flows into us when inhaling; our own being flows out into the environment upon exhaling. This is not only so in respect to the air, but to an even greater degree in respect to warmth. As we are one with the air environment which encircles the earth, so are we also one with the warmth which encircles and penetrates the earth. [Two white circles are drawn: air, then a red one: warmth.] [IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW] When we approach the spiritual world we truly experience the spirit entering us when inhaling, our own being streaming out into the expanse of space when exhaling, that is, we experience a spiritual interweaving of inhaling and exhaling. And we feel more intensively how with the increase of warmth - in that we are ourselves within the element of warmth - we become more human, and with the lessening of warmth we become less human. Thus warmth ceases to be a merely natural element, for we feel and recognize the spiritual nature of warmth - and we feel it to be closely related to our being human. We feel that the increase of warmth means that the spirits which are active in the element of warmth say: We give you your humanity through the element of warmth; we take it away through the element of cold. So we come to the light, in which we live and act. But we don't notice it because with normal consciousness we have no idea of the fact that the inner movements of light are contained in our own thinking, that every thought is captured light - both for the physically sighted and for the physically unsighted. Light is objective. Not only the physically sighted receive it, the physically unsighted also receive it ... when they think. Because the thoughts which we hold within us, which we capture, is light present within us. We can say then, that when we approach the Guardian of the Threshold he admonishes us in the following way: When you think, O man, your being is not in you, it is in the light. When you feel, your being is not in you, it is in the warmth. When you will, your being is not in you, it is in the air. Keep not within yourself, O man. Think not that your thinking is in your head. Think that your willing is none other than the moving, living, active air element working within. One must be very conscious of the fact that in the Guardian of the Threshold's presence one is divided into the universal elements, that one can no longer simply hold one's self together in the usual chaotic, dim way of normal consciousness. And that is the grand experience that initiate knowledge gives to the human being, that he ceases to seriously think that he is enclosed within his skin - something which is no more than a mere indication that he exists. For spiritual consciousness what is concentrated within the skin is an illusion; for man is as great as the universe. His thoughts are as wide as the light, his feelings are as wide as the warmth, his will is as wide as the air. If a being of sufficiently developed consciousness were to descend to the earth from another planet, he would speak to people in quite a different way than how people of the earth address each other. He would say: The light which envelops the earth is differentiated [The cloak of light is drawn around the air and warmth circles: yellow.] Many individually differentiated beings are in the light. One must imagine that in this earth-light, in the light that surrounds the earth, that weaves and waves around it, in this space many beings are present, as many as there are human beings on the earth. They all accommodate themselves within the earth's world of light. And for this visitor from space all human thoughts are in this cloak of light. And all feelings are in the cloak of warmth, and all willing is in the atmosphere, in the cloak of air. Then this being would say: I have qualitatively differentiated out a being. It is indicated by body a; another, also within the cloak, is designated as b, and so on [within the yellow, two spots, a and b, are drawn]. The real human beings are all together in the light, warmth and air surrounding the earth. For the person who really stands before the Guardian of the Threshold this is not speculation, but experience. And this is what constitutes spiritual progress, that man integrates with the surrounding world. It is of little use to speak of these things theoretically. It is not particularly profound mystically to say that you are one with the world by merely thinking that you are, if you do not begin to experience the fact that when you are thinking you are living in the entire earth's light, are becoming one with the earth's light, and how by doing so, by becoming one with the light of the earth, you go out of yourself - go out, so to speak, through all the pores of your skin into a divine-spiritual being - you become one with the essence of the earth itself and with the other elements of the earth's being. This is something which must be understood in all seriousness by anyone who strives toward relationship with the spiritual world. You see, light must, in a sense, have a moral effect. And we must be aware of how we are related to the light and how the light is related to us in the esoteric experience of the world. But then, at the moment when one steps over the threshold, it becomes clear that the light is real and must wage a hard battle with the forces of darkness. Light and darkness become real. And then something occurs to the person which makes him say to himself: If in my thinking I merge completely with the light, I will lose myself in the light. For in the moment when I merge with the light in my thinking, light-beings grasp hold of me and say: You, human, we will not let you out of the light again, we will hold you back in the light. This expresses the light-beings' will. They want to draw man to them through his thinking, make him one with the light, rend him from all the earthly forces and integrate him into the light. The light-beings who are around us are those who at every moment of existence wish to rend human beings from the earth and integrate them with the sunlight which flows over the earth. They live in the periphery of the earth and say: You, human being, should not remain with your soul in your body; with the sun's first light of dawn you yourself should shine down on the earth, you should set with the sun's afterglow, and encircle the earth as light! These light-beings will be found enticing us ever and again. At the moment of crossing the threshold one becomes aware of these light-beings who want to pull human beings away from the earth and try to convince him that it is not worthy of him to stay chained to the earth by its gravity. They wish to absorb him in the sun's radiance. Yes, for ordinary consciousness the sun is shining above and we humans stand below and let the sun shine on us; for the more developed consciousness the sun in heaven is the great tempter who wants to unite us with its light and pull us away from the earth - who whispers in our ear: O man, you don't need to stay on the earth, you can exist in the rays of the sun, then you can illuminate the earth and bring it happiness, so you no longer have to be illuminated and made happy on the earth from without. This is what we encounter when we meet the Guardian of the Threshold: nature, which was previously quietly outside us and made no claim on our normal consciousness, now has the force to speak to us morally. Nature appears in the sun as a tempter. What before was quietly shining sunlight now speaks enticingly, temptingly. And we first realize that there is something spiritual living and moving in this sunlight when the enticing, the tempting