Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts
GA 26
23. Where is Man as a Being Who Thinks and Remembers?
[ 1 ] With his power to form ideas (thinking) and his experience of memories, man finds himself within the physical world. But wherever he may turn his gaze in this physical world, he will nowhere find with his senses anything that could give him the power to form ideas and to remember.
[ 2 ] Self-consciousness appears in the act of forming ideas. This is, in accordance with our former studies, an acquisition man possesses from the forces of the Earth. But these earthly forces are such as remain concealed from the vision of the senses. During earthly life man thinks only that which his senses impart to him, but the power to think is not given him by anything of all that he thus thinks.
[ 3 ] Where do we find this force which forms ideas (thought) and the pictures of memory out of that which belongs to the Earth?
[ 4 ] We find it when the spiritual vision is directed to that which man brings with him from the previous Earth-lives. The ordinary consciousness knows nothing of this. It lives in man unconsciously at first; but when, after his spiritual life, man enters into earthly existence, it immediately shows itself to be related to those earthly forces which do not come into the sphere of sense-observation and sense-thought.
[ 5 ] Man is not in this sphere with his ideas (thought), but with his will, which works in accordance with destiny.
[ 6 ] When we consider that the Earth contains forces outside the sphere of the senses we may speak of the “spiritual Earth” as the opposite pole of the physical. It then follows that as a Willing being man lives in and with the “spiritual Earth,&148; while as a Thinking being he is indeed within the physical Earth, but as such he does not live with it.
[ 7 ] Man as a thinking being carries forces from the Spirit world into the physical, but with these forces he remains a Spirit-being who only appears in the physical world, but does not form a union with it.
[ 8 ] The thinking human being forms a mutual relationship during earthly existence with the ‘spiritual Earth’ only; and out of this mutual relationship his self-consciousness develops. We therefore owe the development of self-consciousness to spiritual processes which take place in man during earthly life.
[ 9 ] If with spiritual vision we grasp that which is here described, we have before us the ‘human ego.’
[ 10 ] With the experiences of memory we come into the sphere of the human astral body. In the act of remembering there stream into the present ego not merely the results of former Earth-lives, as is the case in thinking, but into his inner being stream the forces of the Spirit-world, which man experiences between death and new birth. This in-streaming takes place into the astral body.
[ 11 ] Again there is no sphere within the physical Earth for the immediate reception of the forces which thus stream in. As a being who remembers, man cannot unite with the objects and processes perceived by his senses, any more than he can unite with them as a being who forms ideas.
[ 12 ] But he forms a mutual relationship with that which is not indeed physical, but which transposes the physical into processes, into events. These are the rhythmical processes in Nature and in human life. In Nature, day and night alternate rhythmically, the seasons of the year follow in rhythmic succession, etc. In man, the processes of respiration and the circulation of the blood take place rhythmically; so do the alternating states of waking and sleeping, etc.
[ 13 ] Rhythmical processes are nothing physical, either in Nature or in man. They might be called half spiritual. The physical as object vanishes in the rhythmic process. In the act of remembering, man's being is transposed into his own rhythm as well as into that of Nature. He lives in his astral body.
[ 14 ] Indian Yoga wishes to submerge itself entirely in the experience of rhythm. It wishes to leave the sphere of thought, the sphere of the ego, and in an inward experience similar to memory look into the world that lies behind the one which it is possible for the ordinary consciousness to know.
[ 15 ] It is not permissible for the spiritual life of the West to suppress the ego in order to ‘know.’ It must bring the ego (‘I’) to the perception of the Spiritual.
[ 16 ] This cannot take place if we penetrate from the world of the senses to the world of rhythm, and so experience in the rhythm only the process in which the physical becomes half spiritual. Rather we must find that sphere of the Spirit world which reveals itself in rhythm.
[ 17 ] Two things are therefore possible. Firstly, the experience of the physical in the rhythmical element as the physical becomes half spiritual. This is an older path, one not to be followed any longer at the present time. Secondly, the experience of the Spirit-world, which possesses as its sphere the cosmic rhythm within man and without him, just as man's sphere is the earthly world with its physical beings and processes.
