Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland
First-Class Lesson #15
June 21, 1924
My dear friends! Once again, we will begin with the mantric verse of the world stage and the world’s beings, the mantric verse that confronts a person as it sounds forth from all sides, when one is able with true inner appreciation of heart and soul to perceive what the prime essential beings of the world, the prime producers of the world, are able to say.
O Man, know yourself!
So sounds the word of worlds.You hear it soul-forcefully,
You feel it spirit-powerfully.Who speaks so world-mightily?
Who speaks so heart-inwardly?Does it work streaming through space
Into your sense’s self-experiencing?Does it sound weaving through time
Into your life's evolving stream?Are you the one, who yourself
In sensing space, in experiencing time
Creates the word, feeling yourself
Estranged in space’s soul-emptiness,
As you lose the power of thinking
In time’s destroying stream?
My dear brothers and sisters, my dear friends, it is worth noting that since various class members are making their appearance at this Class lesson today who have not been here before, some things will be said for the sake of continuity, things which are necessary to know if one wishes to take up and fully appreciate the subject matter of today’s Class lesson.
We have certainly experienced, my dear brothers and sisters, how the great pictures of life appear before the soul when a person approaches, through true, genuine experience, the abyss which emerges between the world in which we live here, and the world that we come to know as the one in which we have our own true being, our actual human existence.
We are aware that when we take hold of the world around us here in the right way, that this world certainly claims our most intense interest. We look all around from the lowliest worm up to the shining, glittering stars of the heavens, looking all around throughout the realms of nature, out of which much has been taken that we ourselves carry within. And we have every reason, in what is revealed around us in streaming brilliant sunlight, to feel down to the bottom of our hearts and souls its grandeur, its world-shaking importance, and its majesty. And we should not become misled by participating in any sort of esotericism, by any type of science of the spirit, however ascetically we happen to chance upon it, for it could be merely a false asceticism, that involves turning away from the world. We should turn neither from the lowly worm nor from the exalted starry heavens, simply because these belong to the visible world. We should not turn away from it all and fail to perceive its grandeur, its majesty, and its sublimity, and fail to perceive the significance that it has for each of us.
We should take this to heart. If we truly embrace spiritual science, we should feel fully at home in what appears around us as the world. But we should also be aware, and we can become aware, as we interact with the things and beings and events of the world in the proper intrinsic manner of heart and soul, we can and should become aware that our true, genuine, highest human self is not to be found in all these realms of nature, in spite of the world being so grand and exalted, in its sun-drenched and sun-illuminated nature, but that in the pursuit of cognition, we must seek our highest nature in a world which is separated from us by an abyss, and that the things on the other side of the abyss, in the other world, from which we really stem, are portrayed to us initially as blackest night. The abyss looms before us as a wall, a black wall.
But the first being that we meet stands right at the abyss. Ever more and more we must allow this to resound within every night when we sleep, and we may certainly find this out, that the realm we are actually in then is the one to which we belong with the innermost and most genuine part of our humanity. But we really take up residence in this realm only when fully ready. We should not enter undeveloped. The Guardian of the Threshold, the first spirit-being that we meet, has warned us about this, in regard to any serious, genuine wish to gaze into this world of our ancient origin, and to enter therein unprepared.
Then it is the Guardian of the Threshold himself who speaks the first words to us, as we tread the path over the abyss, into the realm of spirit from which we come. The Guardian of the Threshold himself admonishes that we should look back at our own self, in order that in self-awareness we should seek the foundation for understanding the world.
It is also the Guardian of the Threshold himself, however, who shows us that what is initially in our soul-nature as thinking, feeling, and willing, that this corresponds to a certain gestalt, an organization in the spiritual world, which can be portrayed in front of us, and with which we can become acquainted imaginatively. At the abyss he points this construction out to us, this gestalt of our thinking, feeling, and willing, in their initial forms appropriate for our present time and age, as the three beasts that emerge from the abyss. And all that follows then is an admonition from the side of the Guardian of the Threshold that we should pay especially close attention to these three beasts, meaning of course, to ourselves, in order in this manner to really find, out of our primal state, the path toward world comprehension.