beings appear in the light of the sun who want to pull us away from the earth. For these beings are in continuous battle with what constitutes the interior of the earth - darkness. And if we fall into extremes - which is quite possible because the experiences in meeting the Guardian of the Threshold are most earnest and profound and gripping for the human soul - when we realize how enticing the sunlight is, caused by the light-beings, that is when we want to escape from them, if we remember that we are supposed to be human beings. We may not forget this. If we do, although we continue to live physically on the earth, we are to a certain extent psychically crippled. But when we become aware of how enticing the sunlight is, we turn to the opposite side and seek relief in darkness, against which the light is continually fighting. And by swinging from light to darkness we fall into the opposite extreme. So this self, which wanted to surge out into the bright shining sunlight, is now threatened in darkness by loneliness, by being separated from all other beings. But we human beings can only live in the area of equilibrium between light and darkness. Such is the great experience before the Guardian of the Threshold: that we face the enticement of light and the dehumanizing force of darkness. Light and darkness become moral forces which have moral power over us. And we humans must realize that it is dangerous to look at the pure light and the pure darkness. And we are reassured when, there at the threshold, we see how the middle gods, the good gods of normal progress dim the light to a luminous yellow, to a luminous red, and when we know that we can no longer be lost to the earth, when we are aware not of the light which enticingly dazzles us, but of the color in spirit, which is subdued light. And it is equally dangerous to yield to pure darkness. And we will be inwardly liberated if we do not stand before the pure darkness in spirit-land, but when we stand before the illuminated darkness as violet and blue. Yellow and red say to us in spirit-land: Light's enticements will not be able to wrest you away from the earth. Violet and blue say to us: The darkness will not be able to bury you, as soul, in the earth; you will be able to hold yourself above the effects of the earth's gravity. Those are the experiences where the natural and the moral grow together in one, where light and darkness become realities. And without light and darkness becoming realities, we will not be aware of the true nature of thinking. Therefore we should listen to the words the Guardian of the Threshold speaks when we meet him with our thinking, which has become independent and separated in our soul:
This means becoming aware of the duality in which one is placed and between which one must find equilibrium, harmony, in thinking. [The lines are written on the blackboard:]
The impulses which can derive from such words must be forcefully received by thinking and one must learn to feel when dealing even with normal exterior light, and exterior darkness, how this light can only be tolerated when it is dimmed to color. Then we must do our best to understand, with spiritual visioning, how thinking is placed in the middle of this battle between light and darkness: How, when it comes into contact with light, it is absorbed in a certain sense, interwoven with the light; and when it comes into contact with darkness it is extinguished. If we want to enter into matter, into dark matter, our thinking is extinguished. By understanding this, one gradually enters the spiritual realm. And, my dear friends, in order to experience this, one must have courage, inner courage. To deny that one needs courage is to be ignorant of the true situation. We may think that courage is needed to let a finger be cut off, but none is needed to allow the severed thinking to stream into the vortex in which it will be seized when it finds itself in the middle of the battle between light and darkness. And it is always there. Knowledge means that we are aware of this. In every waking moment, with his thinking, man is in danger because there are certain spiritual beings on neighboring heavenly bodies who know that in every century, in every age, it is possible, as far as humanity is concerned, for light to win over darkness or darkness to win over light. Yes, my dear friends, for people with normal consciousness life seems as little dangerous as it does for a sleepwalker who has not yet been woken up: he doesn't fall down. For someone who observes life, however, a battle ensues, and he cannot say with certainty whether in a hundred years light or darkness will have won, and whether the human race will even have an existence worthy of humanity. And he will know why such a catastrophe has not happened to human evolution until now. I could use another comparison. When you watch a tightrope walker on his rope you know that he could fall at any moment to the left or to the right. That you could be on such a tightrope psychically - that anyone can plummet psychically to the right or the left - there is no awareness of that in ordinary life, because one does not see the abyss on the left or right. Nevertheless, it is there. That is the benefit the Guardian of the Threshold bestows on man - that he does not let the abyss be seen until his own warnings alert him to it. That has been the secret of the Mysteries of all times, that the abyss is shown to the adept and he therewith is able to acquire the strength necessary for knowledge of the real world. As it is with light in regard to thinking, so it is with warmth in regard to feeling. When approaching to Guardian of the Threshold, one is aware of entering a battle between warm and cold: how warmth is always enticing our feeling, for it wishes to suck it in to itself. Just as the light-beings, the Luciferic light-beings would in a certain sense fly away with us from the earth towards the light, so would the Luciferic warmth-beings suck our feeling into the general universal warmth. All human feeling should be lost to humanity and soaked up into the general universal warmth. And this is enticing because what the initiate-science adept is aware of when he approaches the threshold with his feeling: the warmth-beings appear, who want to give the human being an over-abundance of his own element, of the element in which he lives: warmth. They want all his feelings to be soaked up by warmth. When the human being is aware of this however: when he approaches the threshold, the warmth-beings are there, he gets warm, warm, warm, he becomes warmth, he flows over into the warmth. It is a feeling of pleasure, and a great enticement. It flows through him continuously. One must know all this. For without knowing that this enticement exists within the desire for warmth, it impossible to obtain an unobstructed vision of spirit-land. And the enemies of these Luciferic warmth-beings are the Ahrimanic coldness-beings. These beings attract those who are still aware of how dangerous it is to bask in the pleasure of warmth. They would like to dip into the healthy cold. That is the opposite extreme: the cold can harden them there. And then, when the cold affects man in this way, infinite pain ensures, which is also physical pain. The physical and the mental, matter and spirit, become one. The human being experiences the cold capturing his whole being, as though tearing him apart in great pain. That the human being is continually engaged in this battle between warmth and cold is what one must understand as the Guardian of the Threshold's admonition in respect to feeling. [The second verse is written on the blackboard.]
