Faith, Love, and Hope
GA 130
2 December 1911, Nuremberg
Translated by Translated by Violet E. Watkin
I. The Third Revelation to Mankind
This evening and tomorrow evening we are going to attempt a coherent study of the being of man, and of his connection with the occult foundations of the present time and the near future.
From various indications I have given here you will have grasped that to-day we are, to some extent, facing a new revelation, a new announcement to mankind. If we keep in mind the recent periods of man's evolution, it may well be that we shall best understand what is approaching if we connect it with two other important revelations. In doing so we shall be considering, it is true, only what has been revealed to mankind in times relatively near to our own.
These three revelations—the one now to come and the two others—may be best understood when compared with the early development of a child. Observing the child rightly, we find that on its first coming into the world it has to be protected and cared for by those around it; it has no means of expressing what is going on within it or of formulating in thought what affects its soul. To begin with, the child cannot speak, cannot think; everything must be done for it by those who have received it in their midst. Then it starts to speak. Those who watch it attentively—this is mentioned in my book, The Education of the Child—will know that first it imitates what it hears; but that in the early days of talking it has no understanding which can be attributed to thinking. What the child says does not arise out of thought, but the other way round. It learns to think by talking; learns gradually to apprehend in clear thought what previously it was prompted to say out of the obscure depths of feeling.
Thus we have three successive periods in the child's development—a first period when it can neither speak nor think, a second when it can speak but not yet think, and a third when it becomes conscious of the thought-content in what it says. With these three stages in the child's development we may compare what mankind has gone through—and has still to go through—since about 1,500 years before the Christian era.
The first revelation of which we can speak, as coming to mankind during the present cycle of time, is the revelation proceeding from Sinai in the form of the Ten Commandments. Anyone going more deeply into the significance of what was revealed to mankind in these commandments will find great cause for wonder. The fact is, however, that men take these spiritual treasures so much for granted that little thought is given to them. But those who reflect upon their significance have to know how remarkable it is that in these Ten Commandments something is given which has spread through the world as law; something which in its fundamental character still holds good to-day and forms the basis of the law in all countries, in so far as, during the last 1,000 years, they have gradually adopted modern civilisation. Something all-embracing, grand, universal, is revealed to mankind as if in these words: There is a primal Being in the spiritual world whose image is here on earth—the Ego. This Being can so infuse His own power into the human ego, so pour Himself into it, that a man is enabled to conform to the norms, the laws, given in the Ten Commandments.
The second revelation came about through the Mystery of Golgotha. What can we say about this Mystery? What can be said was indicated yesterday in the public lecture, “From Jesus to Christ”. It was shown there how we have to trace back all men in their bodily nature to the original human couple on earth. And as we can understand men in their bodily nature only as descending through the generations from this couple, so, in order rightly to understand the greatest gift coming to our ego, we have to trace this fact, that must sink more and more into our ego during earthly existence, back to the Mystery of Golgotha.
It need not here concern us that in this connection the old Hebrew tradition has a different conception from that of present-day science. If we trace back men's blood-relationship, their bodily relation, to that original human couple, Adam and Eve, who once lived on earth as the first physical personalities, the primal forebears of mankind, and if we must therefore say that the blood flowing in men's veins goes back to that human pair, we can ask: Where must we look for the origin of the most precious gift bestowed on our soul, that holiest, most valuable gift, which accomplishes in the soul never-ending marvels and makes itself known to our consciousness as something higher than the ordinary ego within us? For the answer we must turn to what arose from the grave on Golgotha. In every human soul that has experienced an inner awakening there lives on what then arose, just as the blood of Adam and Eve continues to live in the body of every human being.
We have to see a kind of fountainhead, a primal fatherhood, in the risen Christ—the spiritual Adam who enters the souls of those who have experienced an awakening, bringing them, for the first time, to the fullness of their ego, to what gives life to their ego in the right way. Thus, just as the life of Adam's body lives on in the physical bodies of all men, what arose from the grave on Golgotha flows in like manner through the souls of those who find the path to it. That is the second revelation given to mankind; they are enabled to learn what happened through the Mystery of Golgotha.
