A
lecture for members of the Anthroposophical Society, not revised
by the speaker.
Our study of
karma can lead us only slowly and by degrees to an understanding
of this fundamental and complicated law. Today I should like,
first of all, to repeat that in the elaboration of karma during
the life stretching between death and a new birth there is
co-operation primarily between those human beings who are living
this life between death and a new birth. We work together with
those with whom we are specially connected by karma. In the
elaboration of karma during this life between death and a new
birth, groups of human beings united by their karma work together
and it can truly be said that in this purely spiritual life there
are clear differentiations between the groups. This does not
preclude the fact that we also form part of the whole of humanity
in the life between death and a new birth, and still more do we
form part of the life of those who are incarnate on the earth.
The fact that we belong to a particular group of souls does not
exclude us from forming part of humanity as one whole. And into
all these groups and down into the destiny of each individual
there flows the work of the Beings of the higher Hierarchies.
Those Beings of
the higher Hierarchies who elaborate karma by the side of man
during the life between death and a new birth, work also into the
life we spend between birth and death, where karma works itself
out in the moral sense, as destiny. And today we must find an
answer to the question: In what way does the work of the
Hierarchies influence human life?
Speaking now with
the help of Initiation-Science, we shall admit that this is a
deep and searching question. For you can understand from what I
have told you in the course of recent lectures, that the
phenomena of nature too are connected with the karma of mankind.
The person who
directs his gaze to the whole flow of cosmic and human events and
not alone to the immediate facts presented by the world of
nature, perceives the connection between the events which take
place among larger or smaller groups of people at one epoch and
the facts of nature at another. There are occasions when we can
observe events in nature breaking into the orbit of human life on
earth. We witness devastating volcanic eruptions and we know what
is brought about by natural influences during floods or suchlike
phenomena.
If we regard such
events as belonging merely to the natural order, we are
confronted with something that is incomprehensible in its
relation to the general impression we have of the world. For here
we behold events that simply break into the cosmic order, events
which are so envisaged by man that he gives up all hope of
understanding them and accepts the distress they bring as a
stroke of destiny. The investigations of spiritual science are
able, however, to take us a little further, for they open up
remarkable information precisely in connection with these
elemental events in nature.
When we let
our mind's eye scan the face of the earth, we find certain areas
of the earth literally covered with volcanoes. We find that other
parts of the earth are liable to earthquakes or other
catastrophes. And if we examine the karmic connections of such
events as these in the same way as we have examined them in
recent lectures from the point of view of the history of certain
personalities, then we arrive at very remarkable results. We find
the following: above in the spiritual worlds, human souls are
gathered together in groups according to their karma; they are
elaborating their karma in conformity with their past and future
existence. And we see one of these groups of human souls in their
descent from pre-earthly into earthly existence wander to regions
situated, for example, in the vicinity of volcanoes, or to
districts where earthquakes are liable to occur, in order there
to receive their destiny from the elemental phenomena of nature.
[See also: The
Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers.
Two Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 1st Jan. and 22nd March,
1909.] We even find that during
the life between death and a new birth when man's conceptions and
feelings are of quite a different nature, that such places are
deliberately chosen by the souls thus karmically connected, in
order that they may experience this very destiny. For a thought
which finds little enough understanding in our souls on earth,
such as the thought: “I choose a great disaster on earth in
order to become more perfect, I choose it because I am still so
far from fulfilling what lies in my past karma” —
such a thought for which, as I have said, there is so little
understanding in earthly life, can be present in the life between
death and a new birth, and has there an inherent value.
It can happen
that we deliberately seek out a volcanic eruption, or an
earthquake, in order to find in the path of disaster the path to
perfection. Clear distinction must be made between these two
completely different outlooks upon life, — one outlook
being that of the spiritual world and the other of the physical
world.