With his volition man enters a world which seems quite near to us - which in fact it is. It is the world of air, the world which sustains our breathing. One does not suspect how closely related human will is to the air which we breathe, for our will depends upon our breathing. And in the air, dear friends, life and death exists. It contains the vivifying oxygen; it contains the deadly nitrogen. The chemist says with his terrible, untrue abstraction: Air consists of oxygen and nitrogen. Yes, as long as we remain in normal consciousness one says: oxygen and nitrogen. Once we arrive at the Guardian of the Threshold, however, it becomes clear that oxygen is the external manifestation of many spiritual beings - the ones who give humanity life. Nitrogen is the external manifestation of the spiritual beings who give humanity death - also the death which, in every instant of our waking life in which we think and in which we develop our soul-life, is partially putting us to death, is unmaking us. In the air there is a battle in which the Luciferic oxygen-spirits do battle with the Ahrimanic nitrogen-spirits. As long as one has not arrived at the Threshold, air consists of the chemists' abstraction: oxygen and nitrogen. When we arrive at the Threshold, it consists of Ahriman and Lucifer, and the oxygen is the outer mask for Lucifer, and nitrogen the outer mask for Ahriman. And a battle rages in the air. This battle is hidden from the every-day, illusory consciousness. But one enters it when the Threshold is reached. Once again: if one wishes to realize what exists in oxygen-spirits, what exists in the life-element when one wishes to unite his will with spiritual creativity, when one is stimulated to inner courageous activity, the danger exists that one's actions are all absorbed by spiritual acts and one ceases to be even human because what one needs as strength of will is taken over by the Luciferic spiritual world. And if you turn to the opposite side, then the nitrogen forces, the Ahrimanic ones that act as death in the element of air will tempt you. This is not the death which we see in the physical world, but one with which one is not personally related. If you become related to death you begin to consider it as something you wish to unite with, and then are never released from. Whereas in the element of life the spirits want to hold us in order for their deeds to absorb the deeds of men, on the other side - that of the Ahrimanic nitrogen-spirits - we are thrown aside into the nothingness of life. We then want to act in death, act in nothingness. We are cramped instead of being active; the self is cramped. Man is placed between these two opposing elements of which he must be aware with respect to his will. [The third verse is written on the blackboard.]
If, dear friends, we say: I would rather do without such knowledge! Why should I do that to myself, approaching the Guardian of the Threshold, if what is otherwise benevolently hidden from humanity is revealed to me? Can it be beneficial for humanity to be aware of such terrible truths? It is obvious that this objection is due to the human desire for comfort, especially when the question: What should I do with such truths? is asked. If I ask that, it is about something I'd rather not know. But, my dear friends, the task of contemporary times is that man penetrate in reality, that he does not cowardly shrink back from reality, that he penetrates into reality in order to unite with what is directly related to his being. We could of course stick our heads in the sand during this short earth-life and know nothing about these realities; that we can no longer do however, for we are now entering a new age when man can only thrive after death if he becomes aware of what he will experience after death. And how will it be after death? When a person passes through the gates of death and his consciousness has still not been erased, he looks back and when this looking back has become conscious, spiritual beings whisper into the process causing a soft undertone to be present. One looks back the few days after death during which the etheric body is dissolving in the cosmic ether, one looks back and sees the pictures of the earth-life just experienced - and certain spirits whisper:
Now we know the reality: if we do not find the middle way, but wander off either to the right or the left instead, then one of those things can happen. And also, when one has gone through the sleeping time after death, which does not last long, he enters in consciousness into a time when he experiences his past earthly life backwards, an experience which lasts a third of that of his past earthly lifetime, as we have described in the general anthroposophical lectures. But the admonishing spirits keep appearing during milestones along this journey. And they say to us:
Bearing this in mind, I have often counseled those who have asked me how they should act in respect to the dead who have been close to them to direct thoughts towards them in the sense, for example: “My love goes out to you, so that it might warm your coldness, lessen your warmth,” for during the whole time of reverse experience of the past life warmth and cold play the role described above. But we are also warned that they play that role continually. These things are realities. And when we then cross over from the life of reverse experience into the experience of being in the free spirit-land, preparing ourselves for the next earth-life, the spirits warning us at the milestones again appear. They call out to us unceasingly:
- The striving is real; you could go right or to the left -