If in the Ten Commandments men have received guidance from outside, this guidance may be compared to what happens to the child before it can either speak or think. What is done for the child by its environment is achieved by the old Jewish law for all mankind, who until then have, as it were, lacked the power of speaking and thinking. People, however, have now learnt to speak—or, rather, have learnt something that may be compared with a child's learning to speak: they have gained knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha through the Gospels. And the way in which they first understood the Gospels may be compared with how a child learns to speak. Through the Gospels there has come to human souls and human hearts some degree of understanding for the Mystery of Golgotha, which has found its way into human feelings and perceptions, and into the soul-forces arising in us when, for example, we allow the deeply significant, intuitive scenes and pictures drawn from the Gospels by great painters to work upon us. It is the same with traditional pictures—pictures of the adoration of the Child by the Shepherds or by the Wise Men from the East; of the flight into Egypt, and so on. All this leads back in the end to the Gospels; it has reached men's understanding in such a way that they may be said to have learnt to speak, in their fashion, about the Mystery of Golgotha.
In this connection we are now moving towards the third period, which may be compared with how the child learns the thought-content in its own speech and can became conscious of it. We are approaching the revelation which should give us the full content, the thought-content, of the Gospels—all they contain of soul and spirit. For at present the Gospels are no better understood than the child understands what it says before it can think. In the context of world-history people are meant to learn through Spiritual Science, to reflect upon the thoughts in the Gospels; to let the whole deep spiritual content of the Gospels work upon them for the first time. This indeed is connected with a further great event which mankind can feel to be approaching, and which they will experience before the end of this twentieth century. This event can be brought before our souls in somewhat the following way: If once again we enter into the nature of the Mystery of Golgotha, we realise that those elements of the Christ which rose from the grave of Golgotha have remained with the earth, so that they can directly affect every human soul, and can in each soul awaken the ego to a higher stage of existence. Speaking thus of the Mystery of Golgotha we may say: Christ then became the Spirit of the earth and since that time has remained so. In our day, however, a change in relation of the Christ to men is coming, an important change connected with what all of you have come to know something about—the new revelation to men of the Christ.
This revelation can also be characterised in another way. For this indeed we must turn to what happens when a man goes through the gate of death. (This is something that could not be described in books, but must now be spoken of.) When a man has passed through the gate of death, has experienced the backward survey over his previous earthly life and has come to the point when his etheric body is laid aside and the time has come for his Kamaloka, he is first met by two figures. Usually only one is mentioned, but to complete the picture—and this is a reality for every true occultist—we must say that before his Kamaloka the man is confronted by two figures. What I am now telling you holds good, it is true, only for men of the West, and for those who, during the last 1,000 years, have been connected with Western culture. The man after death is confronted by two figures. One of these is Moses—the man knows quite clearly that it is Moses who stands before him, holding out the tables of the law. In the Middle Ages they spoke of Moses “with his stern law”. And in his soul the man is keenly aware of how far in his inmost being he has transgressed against this law. The other figure is “the Cherubim with the flaming sword”, who pronounces judgment on these transgressions. That is an experience a man has after death. Thus, in accordance with our Spiritual Science, it can be said that there is a kind of settlement of the man's karmic account by these two figures—Moses with the stern law and the Cherubim with the flaming sword.
In our time, however, a change is approaching, an important change which can be described in this way. Christ is becoming Lord of Karma for all those who, after death, have experienced what has just been discussed. Christ is entering upon His judgeship. Let us look more closely into this fact. From the world-conception of Spiritual Science we all know that a karmic account is kept of our life; that there is a certain balancing of the deeds standing on the credit side of the account the sensible deeds, the fine deeds, those that are good—and, on the other side, the bad, ugly, lying deeds and thoughts.
Now it is important, on the one hand, that in the further course of a man's earthly life he should himself adjust the balance of this karmic account. But this living out of the result of his good and splendid deeds, or those that are bad, can be done in many different ways. The particular adjustment in our future life is not always determined after the same pattern. Suppose someone has done a bad action; he must compensate for it by doing a good one. This good action, however, can be achieved in two ways, and it may require the same effort on the man's part to do good to a few people only as to benefit a considerable number. To ensure that in future, when we have found our way to Christ, our karmic account will be balanced—inserted in the cosmic order—in such a way that the settlement of it will benefit as many people as possible—that will be the concern of Him who in our time is becoming Lord of Karma—it will be the concern of the Christ.