All this has been brought in the form of mantric verses before the souls of all who have taken part in these lessons, and all of this has led up to what was brought forth in the last lesson.
So here we stand, the situational meditation before us. We have been advised, have had it pointed out to us, that we are already standing on the other side of the abyss, although still under the warning guidance of the Guardian of the Threshold. He directs certain words to us, in order that they should lead us to an understanding of our situation when we have flown over the abyss and have entered the realm which for us is initially quite dark.
On this side, as long as we stay within our present realm, from which we have not originated and from which we have not emerged, here we have under us the firmness of earth, which carries and supports us, and which, as we have seen, may be touched and felt by our entire body, when we stand upon the first element, upon the element of earth.
We also carry within us and may feel what one calls "water" in spiritual science. This is indicated overall by all fluidity, and we may feel the fluid element within us. Most certainly it has built us from within, has made us grow, out of its nature has guided all organs into being, merely out of its nature, out of the nature of this second element, the element of water. And entrained to this water element, that of course is also the blood element, is again an admonition of the Guardian.
Entrained to what we take up through our breath, the air element, entrained to what we take up through warmth, the fire element working effectively in us, also entrained there and directed at us are meaningful words of the Guardian of the Threshold.
And the powers of the world work in us in such a way that an answer forms in our souls, an answer concerning each admonishing question of the Guardian of the Threshold. This answer, brought into movement in us by world powers, this answer can come from Christ, and then it will be the right answer. It can come from Lucifer, but then it will be an incorrect answer. It can come from Ahriman, but then again it will be an incorrect answer.
The admonition of Christ should always be formed, in regard to each individual element, so that the Christ in us speaks, so that over there in the spiritual world we feel full of spirit, totally full of spirit, fully in harmony with the spirit-element, but so that we know, that as long as we are men of earth, that we must ever and again journey back over the abyss into earthly existence, we must not languish in how we are over there in the spiritual world, we must tear ourselves away from the nature of the spiritual world.
Christ will always speak to us in this way, warning us, that as long as we are in the spiritual world, that we should be at one with this spiritual world, but when we return again, that we should live upon the earth as proper men and women of earth, for we should be living in the spirit only in the spiritual world.
Lucifer will always spur us on, seeking to have us wish to remain in the spiritual world, to become absorbed in lust with the spiritual world, to become absorbed in the pleasures of the spiritual world.
Ahriman will always induce us into wanting to take on the task of pulling the spiritual world over into the physical world.
This sort of thing must be allowed to work on one's soul, so that by its means a person can properly regard, can feel into, the whole situation regarding the spiritual world.
And so, feel that we ourselves are on the other side of the abyss, already standing within the spiritual world, but standing nonetheless in utter darkness, the Guardian of the Threshold at the abyss turning to us assertively, in warning, directing admonishing questions at us, questions that lance deeply into our souls. Sense how for each individual question a threefold answer comes to us in the answers of Christ, of Lucifer, and of Ahriman.
The Guardian speaks: Where is the firmness of earth, that supported you?
There is no floor anywhere. We are in the spiritual world.
The Guardian asks: Where is earth’s firmness, that supported you?
Christ in us answers: I leave its solid ground, as long as the spirit carries me.
Lucifer in us answers: I feel delight, that I no longer need the support.
Ahriman answers: I will hammer it still harder by the spirit’s might.The Guardian speaks: Where is water’s forming force, that permeated you?
Christ in us speaks: My life extinguishes it, as long as the spirit forms me.
Lucifer in us: My life expunges it, that I may be released from it.
Ahriman in us: My life affixes it, that I may carry it to spirit realms.The Guardian: Where is air’s stimulation, that waked you?
Christ in us: My soul breathes heaven's air, as long as the spirit is about me.
Lucifer in us: My soul cares not for it in spirit blissfulness.