My dear friends, when man still had an instinctive clairvoyance and passed through the gates of death, it was through this instinctive clairvoyance that he could understand the words spoken to him during the three stations of life after death. But in the age which man had to pass through in order to achieve freedom, it became ever more difficult for him to understand what was being called out to him. And now we live in an age when, if human beings are not made aware of the meaning of these words during their life on earth, they will not understand the words called out to them in spirit-language. But that is what can happen to man if he confronts a future in which he passes through a world where these words are called out to him and he does not understand them and must therefore live through the torments of not understanding. And what do these torments mean? They mean the ever increasing prevalence of anxiety in the soul of losing the connection with the creative spiritual powers and finally not being able to join those spiritual powers to whom we owe our existence, and instead find ourselves with alien powers where the human origin can be lost. To enter esoteric life, my dear friends, does not imply a mere learning process, nor a mere theory; rather it means to accept a most serious aspect of life. And whoever immerses in esoteric life does not listen to a mere teaching or a theory, but immerses himself in aspects of real life. The life which our senses are aware of is only the outer manifestation; behind it at all times is the spiritual world. We do not enter it if we close our ears to what lies in these words. If we enter deeply, meditatively into such words, then our thinking, our feeling and our willing will be able to understand and to grasp the spirit in which we must penetrate as human beings. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Sixth Hour
21 Mar 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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| And because the earth-element is always present, the danger exists that we sink into animal nature. And when we don't merely understand this theoretically, as is mostly the case nowadays, but also feel it, we become fearful that at any moment we may fall into animality. |
| You are being introduced to the practice of knowledge in these lessons, my dear friends. You should not understand the things being given to you in this way as theoretical matters. Rather will you experience the heart of the matter if you understand the fundamental condition: that what you are being told here are the instructions from the Guardian of the Threshold himself, directly arising from what can be learned through contact with the Guardian of the Threshold. |
| And only those who realize that the light is there will understand the nature and intentions of this spiritual school. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Sixth Hour
21 Mar 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith |
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My dear friends, During these meetings, we are considering the truths which can be learned from the Guardian of the Threshold. And the Guardian's continuous admonition is that man be aware that he advances spiritually when he becomes conscious of his true relation to the world. To become conscious of his true relation to the world, he first gets to know the world by observing the kingdoms of nature which are external to his own being - the animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom and the mineral kingdom. These relations offer him the opportunity to admire them and to use them to carry out his own will impulses, etc. Man considers them to be hisexternal world, and with normal consciousness he is hardly aware of how he has evolved out of this world, how a deep relationship to that world exists within him. However, one cannot feel this relationship by merely letting one's gaze wander over this exterior world. One must advance to a self-knowledge of belonging to this world. And when one wishes to gain this self-knowledge, my dear friends, then one may not simply continue to see things as first glances provide; rather must one return to what is revealed between them. Since the modern phase of human evolution began, we seldom see what is revealed between the things. We see the three kingdoms of nature in the outside world. But as you know, my dear friends, behind the kingdoms of nature we have what is called the world of the elements. We can say: our feet stand on the ground of thesolid earth. [written on the blackboard] Earth And what the solid earth consists of is also present in the animals, plants and minerals and also in our physical human bodies. And when we lift our gaze from the ground beneath our feet to what is to a certain extent at our own height, what is present is not only air, for the air is always penetrated by the watery element. Although it is true that man's life on earth has developed in such a way that he only senses this watery element in fine solution in the air which surrounds him, and in order to use it in his own organism it must be condensed, it is nevertheless true that he also lives in this watery element. [over “earth” is written] Water And man also lives in the air element through which he breathes. [over “Water” is written] Air At the moment when we observe these elements we cannot speak of them as we speak of the other beings of the nature-kingdoms, which we see before us in sharply defined contours. But in the solid as such, in the earthly, we can only say that we live in it. We are too closely related to the earthly to specifically differentiate it. We do not specifically differentiate what is a part of ourselves. We do differentiate a table or a chair which exist outside of ourselves. We do not consider what is inside us as having clear boundaries. We do not see our lungs or heart within us as having clear boundaries. Only when they are made into objects, in anatomy, do we see them so. But just as we are related to our own bodies, we are also, to a larger extent, related to the elements. We live in