This taking over by Christ of the judging of a man's deeds is a result of His direct intervention in human destiny. This intervention is not in a physical body, but on behalf of those men on earth who will increasingly acquire the capacity of perceiving Him. There will be people, for instance, who, while carrying out some deed, suddenly become aware—there will be more and more cases of this from now on, during the next 3,000 years—of an urge to refrain from what they are doing, because of a remarkable vision. They will perceive in a dreamlike way what appears to be an action of their own; yet they will not be able to remember having done it.
Those who are not prepared for such a thing to happen in the course of their evolution will look upon it merely as imagination run wild or as a pathological condition of the soul. Those, however, who are sufficiently prepared through the new revelation coming in our time to mankind through spiritual science—through, that is, this third revelation during the latest cycle of mankind—will realise that all this points to the growing of new human faculties enabling men to see into the spiritual world. They will also realise that this picture appearing to their soul is a forewarning of the karmic deed that must be brought about—either in this life on earth or in a later one—to compensate for what they have done.
In short, people will gradually achieve, through their own efforts, the faculty for perceiving in a vision the karmic adjustment, the compensating deed, which must come about in future. From this fact it can be seen that in our time, too, we should say, as did John the Baptist by the Jordan: Change your state of soul, for the time is coming when new faculties will awake in men.
But this form of karmic perception will arise in such a way that here and there the figure of the etheric Christ will be directly visible to some individual—the actual Christ as He is living in the astral world—not in a physical body, but as for the newly awakened faculties of men He will manifest on earth; as counselor and protector of those who need advice, help or solace in the loneliness of their lives.
The time is coming when human beings, when they feel depressed and miserable, for one or other reason, will increasingly find the help of their fellows less important and valuable. This is because the force of individuality, of individual life, will count for more and more, while the power of one man to work helpfully upon the soul of another, which held good in the past, will tend constantly to diminish. In its stead the great Counselor will appear, in etheric form.
The best advice we can be given for the future is, therefore, to make our souls strong and full of energy, so that with increased strength, the further we advance into the future, whether in this incarnation—and certainly this applies to the young people of to-day—or in the next, we may realise that newly-awakened faculties give us knowledge of the great Counselor who is becoming at the same time the judge of a man's karma; knowledge, that is, of Christ in His new form. For those people who have already prepared themselves here for the Christ-event of the 20th century, it will make no difference whether they are in the physical body, when this event becomes a widespread experience, or have passed through the gate of death. Those who have passed through will still have the right understanding of the Christ-event and the right connection with it, but not those who have thoughtlessly passed by this third great forewarning to mankind given through Spiritual Science. For the Christ-event must be prepared for here on earth in the physical body. Those who go through the gate of death without giving even a glance into Spiritual Science during their present incarnation, will have to wait until their next before gaining a right understanding of the Christ-event. It is an actual fact that those who on the physical plane have never heard of the Christ-event are unable to came to an understanding of it between death and rebirth. They, too, must wait until they can prepare for it on their return to the physical plane. When, therefore, their present incarnation ends at death, these men in their essential being remain unconcerned in face of the mighty event referred to—the taking over of the judgeship by Christ and the possibility of His intervening, in an etheric body, directly from the astral world in the evolution of mankind, and His becoming visible in various places.
It is characteristic of human evolution, however, that old attributes of men, not closely connected with spiritual evolution, gradually lose significance. When we consider human evolution since the Atlantean catastrophe we can say: Among the great differentiations prepared during the Atlantean Age, present-day men have become accustomed to those of race. We can still speak, in a certain sense, of an old Indian race, of an old Persian race, of an Egyptian or a Graeco-Latin one, and even of something in our own time corresponding to a fifth race. But the concept of race in relation to human evolution is ceasing to have a right meaning. Something that held good in earlier times will no longer do so in the sixth culture-epoch which is to follow our own—namely, that it is essential to have some spatial centre from which to spread the culture of the epoch. The important thing is the spreading of Spiritual Science among men; without distinction of race, nation, or family. In the sixth culture-epoch those who have accepted Spiritual Science will come out of every race, and will found, throughout the earth, a new culture no longer based on the concept of race—that concept will have lost its significance. In short, what is important in the world of Maya, the external world of space, vanishes away; we must learn to recognise this in the future course of our spiritual-scientific movement.