Ahriman in us: My soul absorbs it, that I may learn godlike to create.The Guardian speaks: Where is fire’s cleansing, that inflamed in you the I?
Christ in us: My “I” blazes in God-Fire, so long as the spirit kindles me.
Lucifer in us: My “I” has flaming power through spirit sun-craft.
Ahriman in us: My “I” has its own fire, that flames purely through self-unfolding.
We will be probed by the admonishing questions of the Guardian, about how we have come to deport ourselves in regard to the supports of earth, in regard to the fluid forming force in us, in regard to the astral nurturing force of air in us, and in regard to the “I”-bearing force of fire in us. And in us Christ answers, if a proper humanity moves within us. In us the tempter Lucifer answers, as if we should bound over into the wonder of all forever, which we should really bring into movement within us only during the time we rightfully give ourselves over to the spirit. And in us Ahriman answers, as if we should carry over into the fields of earth what we partake of in the land of the spirit.
Whatever is possible for the soul, we must allow the soul to work on, to work within the soul. We must expose ourselves just as fully to the voice of Christ as to the voice of Lucifer and to the voice of Ahriman. We must inwardly move ourselves in meditation into this situation. In depths of soul we then become, directly by this means, in having appealed to our deepest inner nature, my dear brothers and sisters, directly by this means we become so broadly liberated, that in liberated spirit-experience we can have the spiritual element most truly as our own.
Today we must enter into this situation more fully. We must pointedly feel ourselves to be standing on the other side of the threshold of this abyss, the admonishing Guardian of the Threshold beside us, and within us voices dragging a human being toward the very different positions of Lucifer and Ahriman, and within us the voice of Christ showing us the proper course while Lucifer on one side and Ahriman on the other are seeking to mislead us. Then we will be in the right frame of heart and mind which makes it possible to start off into the spiritual world with feeling, with empathy, with empathic inner feeling.
We can only do this, my dear brothers and sisters, by gradually acquiring the ability to sense, to feel, to regard higher spiritual beings, just as we sense, feel, and regard the beings of the three realms of nature here in the sensory world.
When standing here in the sensory world, external to ourselves we may feel the nature of a stone, the mineral nature, and we may say to ourselves that this mineral nature also lives in us. For we have salinity in us. Mineral nature, living in us in salinity, is the principal thing that really makes it possible to be a human being upon the earth.
We may gaze out upon the plant-world and know that we have taken plant-like nature into ourselves, having it in our earthly nature within what is bordered by our skin, carrying it in our power of growth, carrying it in what forms our organs for us, and carrying it also in all that we process while asleep. We feel plant-like nature carried in us, while we gaze at plant-like nature around us.
We may gaze out upon the animals, and know that in our astral nature, in our breathing process, that we carry animal nature itself within us. As we gaze out on various animals, we say that we feel allied to, in sympathy with, their animal nature, because we carry within ourselves this same animal nature, although within our human nature we reorganize it.
We feel ourselves to be human here in the sensory world under the sway of the beings of the three realms of nature. We must learn to feel in this way when remaining within the spiritual world under the sway of those beings with whom we exist in our human soul and spirit nature, just as we exist here with our physical and etheric nature among the beings of the three realms of external nature. Just as we learn to know ourselves as physical human beings under the sway of other physical human beings, just so we must learn to know ourselves as humans of soul and spirit under the sway of higher beings of soul and spirit.
We have become acquainted with what, for us as human beings, is the surrounding encompassing spiritual-soul world, composed of three hierarchies, in the same way we have learned to know what is around us here, and have become acquainted with the beings of the sensory world in the three realms of nature. With our physical-etheric nature we belong to the three realms of nature. With our soul-spiritual nature we belong to the three realms of the hierarchies. While remaining here in the physical world, it is only natural to belong to the three realms of nature, to let them flow through us and to remain among them. While remaining pressed into the soul-spiritual world, during our time there, our condition must be soul-spiritual, in belonging among the entities of the higher hierarchies of the spiritual world, feeling ourselves empathically, intuitively pressed in among them, and discerning these entities of the higher hierarchies just as we do otherwise in regard to the beings of the realms of nature.