earth, we live in water, we live in air, we live in warmth. They belong to us. They are too close to us to be understood as very sharply contoured in the world. Let us now lay out this elemental world before us, a world which is around us and at the same time within us, so that we must consider it as the content of the world and of ourselves. So we have what we designate as Earth, what we designate as Water, what we designate as Air and what we designate as Warmth. [over “Air” is written:] Warmth When we go further up out of the thicker substances into the etheric from warmth, which is already etheric, we come to the light. [over “Warmth” is written:] Light and up to what we have always described with a dry, abstract expression: chemical ether and its effects. Because the ordering, the formation of the world is effected by it, we shall call that great chemicality of the cosmos “cosmic-formation”. [over “Light” is written] Cosmic-formation And then we will call what is highest in the etheric: Life-Ether, Cosmic Life. [over “cosmic formation” is written] Cosmic Life Well, my dear friends, you have already seen from the previous lesson that the human being, according to the manner in which he lives on the earth, is not equally related to all of these elements in the same measure. In fact, the human being only lives in a completely intimate relationship with the element of warmth. [A red cross is drawn on the blackboard next to the word “Warmth”.] For spiritual progress, it is necessary to be fully conscious of such things. Just think how much you directly feel warmth and cold to be part of you. The difference between warm and cold affects you strongly. Even air circulation affects you less. Whether the air is good or bad you notice indirectly according to its effect on your organism. The effect of light is the same. Nevertheless, man is very closely related to air and light. [Yellow crosses are drawn next to the words “air” and “light”.] He is extraordinarily close to them. But man is relatively distant from the watery elements - among the denser ones - even though he is related to them. Nevertheless, the watery element is very closely connected to human life. [A blue cross is drawn next to the word “water”.] Imagine, my dear friends, a very vivid nightmare and consider how your perspiration, that is, the secretion of the watery element, is affected by it. Notice how the watery element plays a significant role in sleep. The human being lives in the watery element. The liquid elements dissolved in his environment are of great importance for him, but none more directly than warmth. Whether it is warm or cold, man feels it as being part of himself. When it is warm, he is warm; when it is cold, he is cold. When we walk into fog, for example, the fog's moisture has an important but an indirect influence on us, something which normal consciousness isn't very aware of. I'll put it this way: We walk into fog - and our own watery element merges in a certain sense with the outer world's watery element. And with this easy transition from our own watery element to the outer world's watery element we feel our connection to the whole cosmos - contrary to the transition from our watery element to dry outer air. Dry air lets us feel more human. Watery air lets us feel our dependence on the cosmos. But nowadays we have no training in such things. In a lecture cycle in The Hague, which has been printed, I went into detail concerning man's dependence on the elements. The elements exist, and it pertains to esoteric life to be aware of this dependence in practice. Man's relation to the earthly elements lies even deeper in the subconscious. [A blue cross is drawn next to the word “Earth”.] What does man know about his relation to the earthly element? He knows that salt is salty, that sugar is sweet. They belong to the earthly element. But about the processes of metamorphosis that salt and sugar undergo in his organism, how he acts together with the cosmos in dissolving the sugar or the salt within his organism, how certain cosmic forces work into the organism when the sugar's sweetness courses through his body, or the saltiness of salt courses through his body, he is mostly unaware, save for the slight reflex of the saltiness or the sweetness on his taste-buds. These are profoundly meaningful processes. The universe has opened its doors, so to speak, to certain forces when the human being dissolves sugar on his tongue and transfers it to his organism. It is also the case that whereas these denser elements have an indirect influence on the human being, the etheric finer elements, Cosmic Formation and Cosmic Life also have an indirect influence on the human being, a hidden influence. [Blue crosses are drawn next to “Cosmic Formation” and “Cosmic Life”.] The most evident influence on man comes from the middle element, Warmth. The influence of Light and Air are also strong - evident also to ordinary consciousness. But the influence of Water and Earth on one hand, and on the other hand of Cosmic Life and Cosmic Chemical Formation lie in the unconscious. Therefore, man should be aware during his earthly life that he lives closely with these middle elements [Air, Warmth, Light], whereas his consciousness has been withdrawn from his relation to Water and Earth and to Cosmic Formation and Cosmic Life. In the days when the old instinctive consciousness prevailed, there was also a nuance of clairvoyance, and when the students in the Mysteries reached a certain stage in their development they were cautioned: Trust the Fire, trust the Air, also trust the Light; but beware of the underworld - Water, Earth; beware of the overworld - Cosmic Formation and Cosmic Life. For due to the fact that they lie so deeply in the unconscious, Lucifer's temptations appear in Cosmic Life and Cosmic Formation, and Ahriman's temptations appear in Earth and Water.