[ 18 ] Now to this Spirit-world belongs everything that takes place at the present cosmic moment through Michael. A Spirit such as Michael brings that which otherwise would lie in the Luciferic sphere into the purely human evolution which is not influenced by Lucifer—by choosing the world of rhythm for his dwelling-place.
[ 19 ] All this can be seen when man enters into Imagination. For with Imagination the soul lives in rhythm, and Michael's world is the one which reveals itself in rhythm.
[ 20 ] Memory stands already in this world, but not very deeply. The ordinary consciousness experiences nothing of it. But if we enter into Imagination there emerges first of all, out of the world of rhythm, the world of subjective memories; and this passes over at once into the archetypal pictures for the physical world which are created by the Divine-Spiritual world and which live in the etheric. We experience the ether which lights up in cosmic pictures and conceals within it the creative activity of the Universe. And the Sun-forces weaving in this ether are there not merely radiant, they conjure up the archetypal world-pictures out of the light. The Sun appears as the cosmic world-painter. It is the cosmic counterpart of the impulses which in man paint the pictures of thought.
[ 1 ] (February, 1925)
Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (in connection with the foregoing study: Where is man as a being who thinks and remembers?)
[ 21 ] 165. Man as a thinking being, though he lives in the realm of the physical Earth, does not enter into communion with it. He lives, a spiritual being, in such a way as to perceive the physical; but the forces for his Thinking, he receives from the ‘spiritual Earth,’ in the same way in which he receives his Destiny—the outcome of his former lives on Earth.
[ 22 ] 166. What he experiences in Memory is already within that world where in rhythm the physical becomes half spiritual, and where such Spirit-processes take place as are being brought about in the present cosmic moment by Michael.
[ 23 ] 167. He who learns to know Thinking and Memory in their true nature, will also begin to understand how man as an earthly being, though he lives within the earthly realm, does not become submerged in it with his full being. For as a being from beyond the Earth, he is seeking by communion with the spiritual Earth for his Self-consciousness—for the fulfilment of his Ego.
Wo ist der Mensch als denkendes und sich erinnerndes Wesen?
(Goetheanum, Januar 1925)
[ 1 ] Mit dem Vorstellen (Denken) und dem Erleben von Erinnerungen befindet sich der Mensch innerhalb der physischen Welt. Aber, wo immer er den Blick in dieser physischen Welt hinrichtet: mit seinen Sinnen wird er nirgends etwas finden, das ihm die Kräfte zum Vorstellen und Erinnern geben könnte.
[ 2 ] Im Vorstellen erscheint das Selbstbewußtsein. Dieses ist — im Sinne der vorangehenden Betrachtungen — ein Erwerb, den der Mensch von den Kräften des Irdischen hat. Aber diese irdischen Kräfte sind solche, die dem sinnlichen Anschauen verborgen bleiben. Der Mensch denkt zwar im Erdenleben nur das, was ihm seine Sinne vermitteln; aber die Kraft zum Denken gibt ihm nichts von alle dem, was er so denkt.
[ 3 ] Wo findet man diese Kraft, die aus dem Irdischen heraus das Vorstellen (Denken) und die Erinnerungsbilder formt?
[ 4 ] Man findet sie, wenn man den Geistesblick auf das richtet, was sich der Mensch aus den vorigen Erdenleben mitbringt. Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein kennt dieses nicht. Es lebt im Menschen zunächst unbewußt. Aber es erweist sich, indem der Mensch nach dem geistigen Sein die Erde betritt, sogleich als verwandt mit den irdischen Kräften, die nicht in den Bereich von Sinnesbeobachten und Sinnesdenken fallen.
[ 5 ] Nicht mit dem Vorstellen (Denken) ist der Mensch in diesem Bereich, sondern mit dem Wollen, das sich im Sinne des Schicksals abspielt.
[ 6 ] Man kann in Anbetracht dessen, daß die Erde Kräfte enthält, die außerhalb des Sinnenbereiches fallen, von der «geistigen Erde» als Gegenpol der physischen sprechen. Dann ergibt sich, daß der Mensch als Willenswesen in und mit der «geistigen Erde» lebt, daß er aber als vorstellendes (denkendes) Wesen zwar innerhalb der physischen Erde ist, daß er aber als solches nicht mit ihr lebt.