But in this
connection there are other things to be considered. In the outer
world, the everyday happenings of nature proceed with an ordered
regularity inasmuch as the world of the stars is playing a part
in them. For the world of stars with its mysteries works with a
certain regularity. This above all is the case in connection with
the sun and moon, indeed with all the stars with the outstanding
exception of the enigmatic phenomena of meteorites and comets
which burst in upon the regular, rhythmical order of the cosmos
in a most mysterious way. But that which cuts across the regular
course of natural existence in the way of thunderstorms,
hailstorms and other climatological and meteorological events —
all this interrupts the regular rhythm of natural happenings. We
realise these things and, to begin with, resign ourselves to the
outer course taken by natural phenomena. But later on, when a
longing to understand spiritual things awakens within us, we
listen to what is told us by Initiation-Science, namely that
besides this outwardly visible world there is also the
super-sensible world where dwell the Beings of the higher
Hierarchies. And in our life between death and a new birth we
enter the domain of these higher Hierarchies, just as in our life
between birth and death we live among the three kingdoms of
nature — the mineral, the plant and the animal kingdoms.
We listen to what
is taught by Initiation-Science and try to envisage the existence
of this second world, but we often stop short at the idea of the
two worlds being there side by side, without connecting them
together in our thought. We can form a true idea of the two
worlds only when we are able to realise their existence
simultaneously, and when with inner vision we can realise the way
in which they work together and are interwoven. For this
interworking must be known if we are to understand the shaping
and forming of karma. In the life between death and a new birth,
karma is prepared. But karma is worked out and elaborated on
earth, too, with the help of the Beings of the higher Hierarchies
who are also active during the life we lead between birth and
death.
The question
therefore arises: In what way do the higher Hierarchies work into
earthly life?
In their work
upon earthly life, these Beings of the higher Hierarchies make
use of earthly processes. We shall best understand what this
means if we look, to begin with, at all that is spread out before
our senses, in the world of stars as well as in the physical
world. Throughout our waking-day life, we see the sun up there in
the heavens. Through the hours of the night we behold the
radiance of the moon and of the stars. Think, my dear friends, of
how we look out into the world, and how we allow what is above
us, and what is around us in the kingdoms of nature, to work upon
us. And let us remind ourselves that this world of the senses has
in itself just as little meaning as a human corpse. The forces
that are at work in the earth outside man are the forces that are
in a corpse. But in a corpse we do not find the forces of the
living man. In itself, the corpse is meaningless. It has
significance only inasmuch as it is the remains of a living human
being. It is not reasonable to imagine for a moment that a corpse
could exist in itself as a collection of phenomena having an
independent being of their own. A corpse can only reveal the form
of something that is no longer visible. Just as one is led back
from a corpse to a living human being, so too are we led by
everything in the visible world of physical existence to the
spiritual world. For this physical sense-existence has just as
little meaning of its own as has a corpse.
Just as we are
led in thought from the corpse to a living man, and say: This is
the corpse of a living human being; so, in relation to nature, we
say: This is the revelation of divine-spiritual powers.
No other way of
thinking can be reasonable, indeed no other way is sound or
healthy. To hold a different view would imply a morbid way of
thinking.
But what is the
nature of the spiritual world for which we are to look behind the
physical world of the senses? The spiritual world behind the
physical world is the world of the Beings of the Second
Hierarchy: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. The Second Hierarchy is
behind everything on which the sun sheds its light. And what is
there in the whole compass of our sense-experience that is not
lit up and kept alive by the sun? The sun is the source of the
light and the life of everything.
These Beings of
the Second Hierarchy have their chief dwelling place in the sun.
From the sun they rule over the visible world which is their
revelation. Thus we can say: There we have the earth, with the
sun shining down upon it, and behind and through the workings of
the sun weave the Beings of the Second Hierarchy: Exusiai,
Kyriotetes, Dynamis.
Upon the rays of
the sun, which are the deeds of the Second Hierarchy, are borne
all the sense-impressions that come to our senses through the
hours of waking-day consciousness.
And so we speak
truly if we say: Within and through and behind the workings of
the sun throughout our physical sense-existence is the
super-sensible world of the Second Hierarchy.