In the Mysteries, esoteric instruction always indicated that man should find the right relation to these elements, feel his relationship with the elements in the correct way. When one advances to Imaginative life, he feels exactly this relationship to the elements. With normal consciousness: We look around, recognize the animals, plants and minerals as existing outside of us. When, however, we recognize the elements in their relationship with us, then we may not look around at the world, but we must feel, experience what is in us and the world at the same time. Then, when we have advanced to Imaginative life, we are able to feel our relationship with the world. If we develop this feeling in the right way, we will make a profound admission. This admission to ourselves is progressive, true self-knowledge. We realize that one is only human when he is released from the world to which he is inwardly connected, from the earthly world where he stands alone, as it were, where the plants, animals and minerals exist outside of us, are foreign to us. But if, through Imaginative knowledge, one becomes aware of his relationship with the earth, then he will no longer feel himself in his humanity, he will feel himself in his animality; he feels the inner relationship of man to the extended animal domain. And when he feels himself as one with the water element on earth he becomes aware enough to say: In reality you are related to the vegetable kingdom. There is something in you that is as sleepy and as dreamy as the plants. And if one becomes aware of his relationship with the air, he feels the mineral element within him. He feels something filling him through the whole skin. As soon as we enter the elemental world with Imagination, we feel related to the animals, plants, stones. And we feel differently toward the kingdoms of nature when we feel that we belong to them as well. We feel the inner relationship to these kingdoms in the following way. We look out at the animal kingdom. We observe the indolent animals which slowly take one step after the other. We observe the rapid ones, and the flying birds. We observe the inherent movement in the animals which fill the world with movement from out of their own being. And then we say to ourselves: All that which comes from the innermost being of the animals is revealed to be the same as our own will. And we feel the relationship of our own will with the animal world. But there is something else. One feels fear of one's self. This is what is considered positive - that whoever enters into esoteric life feels this fear of himself. Not so that he gets stuck in it, but so that he may transform it into a higher psychic force. It is like this: when we become aware that our human form exists because we stand alone and the kingdoms of nature are beyond us, where we can look at them, then we feel that the earth, in its true elemental nature, does not make us human, it makes us animal. We are animals. As far as the earth is concerned, we are animals. And because the earth-element is always present, the danger exists that we sink into animal nature. And when we don't merely understand this theoretically, as is mostly the case nowadays, but also feel it, we become fearful that at any moment we may fall into animality. But it is just this fear which encourages us to always wish to raise ourselves over this animality, to step out of the elemental life into the life which surrounds us with an external, perhaps strange world, but which also introduces us to true humanity. To feelingly recognize our relation to the world is what leads us to true esoteric knowledge. And when we feel our relationship with the world's water, with the water elements, then we realize: as far as water is concerned, we should not be human, but vegetables. And our feelings, which have a dream-like nature, as I have often explained, our feelings have a continuous tendency to be vegetable-like. Just try to think seriously about your innermost feelings and you will feel the vegetative nature of the life of feeling. And then you will have the feeling that you are not only in danger of descending to animality, but also of living on with a lamed consciousness, like a vegetable - sleeping, dreaming. But this feeling of lameness, which lies deep in the [sub]conscious, must be transformed into the feeling of awakening to humanity. Fear of animality must be transformed into the courage to raise yourself to humanity. The feeling of vegetable lameness must be transformed into an awakening call to inner strength, to develop into a fully awake person in the world. And when we become aware of how we live in the air-element, then we can see how in reality all thinking - this is unknown to people - is nothing other than a refined breathing. Thinking is refined breathing. The thoughts in which we live are absolutely a refined breathing process. On one side, the breathing-in stream, holding the breath, and breathing out act, in a more coarse way, into our blood circulation; on the other side, but more refined, into the vibration of the brain organs. And the breath circulating there is known as thinking in the physical world; sublimated breathing is thinking. The individual who has advanced to Imagination no longer believes in this abstract thinking existing as a kind of tenuous substance in the brain. He feels the inhalation, the expanding of the breath in the brain; he feels how the breath spreads out. When the breath expands in this way, then ceases, the closed concepts arise, closed ideas. If it encloses something else, in waves, the ideas of self-movement arise. It is merely a refined breathing process which weaves and waves within us which we designate as thinking. When one feels: I inhale, I draw the breath up to the brain, I let it strike my ear, and one feels: what I hear as tone, as sound, as clang, lives in me as thought. I let the breath strike my eye: it lives in me as what I see as color. It is the inner language of breathing which acts as representations in thinking. When breathing, completely refined, strikes the sense organs it creates my mental pictures [representations]. But when one becomes aware of this, becoming a thinker and a breather, so to speak, then one feels that this refined-to-thinking breathing process is like an organized mineral, like an organized stone, which fills him. You know that oxygen is transformed into carbon dioxide in man. This reception of carbon dioxide in the finer branches of breathing in the human head is tantamount to the capture of the carbon dioxide. It is a mineralization process. And the more we are able to internalize this capture of carbon dioxide by oxygen, the more we are conscious of the mineralization process. We take the carbon into ourselves. And carbon is the Philosopher's Stone; thus, within man carbon is the Philosopher's Stone. Read how the old instinctive clairvoyants described the Philosopher's Stone. You will find them saying: The Philosopher's Stone can be found everywhere, only people don't recognize it. It can be produced everywhere. It can found at its own place - in the earth. They describe in detail how carbon is produced, by burning wood. The Philosopher's Stone can be produced anywhere, it is carbon. It is in the coal mines ... [gaps here in the shorthand, possibly the result of rapid speaking ...] a mineralization process. One feelsmineralized within ... by the combustion process [?] ... just as we feel ourselves to be plant-like by the watery processes and identify with the animals by living on earth. [This passage is unclear.] This is the exhortation the Guardian gives to man: He must be aware of his relationship to the kingdoms of nature. Therefore, we have these exhortations in the form of spoken meditations. And if man lets them work with deep feeling on his sensibility he will be aware of his relationship with the earth-element, which is related to his will; with the water-element which is related to his feeling; with the air-element which, in the way I have described it, is related to his thinking. [Written on the blackboard:]
This is an unconscious process. Every time we will something, we climb down into the earth-element. But normal consciousness knows nothing of this. At the moment when the downward climb becomes conscious, man transforms himself from a human to an animal nature, he seems like some kind of animal - at least in the etheric form which he then observes. I don't mean that he will exactly become an elephant or a bull, but something like that for the element of will, yes, he gives the impression of being bull-like, elephant-like, eagle-like, and so on. [Written on the blackboard:]