The Guardian in turn instructs us further about this. And to these mantric words, drawn forth from the spiritual world by the alluring voice of the Guardian, to these mantric words we must turn, ever and ever again allowing them to resound within our souls in meditation. Then they will have the power, directly by the simple manner in which they have been constructed, through the recapitulation within yourself, through their own quite capable intrinsic form, these mantric words will be properly able to call into wakefulness in our souls the feeling of standing within the spiritual world among the hierarchies.
We have to envision the next mantra in this way, with the Guardian speaking. We are still standing on the other side of the Threshold of the spiritual world in darkness, having learned first to feel about within the spiritual world, before learning to gaze about. First the Guardian speaks, once again in reference to the elements of earth, water, and air. Building on fire will be the subject matter of the next Class lesson. First the Guardian speaks, in reference to the elements of earth, water, and air, and therefore to all that is fixed in us, to all that is fluid in us, primarily our blood and lymph, and in reference to all that is aeriform in us, the air taken in from outside that is encompassed in our breathing process. The Guardian speaks in reference to all this. And he calls forth what resounds in the world of the hierarchies.
After the Guardian has directed his word at us, one hierarchy after the other speaks, the third hierarchy accompanying the first mantra, at first the Angels, then the Archangels, and finally the Archai. We should feel ourselves in this situation. The Guardian of the Threshold is speaking to us. It sounds forth from the darkness, as if emerging from the background all around, and at the same time it speaks within our souls, reverberating within us.
The Guardian speaks:
What becomes of earth’s firmness, that supported you?
The Angels from the Third Hierarchy:
Sense,1 as we sense in your thinking.
The Archangels from the Third Hierarchy:
Experience,2 as we experience in your feeling.
The Archai from the Third Hierarchy:
Behold,3 as we behold in your willing.
We receive from the cosmos a momentous threefold instruction in regard to the question of the Guardian of the Threshold. With magic power his words call forth the answer of the Angels, the Archangels, and the Archai.
Just what do the Angels profess to us? As human beings we think. Initially we believe we only experience our thoughts. But while our thoughts are flowing through our souls, the Angels are actually living within our thoughts. And as we perceive with our senses, as we confront and engage something or other, so living within our thoughts are the Angels, for that is how they perceive, how they sense. They speak and make us aware of this. And just as the Angels sense within our thinking, just so the Archangels live in and experience in our feeling, and the Archai show themselves and take part in our willing.
When some sort of thought, my dear brothers and sisters, zips through your soul, then you should feel, that in this thought a being of the hierarchy of Angels perceives something. In that you are thinking, an Angel is touching something, sensing, perceiving. While you are feeling, a being from the hierarchy of the Archangels is living into it, experiencing. While you are willing, in that you deploy your will, a being from the hierarchy of the Archai is taking hold and looking about, observing. Human thinking, human feeling, and human willing are not merely ongoing within human beings. When we think, the Angels sense. When we feel, the Archangels experience. When we employ our will, the Archai take part, looking about, observing.
[The first part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The Guardian speaks:
What becomes of earth’s firmness, that supported you?
It is answered from the hierarchy of the Angels, from the third hierarchy: [3rd Hierarchy was written in front of this section and underlined.]
3rd Hierarchy
Angels: Sense, as we sense in your thinking.
It sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Archangels:
Archangels: Experience, as we experience in your feeling.
It sounds forth from the hierarchy of the Archai:
Archai: Behold, as we behold in your willing.
That is what in the spiritual world takes the place of the element of earth. For the supporting force of earth is simply not there. The firm floor of earth is gone. Everything solid and fixed is gone. The Third Hierarchy, the Angels, Archangels, and Archai, make a firm support, but not as the minerals shape up into firmness. We would not be thinking deeply, but would be bogged down on all sides in our thinking if the Angels were not working there, if they were not having their own sort of sensory perception there. If the Archangels were not living in our feeling, we would scatter ourselves about in amorphous formlessness. If the Archai were not able to gaze into our willing, we would fade away to nothing in our willing.