Now there is
another and different condition of our earthly existence. We
spoke of this different condition in the last lecture from a
certain point of view. We have the condition of sleep. How does
this condition of sleep present itself in its cosmic counterpart?
Let us consider it for a moment. When our physical and etheric
bodies are in bed, and our astral body and ego outside, then out
in the cosmos we have to think of the sun at a position where the
earth must first let the rays of the sun pass through it before
they reach us. Now in all the ancient Mysteries a certain
teaching was given which, if fully understood, produced a
profoundly moving impression in those who become pupils in the
Mysteries and gradually mastered the Science of Initiation. They
reached a certain stage of inner development which they might
have described in the following way. — I am now telling you
what might have been said by one of these ancient Initiates when
he had attained to a certain degree of Initiation. — He
would have spoken somewhat as follows: “When I stand in the
open fields in the daytime, when I direct my gaze upwards and
give myself up to the impressions of the senses, then I behold
the sun; I see it in its dazzling strength at noontide and behind
the dazzling strength of the noontide sun I behold the working of
the spiritual Beings of the Second Hierarchy in the substance of
the sun. Before my Initiation the substance of the sun vanished
from me at the moment of its setting. The shining radiance of the
sun vanished in the purples of sunset. Before my Initiation I
went through the dark path of night, and in the morning, when the
dawn came, I remembered this darkness. Out of the dawn the sun
shone forth again and took its course onward towards the dazzling
brightness of noon. But now, having attained to Initiation, when
I experience the dawn and behold the sun as it passes from dawn
on through its daily course, a memory of my life during the
night-time awakens within me. I know what I have experienced in
this night life, I remember clearly how I beheld a blue,
glimmering light arise from the evening twilight and gradually
spread, travelling from west to east. And I remember how I beheld
the sun at the midnight hour, at the opposite point in the
firmament to where it had stood in its noontide, dazzling
strength; I saw it gleaming there behind the earth, full of deep
and solemn meaning. I beheld the Midnight Sun!”
Such has actually
been the monologue of Initiates in their meditation, and it
faithfully expresses their experience. The Initiate is conscious
of these things. And when we read Jacob Boehme's book entitled
Aurora then we cannot help being deeply moved by the
realisation that the words which are written in this book are
echoes of a wonderful teaching of the ancient Mysteries.
What is the
“Dawn” to Initiates? It is an instigation to cosmic
remembrance, to remembrance of the vision of the Midnight Sun
behind the earth. With our ordinary sight we see the radiant
yellow-white disc of the sun at noon, but with the vision of
Initiation we see the bluish-violet sun at the opposite point of
the heavens. The earth appears as a transparent body, with the
sun gleaming on the other side of it with a bluish-red light. But
this bluish-red sheen is not what it seems. I must utter the
paradox: — it is not what it seems. When we are gazing at
the Midnight Sun it seems at first that we are looking at
something hazy in the distance. And when we learn with the help
of Initiation more and more clearly to see what at first appears
as a blur in the distance, then the bluish-red light will begin
to take shape and form; it will spread itself over the whole of
the sky but still on the other side of the earth and covered by
the earth. It becomes peopled. Arid just as when we go out of our
house on a starlit night and look up at the majestic spectacle of
the starry heavens with its sparkling points of light, perhaps
with the moon in the centre, so to the gaze of Initiation a whole
world becomes visible on the farther side of the earth, which is
now transparent. It is a world that emerges, as it were, out of
the clouds, becoming a world of living forms. It is the world of
the Second Hierarchy, of the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. There
they appear, these Beings of the Second Hierarchy. And as we
watch more and more closely, if we can attain the stillness of
soul that is required, then something else happens. All this
reveals itself after preparation and meditation and only becomes
a conscious experience at dawn, as an after-memory, when it is
immediately present with us, when we know we have actually beheld
it during the night. What appears on yonder side of the earth is
in reality the weaving world of the Beings of the Second
Hierarchy. And from out of this weaving, living world of the
Second Hierarchy there now radiates a world of other Beings —
raying to us through the earth. It is a truly wonderful world of
Beings that works thus through the earth at night, hovering there
in the firmament, now approaching man, now drawing away, now
approaching him again. We see how the line of the weaving Beings
of the Second Hierarchy ever and again fades out, while another
Hierarchy approaches man, now hovering towards him and now
drawing away from him again. And by-and-by we learn to know what
all this really means.