[ 7 ] Der Mensch als denkendes Wesen trägt aus der Geist-Welt Kräfte in die physische; aber er bleibt mit diesen Kräften Geistwesen, das in der physischen Welt nur erscheint, aber keine Gemeinsamkeit mit ihr eingeht.
[ 8 ] Eine Gemeinsamkeit geht der vorstellende (denkende) Mensch während des Erdendaseins nur mit der «geistigen Erde» ein. Und aus dieser Gemeinsamkeit erwächst ihm sein Selbstbewußtsein. — Dessen Entstehung ist also verdankt solchen Vorgängen, die sich im Erdenleben mit dem Menschen als geistige abspielen.
[ 9 ] Umfaßt man mit der Geistesschau, was da beschrieben ist, so hat man das «menschliche Ich» vor dieser Schau.
[ 10 ] Mit den Erinnerungs-Erlebnissen kommt man in das Gebiet des menschlichen Astralleibes. Im Erinnern strömen nicht bloß wie beim Vorstellen (Denken) die Ergebnisse voriger Erdenleben in das gegenwärtige Ich, sondern es strömen die Kräfte der Geist-Welt, die der Mensch zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt erlebt, in sein Inneres ein. Dieses Einströmen geschieht in den Astralleib.
[ 11 ] Nun gibt es innerhalb der physischen Erde auch für die unmittelbare Aufnahme der so einströmenden Kräfte kein Gebiet. Der Mensch kann als sich erinnerndes Wesen noch ebensowenig mit den Dingen und Vorgängen, die seine Sinne wahrnehmen, sich verbinden, wie er sich als vorstellendes Wesen mit diesen verbinden kann.
[ 12 ] Aber er geht Gemeinsamkeit ein mit dem, was zwar nicht physisch ist, was aber das Physische in Vorgänge, in Geschehnisse umsetzt. Es sind dies die rhythmischen Vorgänge in Natur- und Menschenleben. In der Natur wechseln rhythmisch Tag und Nacht, folgen rhythmisch Jahreszeiten und so weiter. Im Menschen erfolgt das Atmen und die Blutzirkulation im Rhythmus. Es geht so der Wechsel von Schlafen und Wachen vor sich und so weiter.
[ 13 ] Rhythmische Vorgänge sind weder in der Natur, noch im Menschen etwas Physisches. Man könnte sie halbgeistig nennen. Das Physische als Ding verschwindet im rhythmischen Vorgang. Im Erinnern ist der Mensch mit seinem Wesen in seinen und in den Naturrhythmus versetzt. Er lebt in seinem Astralleib.
[ 14 ] Indischer Yoga will ganz in dem Erleben des Rhythmus aufgehen. Er will das Gebiet des Vorstellens, des Ich verlassen und in einem inneren Erleben, das dem Erinnern ähnlich ist, in die Welt schauen, die hinter dem liegt, was das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein kennen kann.
[ 15 ] Das westliche Geistesleben darf zum Erkennen das Ich nicht unterdrücken. Es muß das Ich an die Wahrnehmung des Geistigen heranbringen.
[ 16 ] Es kann das nicht geschehen, wenn man von der sinnenfälligen in die rhythmische Welt so vordringt, daß man im Rhythmus nur das Halbgeistig-Werden des Physischen erlebt. Man muß vielmehr die Sphäre der Geistwelt finden, die im Rhythmus sich offenbart.
[ 17 ] Zweierlei ist also möglich. Erstens: Erleben des Physischen im Rhythmischen, wie dieses Physische halbgeistig wird. Es ist dies ein älterer, heute nicht mehr zu betretender Weg. Zweitens: Erleben der Geist-Welt, die den Weltenrhythmus in und außerhalb des Menschen so zu ihrer Sphäre hat, wie der Mensch die Erdenwelt mit ihren physischen Wesen und Vorgängen.
[ 18 ] Zu dieser Geist-Welt nun gehört alles, was im gegenwärtigen kosmischen Augenblicke durch Michael geschieht. Ein Geist wie Michael bringt dasjenige, was sonst im luziferischen Gebiet liegen würde, dadurch in das der rein menschlichen Entwickelung — die von Luzifer nicht beeinflußt ist -, daß er die rhythmische Welt zu seinem Wohnplatz erwählt.