The second is water, which gives us the formative force, the fluid element in us. Once more we may imagine that we are standing on the other side of the abyss in darkness before the spiritual world. First, we learn to feel our way around in it. The Guardian is speaking, admonishing, questioning. Now, however, entrained in answer to the questioning about the force of fluidity, to the element of fluidity, is the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes.
The Guardian speaks:
What becomes of water’s forming force, that permeated you?
Out of the second hierarchy the Exusiai answer:
Know spirit-world-construction4 in human-body-construction.
The Dynamis of the second hierarchy:
Feel spirit-world-life in human-body-life.
The Kyriotetes of the second hierarchy:
Will spirit-world-process in human-body-existence.
In this manner we are brought into becoming aware that as we stand face to face with everything around us, that we are not standing alone. We should learn to feel that in our bodily existence, in all that we carry around within the boundaries of our skin, there lives a part of universal world existence. The Second Hierarchy is in us, working in us, making us to some extent cosmic beings, beings linked to the cosmos as our limbs are linked to us.
All this should wash over us so thoroughly in awareness, through this mantric verse, so that in standing within the events of the world, everything within us, from the smallest vibration of our cellular organs, to the grand exalted beating movements of our blood, to the rhythms of our breathing system, to the rhythms alternating between night and day, so that everything, so that all this, is not merely happening within us, but as a linked limb of universal world process. [The second part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The Guardian speaks:
What becomes of water’s forming force, that permeated you?
The Exusiai answer from the Second Hierarchy: [2nd Hierarchy was written in front of this section and underlined.]
2nd Hierarchy
Exusiai:
Know spirit-world-construction in human-body-construction.
The Dynamis answer from the second hierarchy:
Dynamis:
Feel spirit-world-life in human-body-life.
The Kyriotetes answer from the second hierarchy:
Kyriotetes:
Will spirit-world-process in human-body-existence.
In these mantric verses, as I have often said, all must be taken specifically as given. So the question may arise, why it is, that standing here next to “world spiritual process” is “human body existence”? We must take each exact word to heart if a mantric verse is to work properly in our souls. Externally world process has dominion, and we perceive it as happening. This world process is world-wide, all-embracing, and fills the universe. As it continues on in us, it actually is in us, although we feel it as self-contained in our existence, because our skin defines our outer borders and we feel ourselves to be fully self-contained. Within ourselves we do not feel everything moving, undulating, weaving, in the way we feel it externally. And so here “process” stands in contradistinction to “existence,” whereas earlier and quite rightly “construction” stands with “construction," and “life” with “life”.
And in regard to the element of air, its admonishing question is also raised by the Guardian of the Threshold. It is answered by the beings of the First Hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. They admonish us that we should become aware of just how the cosmos works in us. We must progress from mere consciousness to self-consciousness, and here it is the beings of the First Hierarchy who guide us.
The Guardian speaks:
What becomes of air’s stimulation, that waked you?
From the First Hierarchy the Thrones answer:
Grasp5 inner existence knowingly in your god’s-world-existence.
The Cherubim from the First Hierarchy:
Warm6 yourself on inner life in your god’s-world-life.
The Seraphim from the First Hierarchy:
Wake7 inner light in yourself in your god’s-world-light.
So now we are admonished to re-awaken self-awareness at a higher level, for by means of the magical words of the second hierarchy we have traversed out into the cosmos, we have felt our unification with the cosmos. [The third part of the mantra was now written on the board.]
The Guardian speaks:
What becomes of air’s stimulation, that waked you?
From the First Hierarchy the cosmic answer sounds forth: [3rd Hierarchy was written before the section and underlined.]
1st Hierarchy
Thrones:
Grasp inner existence knowingly in your god’s-world-existence.