We have been
conscious the whole day long and now we lie down in sleep. This
means that the physical and etheric bodies are left to
themselves, working in sleep as a plant and mineral world. But by
day we have thoughts; all day long, ideas have been
passing through our being. They have left their traces in our
physical and etheric bodies. We should not be able to remember
the experiences of our earthly existence at all if these traces
which we subsequently use in our memories did not remain. There
they remain, these traces, in what is left of man as he lies
asleep at night — in that part of his being which he has
left behind. A mysterious process takes place there, above all in
the etheric body. All that man has thought during his waking life
from morning till evening begins to move and, ring on waves of
sound. If you think of a certain region of the earth where people
are sleeping, and think of all that weaves and works in the
etheric bodies as an echo of all that these sleeping people have
been thinking during the hours of their waking life, this will
give you a picture of what has happened through the hours of the
day.
And those Beings
who hover over us, rising and descending, busy themselves through
our hours of sleep with the traces that have remained in our
etheric bodies. This becomes their field of action. It is an
immediate experience in them and absorbs their attention. When
this is revealed to us, we say with a sense of deep reverence:
“You, 0 Man, have left your body. And as it lies there it
bears within it the traces of the day's experiences. It is the
field where live the fruits of thy thoughts and ideas during the
day. The Beings of the Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels
and Archai, now enter this field. While you have left your
physical and etheric bodies, these Beings experience what you
have experienced from the thoughts and ideas of your waking
hours.” — Deep reverence fills us at the sight of
some region of the earth where human bodies are left in sleep and
whither the Angels, Archangels and Archai wend their way to all
that unfolds as an echo of the life of day. And we here behold a
wonderful life, born of all that is unfolded between the Beings
of the Third Hierarchy and the traces of the thoughts we have
left behind.
As we gaze at
this field, we become aware how, as human beings, we have our
place within the spiritual cosmos, and how, when we wake, we
create work for the Angels during our hours of sleep. It is so
indeed: during our waking hours we create work for the Angels
during the time of sleep. And now we learn to understand
something about our thinking. We realise that the thoughts which
pass through our heads contain the fruits of what we lay into our
own physical and etheric bodies — fruits which Angels
gather at night. For Angels gather these fruits and bear them out
into the cosmos in order that they may find there their place in
the cosmic Order.
One thing more we
see as we behold these Beings of the Third Hierarchy —
Angels, Archangels and Archai — coming forth from the
Beings of the Second Hierarchy and their activity. We behold how
behind this weaving, again Beings of sublime majesty and grandeur
take part in the activity of the Second Hierarchy. We gaze at the
Second Hierarchy, and we see how into this weaving life of the
Second Hierarchy something else works from behind; and we soon
become aware how this not only strikes, lightning-like, into the
weaving and working of the Second Hierarchy, but striking right
to the other side of the earth, it has to do, not with the part
of man that is left on the earth, but with that other part of his
being that has gone out, namely, the I-organisation and astral
body. And as we gaze at what has been left behind and behold it
as a field where the fruits of thoughts throughout the day are
being gathered by the Angels, Archangels and Archai for the
purposes of cosmic activity, so too we see how the Beings of the
Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, uniting their
activity with that of the First Hierarchy — the Seraphim,
Cherubim and Thrones — concern themselves with the astral
body and ego. And in his morning memory the Initiate says to
himself: “I have lived from the time of falling asleep till
the time of waking in my I and astral body. I have felt myself
enwrapped in all that the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones are
unfolding, together with the Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai.
Living in this world I gazed down at my physical body and my
etheric body and hovering above them I perceived the Angels,
Archangels and Archai, gathering the fruits of my thoughts. I
felt myself one with the Beings of the First and Second
Hierarchies, and I beheld the weaving and working of the Third
Hierarchy in mighty spirit-clouds over my body.”