[ 19 ] Angeschaut kann das alles werden, indem der Mensch in die Imagination eintritt. Denn die Seele lebt mit der Imagination im Rhythmus; und Michaels Welt ist diejenige, die im Rhythmus sich offenbart.
[ 20 ] Erinnerung, Gedächtnis steht schon in dieser Welt darinnen, aber noch nicht tief. Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein erlebt davon nichts. Tritt man aber in die Imagination ein, dann taucht aus der Rhythmus-Welt zunächst die Welt der subjektiven Erinnerungen auf; diese geht aber sogleich über in die im Ätherischen lebenden von der göttlich-geistigen Welt geschaffenen Urbilder für die physische Welt. Den in kosmischen Bildern aufleuchtenden, das Weltenschaffen in sich bergenden Äther erlebt man. Und die in diesem Äther webenden Sonnenkräfte: die sind da nicht bloß strahlend, die zaubern Welten-Urbilder aus dem Lichte heraus. Die Sonne erscheint als der kosmische Weltenmaler. Sie ist das kosmische Gegenbild der Impulse, die im Menschen die Vorstellungs- (Denk-) Bilder malen.
Goetheanum, Januar 1925.
Leitsätze Nr. 165 bis 167
(1. März 1925)
Mit Bezug auf die vorangehende Betrachtung: Wo ist der Mensch als denkendes und sich erinnerndes Wesen?
[ 21 ] 165. Der Mensch lebt zwar als denkendes Wesen in dem Bereich der physischen Erde; aber er geht mit dieser keine Gemeinsamkeit ein. Er lebt als Geist-Wesen so, daß er das Physische wahrnimmt; die Kräfte zum Denken empfängt er aber von der «geistigen Erde» auf demselben Wege, auf dem er das Schicksal im Ergebnis voriger Erdenleben erlebt.
[ 22 ] 166. Was in der Erinnerung (im Gedächtnisse) erlebt wird, das ist schon in der Welt, wo im Rhythmus das Physische halbgeistig wird und wo solche Geist-Vorgänge sich abspielen, wie diejenigen sind, die im gegenwärtigen kosmischen Augenblicke durch Michael geschehen.
[ 23 ] 167. Wer Denken und Erinnerung richtig kennen lernt, dem geht das Verständnis dafür auf, wie der Mensch als Erdenwesen zugleich innerhalb des Erdgebietes lebt, aber doch nicht völlig in dieses Gebiet mit seinem Wesen eintaucht, sondern als außerirdisches Wesen durch die Gemeinsamkeit mit der «geistigen Erde» sein Selbstbewußtsein, als die Vollendung des Ich sucht.
Where is man as a thinking and remembering being?
(Goetheanum, January 1925)
[ 1 ] With imagination (thinking) and the experience of memories, man is within the physical world. But wherever he directs his gaze in this physical world, he will not find anything with his senses that could give him the power to imagine and remember.
[ 2 ] Self-consciousness appears in the imagination. This is - in the sense of the preceding considerations - an acquisition that man has of the powers of the earthly. But these earthly powers are those that remain hidden from sensory perception. In earthly life, man thinks only what his senses convey to him; but the power to think gives him nothing of all that he thinks in this way.
[ 3 ] Where does one find this power that forms the imagination (thinking) and the memory images out of the earthly?
[ 4 ] It is found when one directs the spiritual gaze to that which the human being brings with him from previous earthly lives. Ordinary consciousness does not know this. It lives in man unconsciously at first. But when the human being enters the earth after spiritual existence, it immediately proves to be related to the earthly forces that do not fall within the realm of sense observation and sense thinking.
[ 5 ] It is not with imagination (thinking) that man is in this realm, but with volition, which takes place in the sense of destiny.
[ 6 ] In view of the fact that the earth contains forces that fall outside the realm of the senses, we can speak of the "spiritual earth" as the antipole of the physical. Then it follows that man as a being of will lives in and with the "spiritual earth", but that as an imagining (thinking) being he is indeed within the physical earth, but that as such he does not live with it.
[ 7 ] Man as a thinking being carries powers from the spirit world into the physical; but he remains with these powers spirit being, which only appears in the physical world, but does not enter into commonality with it.