But such exhortations by the Guardian of the Threshold, my dear friends, are not to be taken as concepts or theories. They are meant to be experienced by the whole human being. If we look at where the will is heading, we become aware of our animality and we fear our own self which, however, must be transformed into psychic courage. Then one advances further. Then one can enter the spiritual world. [The writing continues:]
Here we have the first descent, climbing downward to the kingdom where the Ahrimanic forces work so strongly. Our correct comportment is indicated by the exhortation just given by the Guardian of the Threshold:
As a rule, what helps us most toward spiritual advancement is the overcoming of something that drags us down. When we overcome something which drags us down, like this fear of our own animality, and transform it by our own inner act into psychic courage, then it becomes an impulse toward a higher humanity. It's something we need to advance spiritually. We learn about the next descent, into the water-element, through the words of the following exhortation by the Guardian of the Threshold:
The transformation to the opposite of this sleep-filled dreaminess, if we really descend consciously, becomes a wakening in ourselves. [The second verse is written:]
And when the human being feels his relationship with the air-element, then even with normal consciousness he feels the relationship more strongly. He descends less deeply into the subconscious. Nevertheless, a trace of Ahrimanic temptation remains in this descent. When we live in our remembrances, in our memories, we are mostly in an inner breathing activity. If we refine normal breathing to thinking of what is in our environment, then very little danger is present. If memories arise, however, with breathing coming from within, danger is still present, although it isthe easiest to observe. And it is in this descent from thinking to perception where we mostly are concerned with our memory's mental pictures. It is about this that the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes: [Written on the blackboard:]
We can do this, my dear friends, using the same inner force we use when combining one thought with another in the performance of normal activities. We are used to moving a chair from one place to another, when we make the effort. But we are not used to moving a thought from one place to another. We prefer to think according to the guidebook as events present themselves. We would like the book to show us the sequence of thoughts; that the newspaper indicate the sequence of thoughts to us, and we are satisfied when they do. It is as if we expected that everything we do through the exertion of our will be set in motion by an objective power from without: as if your arm is to be raised so you can grasp a chair - as if a spirit stood there and placed your legs one after the other so you can walk. As far as thinking is concerned, it is as though we expected our legs to be moved for us so we can walk. [Writing continues:]
(this mineralizing process) Whoever does not know “Imagination” does not realize how hard ordinary thinking is. Ordinary thinking is stone hard. One really feels thinking with angles and edges when one finally gains admittance to the spiritual world. Such thinking actually hurts when it appears in its particular abstract forms. Whoever knows spiritual life is able to feel empathy for what is thought as a result of human feelings and impulses. He can feel it himself when fits of hate and anger are expressed in thoughts; but he feels inwardly wounded as if by sharp angles and edges when the abstract thoughts of contemporary civilization enter his being. He will not be aware of the suffering which is caused by today's thinking if he does not know this sentence: “Your own soul will threaten you as coldly hardened stone.” But when one consciously descends to the kingdom of memories, the kingdom of airy breezes, where breath is grasped by thinking, then what I described happens. But this inner death of thinking, this death by freezing, must inspire us to the contrary - to create spiritual vitality in thought from inner strength. [Writing continues:]
Those are the three exhortations concerning the nether world, the world of the lower elements, which the Guardian of the Threshold directs to those who come to the threshold by showing them how man must be aware of his kinship with the three kingdoms of nature if he wishes to be knowledgeable. How he must be aware of his animality and the animals in his environment by virtue of his kinship with the earth-element. How he must be aware of his own plant nature and therewith the plant life of his environment by virtue of his kinship with the water-element. How he must be aware of his own mineral kingdom, his own mineral nature, his own stone nature, by virtue of his kinship with the air-element, and therewith the nature of the mineral kingdom of his environment. Fear, lameness and death must develop as negative characteristics, but must metamorphose into the positive characteristics of courage, wakefulness and vitalizing fire. That is also what the Guardian of the Threshold calls out to the person striding by: first the inner feeling of fear of falling into animality; then the inner feeling of helplessness in plant-like lameness; then the desire to oppose the coldness of stone by engendering vitalizing fire in the soul. Thus, the Guardian of the Threshold's threefold exhortation is:
Here [in the lower part of the above list marked with blue crosses] we enter Ahriman's kingdom and are warned by the Guardian of the Threshold as to how we can save ourselves from Ahriman's temptations; and here [the upper part of the list] where we are in earthly life and wish to enter in the esoteric, in Light, World Formation and World Life. We absorb the light. Normally we do not know that the light unites with breathing when it penetrates the eye - warmth is between them - the breathing of air combines with the light [middle part of the list]: the representation [mental picture] of the perception arises. We live in light in that we form thoughts, just as toward the lower kingdoms we live in the air, in breathing. We hold thoughts back from the light. We don't realize that thoughts can only live in us if they are illumined by the light, if breathing is illumined by the light. For those who have advanced to Imagination, thinking is a hushed breath illumined by ingested light, made vibrant by it. Here are the gentle waves of breath. [Waving lines are drawn on the blackboard.] They are illumined by light. [Yellow marks.] For in spiritual science everything which works through the senses is designated as light. Not only what works through the eyes, also what works through sound, is light, also what is sensed as touch, is light. All perception through the senses is light. But when we become aware that thinking, this having thoughts, is refined breathing waving, weaving upon the light - it is as when one sees the surface of the sea upon whose waves the sun's light shines. Also, as though one were inside and could feel the surging of the waves and the light shining on them. It is all perception when one experiences it from within. Now Lucifer's temptation appears, for this is all wonderfully beautiful, something which causes enormous delight and complacency. A terrible wantonness overcomes man. He becomes easy prey for Lucifer's temptations and enticements to pull him away from the earth into the beauty of the cosmos, where Lucifer reigns. He wants to tear man away from the earth-element and raise him up to the kingdom of angels so that after each sleep he no longer wants to return down to the physical body. Here is where the Luciferic temptation appears, whereas in the realm of the denser elements the Ahrimanic temptation appears. What is important here is that we heed the Guardian of the Threshold's warning and not enter this realm without having determined not to forget the earth's needs. Then the bond with the earth, upon which we have still to stride, will remain unbroken. Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold says:
[The first part of the mantra is written:]
Thus, man is totally related to the shining light through Imagination, and his thoughts are no longer abstractions, but as light playing upon the waves of breath.