Cherubim:
Warm yourself on inner life in your god’s-world-life.
Seraphim:
Wake inner light in yourself in your god’s-world-light.
Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, without having felt the effective working of this last mantra, as it sounds forth from the fiery flashing power of the Seraphim, “Wake inner light in yourself in your god’s-world-light,” without this flashing, flaming word intoned by the Seraphim flaming forth, we would not be able to catch the sense of how, out of our own soul, a force must be awakened, so that as we stand there in darkness, on the other side of the abyss, still just feeling about, gradually feeling the world approaching us, by this means, by and by, a mere glimmer begins to emanate from us, becoming more lucid, the glimmer progressively penetrating ever further in space, and broader and broader, and as the glimmer becomes more and more luminous, more and more brilliant, by means of our own force the night-bedecked darkness there in the spiritual world gradually becomes lucent. It must be so. In this manner we must try to attain the igniting power of the true self, the fiery igniting power of true humanity, for this is the light in the initially night-bedecked spiritual lands.
So, we feel ourselves to be within the threefold spiritual world of the Angels, Exusiai, Thrones, and so forth, just as we feel ourselves to be within the sensory world here in the sensory existence in the three realms of nature. So we learn to feel ourselves as human beings in our true human manner of existing in the spiritual environment, just as we feel ourselves as sensing human beings in the sensory environment. We learn it, inasmuch as we ascend due to the third hierarchy, which unfurls the spirit in us, we ascend to the particular spirit within which this hierarchy lives, inasmuch as we then ascend from this to the second hierarchy, which develops the spirit in us of producing, living, existing, and finally, insofar as we come to the first hierarchy, where we once again have a support, although a support of spirit, which most certainly is at the top and not at the bottom, wherein we have the reign of wisdom in the Cherubim, which brings us, in the service of self-awareness, to what can in turn bring warmth into our inner nature in self-perception, in inner-self-feelings, in inner-self-warming, until we come thereby to this inwardly-warmed self which becomes the illuminating element, which will clarify, illuminate, what was dark for us before.
And so we stand, feeling such things at the side of the Guardian of the Threshold, feeling immersed in the admonition sounding forth, confronting us from all the beings of the world, from all the happenings of the world, so that from self-awareness we ascend to world-awareness, from world-awareness to human-awareness, and so that we remain standing extant in nature, but also extant in spirit, we ourselves held by both sides of reality, by the side of nature and by the side of spirit.
But then resounding in a new form, in a new gestalt, the words not being different, but being felt differently, strengthened through the admonition of all the hierarchies of the spiritual world, in which we stand primarily as human beings, and so then again resounds the world word:
O Man, know yourself!
So sounds the word of worlds.You hear it soul-forcefully,
You feel it spirit-powerfully.Who speaks so world-mightily?
Who speaks so heart-inwardly?Does it work streaming through space
Into your sense’s self-experiencing?Does it sound weaving through time
Into your life's evolving stream?Are you the one, who yourself
In sensing space, in experiencing time
Creates the word, feeling yourself
Estranged in space’s soul-emptiness,
As you lose the power of thinking
In time’s destroying stream?
3. Hierarchie: 2. Hierarchie: 1. Hierarchie: | 3rd. Hierarchy: 2nd. Hierarchy: 1st. Hierarchy: |
Source: June 21, 1924
Jñāna Yoga — Anthroposophy — culminates in Hatha Yoga
 |
"The Marriage of the Virgin" by Raphael |
Hatha Yoga: The union of the Sun (Ha) and the Moon (Tha)
The concluding lessons of the First Class:
Lesson 16:The chela becomes Anthropos-Sophia
Lesson 17: The Bride of Christ: The microcosmic Anthropos-Sophia becomes the macrocosmic Moon Sophia
Lesson 18: Ha-Tha Yoga: The union of Sophia and Christ the Sun God
Lesson 19: Advaita (Nonduality): Not I, but Christ in me
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