[ 8 ] The imagining (thinking) human being only enters into a commonality with the "spiritual earth" during his earthly existence. And from this commonality arises his self-consciousness. - Its emergence is therefore due to such processes that take place in earthly life with man as spiritual ones.
[ 9 ] If one grasps what is described there with the spiritual vision, then one has the "human ego" before this vision.
[ 10 ] With the memory experiences one enters the realm of the human astral body. In remembering, not only do the results of previous earthly lives flow into the present ego as in imagining (thinking), but the forces of the spirit world, which the human being experiences between death and new birth, flow into his inner being. This influx occurs in the astral body.
[ 11 ] Now there is also no area within the physical earth for the direct absorption of the forces flowing in in this way. As a remembering being, man cannot yet connect with the things and processes that his senses perceive, just as little as he can connect with them as an imagining being.
[ 12 ] But it enters into common ground with that which is not physical, but which transforms the physical into processes, into events. These are the rhythmic processes in natural and human life. In nature, day and night alternate rhythmically, seasons follow rhythmically and so on. In humans, breathing and blood circulation take place in rhythm. This is how the alternation of sleeping and waking takes place and so on.
[ 13 ] Rhythmic processes are not something physical, neither in nature nor in humans. You could call them semi-spiritual. The physical as a thing disappears in the rhythmic process. In remembering, man with his being is placed in his and in the rhythm of nature. He lives in his astral body.
[ 14 ] Indian yoga wants to be completely absorbed in the experience of rhythm. It wants to leave the realm of imagination, of the ego, and in an inner experience that is similar to remembering, look into the world that lies beyond what the ordinary consciousness can know.
[ 15 ] The Western spiritual life must not suppress the ego in order to recognize. It must bring the ego closer to the perception of the spiritual.
[ 16 ] This cannot happen if one penetrates from the sensual into the rhythmic world in such a way that one experiences in rhythm only the half-spiritual becoming of the physical. Rather, one must find the sphere of the spiritual world that reveals itself in rhythm.
[ 17 ] Two things are therefore possible. First: experiencing the physical in the rhythmic, how this physical becomes semi-spiritual. This is an older path that can no longer be followed today. Secondly, experiencing the spirit world, which has the world rhythm within and outside of man as its sphere, just as man has the earth world with its physical beings and processes.
[ 18 ] Now everything that happens in the present cosmic moment through Michael belongs to this spirit world. A spirit like Michael brings that which would otherwise lie in the Luciferic realm into that of purely human development - which is not influenced by Lucifer - by choosing the rhythmic world as his dwelling place.
[ 19 ] All this can be seen by the human being entering into the imagination. For the soul lives with the imagination in rhythm; and Michael's world is the one that reveals itself in rhythm.
[ 20 ] Recollection, memory is already present in this world, but not yet deep. Ordinary consciousness experiences nothing of it. But if one enters the imagination, then the world of subjective memories first emerges from the world of rhythm; but this immediately passes over into the archetypes for the physical world created by the divine-spiritual world living in the etheric. We experience the ether that lights up in cosmic images and contains the creation of the world within itself. And the solar forces weaving in this ether: they are not merely radiant, they conjure up world archetypes out of the light. The sun appears as the cosmic world painter. It is the cosmic counter-image of the impulses that paint the images of imagination (thought) in man.
Goetheanum, January 1925.
Guiding principles no. 165 to 167
(March 1, 1925)
With reference to the previous consideration: Where is man as a thinking and remembering being?
[ 21 ] 165 Although man lives as a thinking being in the realm of the physical earth, he has nothing in common with it. He lives as a spiritual being in such a way that he perceives the physical; but he receives the powers to think from the "spiritual earth" in the same way in which he experiences fate as a result of previous earthly lives.
[ 22 ] 166. What is experienced in memory is already in the world, where in rhythm the physical becomes semi-spiritual and where such spirit processes take place as those which happen in the present cosmic moment through Michael.
[ 23 ] 167 Whoever learns to know thinking and memory correctly will understand how man as an earth being lives within the earth realm at the same time, but does not completely immerse himself in this realm with his being, but as an extraterrestrial being seeks his self-consciousness as the perfection of the I through the commonality with the "spiritual earth".