The soul exists for the very purpose of recognizing the eternal in things

 

More radiant than the Sun,

Purer than snow,

Subtler than the ether

Is the self,

The spirit of my heart.

I am this self;

This self am I.

This verse lifts us up to our higher self every morning. Such verses are not thought up arbitrarily by just any person, but are obtained from the spiritual world. Therefore they contain much more than is usually believed. And one thinks of these correctly if one assumes that one can never completely fathom their content, although one can always find more within them the more one immerses oneself in them. Therefore only individual indications can be given from the esoteric school as to how one seeks for their content. A few such indications are given in what follows.

More radiant than the Sun

We see the objects that surround us only when they are shone upon by the Sun. What makes them visible are the Sun's rays reflected back from the objects into the eye of the beholder. If there were no light the objects would not be visible. But through this external light only the objects of the physical world become visible. For us to see things of a soul and spiritual nature, a light "more radiant than the Sun" must  shine upon us. This light does not proceed from any external sun. It comes from the source of light that we enkindle in ourselves when we seek within for our higher, eternal self. This higher self has a different origin than our lower self. The latter experiences our everyday surrounding. However, everything that lives in this everyday environment has at some time come into being and will one day pass away. Thus our experience of it has only a transitory value. And from such transitoroy experiences and our thoughts about them our transitory self is built up. All things that become visible because of the Sun were, at one time, not in existence, and some day they will pass away. But the soul exists for the very purpose of recognizing the eternal in things. When one day the entire Earth will be no more, the souls who inhabited it will still exist. And what these souls have experienced on Earth they will carry with them elsewhere as a memory.

    It is the same as when a person does a good deed for me. The deed passes away, but what he or she has planted in my soul remains. And the bond of love that has thus united us does not pass away. What we experience is always the source of something that endures within us. We ourselves extract from things that which endures and carry it over into eternity. And when one day human beings are transplanted to a quite different arena of action, they will bring with them what they have gathered here. And their deeds in the new world will be woven out of the memories of the old. For there is no seed that does not bear fruit. If we are united with someone by love,  then this love is a seed and we will experience the fruit all through the future because we belong together  with such a person throughout the future. Thus there lives in us something that is interwoven with the divine power that binds all things together into the eternal fabric of the uiverse. This "something" is our higher self. And this is more radiant than the Sun. The light of the Sun illuminates a person from the outside only. The sun of the soul illuminates a person from within. Therefore it is more radiant than the Sun.

Source: Rudolf Steiner, Esoteric Lessons 1904-1909, pp. 34-35