And so, my dear
friends, in this way you can get a clear picture of how the
Beings of the three Hierarchies appear to the imaginative vision
of Initiation, how they appear there on the opposite side of the
earth in the image of the physical world, but only when this
physical world is plunged in darkness.
Knowledge and
vision of these sublime truths penetrated more and more deeply
into the hearts and souls of those who, in days long since gone
by, partook in the ancient mysteries of Initiation.
And once again
this knowledge can find its way into the hearts and souls of
those who are led to the modern science of Initiation.
Let us picture
this majestic imagination which arises before the soul. We can
picture the human soul liberated from the body, free from its
physical and etheric bodies, weaving in the streaming forces of
the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, the Kyriotetes, Dynamis,
Exusiai.
In the ancient
Mystery rite this was wont to be presented to the uninitiated in
plastic form and in colour. The purpose was to present in plastic
form what the Initiate was able to see in such sublime grandeur
on the other side of the earth. And, in order to show that this
world is also the world where karma is elaborated in communion
with the highest Beings, in front of the plastic form stood the
highest Initiates, those who during earthly existence itself
could already behold with that vision which otherwise comes to
man only between death and a new birth. The highest Initiates
stood in front of the plastic form and still another form was set
up, with human figures all around it. There stood the lesser
Initiates whose work upon their physical and etheric bodies was
not yet complete. The spectacle thus placed before the eyes of
men was a copy of what the Initiates beheld in the Mysteries.
Such was the origin of the altar, where the ritual was enacted by
the higher and lower grades of the priesthood as a copy of what
is revealed in Initiation-Science.
In Roman Catholic
Churches today, as you look from the nave towards the altar, you
have a faint copy of what was once inaugurated by
Initiation-Science. And you begin to understand the origin of the
ritual. A ritual is not invented, for if it is invented it is not
a true ritual. True ritual is brought into existence as a copy of
happenings in the spiritual world.
If I may give an
example, let me speak of one part of that great and all-embracing
ritual which has found its place in the Christian Community, and
with which the majority of you are already familiar. Let me
remind you of the ritual for the burial of the dead, as it is
given in our Christian Community.
Watch the order
of this ritual. There rests the coffin, containing the mortal
remains of the dead person. And before the coffin a ritual is
enacted. Prayer is uttered by the priest. Other things could be
introduced to make the ceremony more complicated, but the help it
can be to humanity can also be clothed in simplicity. What is
this ceremony? Let us suppose, my dear friends, that here we have
a mirror and here again some object. You see the reflection of
the object in the mirror. You have the two things — the
original and the reflection. Similarly, when a ritual for the
dead is enacted, there are the two things. The ritual enacted by
the priest before the coffin is a reflection. It is a reflection,
and it would be no reality if it were not a reflection. What does
it reflect? The acts of the priest as he stands before the dead
body have their prototype in the super-sensible world. For while
we celebrate the earthly rite before the physical body, and the
etheric body is still present, on the other side the heavenly
ritual is enacted by the Beings beyond the threshold of earthly
existence. Over yonder, the soul and spirit are received by what
we may call a ritual of welcome, just as here on earth we
assemble before the dead for a ritual of farewell. A cult or
ceremony is only true when it has its origin in reality.
Thus you see how
the super-sensible life works into earthly life and permeates it.
If we celebrate a true ritual for the dead, a super-sensible
ritual is enacted simultaneously. The two work together. And if
there is sanctity, truth and dignity in the prayers for the dead,
then the prayers of the Beings of the Hierarchies in the
super-sensible world echo in the prayers for the dead and weave
in them. The spiritual world and the physical unite.
Thus in all
things there is accordance between the spiritual world and the
physical world. The spiritual and the physical world interplay in
the very truest way when there comes into being on earth a copy
of what is woven as karma in the super-sensible world between
death and a new birth together with the Beings of the higher
Hierarchies.
Thanks to the Rudolf Steiner Archive
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