If we advance further to the etheric element, the Luciferic temptation becomes more intense. There not only our thoughts, which are relatively easy to control, come into consideration, but also the element of feeling. For it is in his feelings that man holds on to the substantial - the Cosmic Formation, which works and weaves in the chemical ether. If he now advances to Imagination, really integrates with this cosmic chemistry, it is quite different from the comfortable, bourgeois earthly chemical laboratory, where the chemist stands at a bench and everything is outside and beyond him. Man must be within matter, be himself within the mixing and the separating. Then he will become a cosmic chemist and be integrated in his chemical processes. With this integration in Cosmic Formation he feels the Luciferic temptation in the form ofhelplessness. First man is transported in a certain sense to inner voluptuousness so he can be spirit [an angel]. He is unwilling to return if he does not bear in mind the earth's needs. Now he is made helpless, not strong enough in his humanity to re-enter it. He must beware of this helplessness of soul in that he only enters this [spiritual] world once he has achieved a love for all that is worthy on earth, for the earthly values. The Guardian of the Threshold speaks:
[The second verse is written:]
(which comes from Lucifer)
Man can only reach his cosmic goal if he becomes an angel at the right time. During the Jupiter evolution today's humanity will rise to angel rank. Lucifer's temptation consists of wanting to raise man to a stunted immature angel too early, during the Earth period. In that way the human soul would be lost and a stunted angel soul would take its place. We should listen to the Guardian of the Threshold's exhortation:
The most intense temptation comes when we ascend to the last element, to general Cosmic Life. What is still present there is will which, however, is present as in sleep, as I have often explained. If it is awakened through Imaginative knowledge, we become aware - unlike in our limited earthly life which is enclosed in our skin - we become aware of sharing in Cosmic Life: and in that instant we are dead. Because to consciously live in Cosmic Life means to experience death as an individual being. Universal life kills us if it holds us. Like the insect that flies into the flame greedy for the fire, for the light. In the instant that it flies into the flame it dies, thus does man as an individual die in General Cosmic Life if he consciously enters it with his spirit. We shouldn't even dare to think of entering into this element without having first developed a god-given, spirit-given will for the earth, that is, without being fully conscious that on earth we are carrying out the intentions of the spiritual beings. If we completely fill ourselves with inner dedicated glowing love toward this god-given will, then we shall not succumb to the temptation of becoming a degenerate angel instead of remaining a human being. Thus, therefore is the Guardian of the Threshold's exhortation:
[The third verse is written on the blackboard.]
And here we have the Guardian of the Threshold's threefold exhortation referring to the upper, ether region in the above list.
You are being introduced to the practice of knowledge in these lessons, my dear friends. You should not understand the things being given to you in this way as theoretical matters. Rather will you experience the heart of the matter if you understand the fundamental condition: that what you are being told here are the instructions from the Guardian of the Threshold himself, directly arising from what can be learned through contact with the Guardian of the Threshold. For it is not my intention to give theories during these Class Lessons, my dear friends. The intention is to let the spiritual word itself speak. Therefore, in the first lessons I mentioned how the School should be seen as having been founded by the spiritual world itself. That has been the nature of all Mystery Schools, that in them men spoke as representatives of the spiritual powers of the world. It must also remain the nature of the Mystery Schools. Therefore, I have so strongly insisted on the earnestness required of all members of this class, without which no one can be a real member of this School of spiritual life. That is the earnest exhortation I wish to direct to you once again, my dear friends. Consider this School as being constituted directly through the will of the spiritual world, and which we are trying to correctly interpret according to the conditions of our times in which we have entered after the darkness was over and a light has come again, a light which, however, has only manifested itself on earth poorly because human beings have retained the old darkness. Yet the light is there. And only those who realize that the light is there will understand the nature and intentions of this spiritual school. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||