Credo: Not I, but Christ in me

From "Credo (or the Individual and the All)" by Rudolf Steiner [written when he was in his mid-twenties]:

The World of Ideas is the original source and the principle of all being and existence. Unending harmony and blessed peace are contained in it. Being, not illuminated by its light, would be something dead and lifeless. It would play no part in the life of the world whole. Only what derives its existence from the Idea means something on the tree of universal creation. The Idea is Spirit — clear and sufficient in itself with itself. Whatever is singular, individual, and particular must have the spirit within itself, otherwise it will fall off, go to waste like a dry leaf from the tree, and would have existed in vain.
     Human beings feel and know themselves as singular only when they awaken to full consciousness. For this reason, yearning for the idea is implanted in them. This yearning leads us to overcome our separateness, or individuality, and allows the Spirit to arise within us and become conformed to the Spirit. We must rise up and cast off everything in us that is selfish, all that defines us as this individual being. For this particularity is what darkens the Light of the Spirit. Everything we do out of sensuality, instinct, desire, or passion only serves the egotistic individuality. We must kill this self-seeking will in us. Let our singularity move there, and follow the voice of the Idea within, because only the Idea is the divine! To will as a separate being is to be a worthless point at the periphery of the universe. It is to disappear into the stream of time. To will "in the Spirit" is to be at the center, for the central Light of the Universe resurrects in you. If you act as a separate being you lock yourself out of the closed chain of world action. The killing of all selfishness ("selfness") is the foundation for a higher life. Whoever destroys selfness lives in eternal being. To the extent that we have allowed selfness to die within us, we are immortal. Selfness is what is mortal in us. Such is the true meaning of the saying "If you do not die before you die, when you die, you rot." Those who do not kill the selfishness within them during their lives have no part in the universal life, which is immortal.





Source: https://steiner.presswarehouse.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=463651, pp. xix-xx.