At the beginning this was not understated. Therefore we see how, when we read Olcott's book, The Buddhist Catechism, which once did good service, we have the impression that races always go on like so many wheels. But for the coming time such concepts are losing their significance. Everything subject to limitations of space will lose significance. Hence anyone who thoroughly understands the meaning of human evolution understands also that the coming appearance of Christ during the next 3,000 years does not entail Christ being restricted to a body bound by space, nor limited to a certain territory. Neither will His appearance be limited by an inability to appear in more than one place at a time. His help will be forthcoming at the same moment here, there, and everywhere. And as a spiritual being is not subject to the laws of space, anyone who can be helped by Christ's direct presence is able to receive that help at one end of the earth just as well as another person at the opposite end. Only those unwilling to recognise the progress of mankind towards spirituality, and what gradually transforms all the most important events into the spiritual—only these persons can declare that what is implied by the Christ-being is limited to a physical body.
We have now described the facts concerning the third revelation and how this revelation is already in process of throwing new light on the Gospels. The Gospels are the language, and, in relation to them, Anthroposophy is the thought-content. As language is related to a child's full consciousness, so are the Gospels related to the new revelation that comes directly from the spiritual world—related, in effect, to what Spiritual Science is to become for mankind. We must be aware that we have in fact a certain task to fulfil, a task of understanding, when we come—first out of the soul's unconscious depths, and then ever more clearly—to discern our connection with Anthroposophy.
We must look upon it, in a sense, as a mark of distinction bestowed by the World-Spirit, as a sign of grace on the part of the creative, guiding Spirit of the world, when to-day our heart urges us towards this new announcement which is added, as a third revelation, to those proclaimed from Sinai and then from the Jordan. To learn to know man in his entire being is the task given in this new announcement—to perceive ever more deeply that what we are principally conscious of is sheathed around by other members of man's being, which are nevertheless important for his life as a whole.
It is necessary for our friends to learn about these matters from the most various points of view. To-day we will begin by first saying a few words about man's inner being. You know that if we start from the actual centre of his being, from his ego, we come next to the sheath to which we give the more or less abstract name of astral body. Further out we find the so-called etheric body, and still further outside, the physical body. From the point of view of real life we can speak about the human sheaths in another way, and to-day we will take directly from life what can, it is true, be learnt only from occult conceptions, but can be understood through unprejudiced observation.
Many of those who, on account of their so-called scientific world-conception, have become arrogant and overbearing, now say: “The ages of faith are long past; they were fit for mankind in their stage of childhood but men heave now progressed to knowledge. To-day people must have knowledge of everything and should no longer merely believe.” Now that may sound all very well, but it does not rest on genuine understanding. We must ask more questions about such matters than merely whether in the present course of human evolution knowledge has been gained through ordinary science. These other questions must be put: Does faith, as such, mean anything for mankind? May it not be part of a man's very nature to believe?
Naturally, it might be quite possible that people should want, for some reason, to dispense with faith, to throw it over. But just as a man is allowed for a time to play fast and loose with his health without any obvious harm, it might very well be—and is actually so—that people come to look upon faith merely as a cherished gift to their fathers in the past, which is just as if for a time they were recklessly to abuse their health, thereby using up the forces they once possessed. When a man looks upon faith in that way, however, he is still—where the life-forces of his soul are concerned—living on the old gift of faith handed down to him through tradition. It is not for man to decide whether to lay aside faith or not; faith is a question of life-giving forces in his soul. The important point is not whether we believe or not, but that the forces expressed in the word ‘faith’ are necessary to the soul. For the soul incapable of faith become withered, dried-up as the desert.
There were once men who, without any knowledge of natural science, were much cleverer than those to-day with a scientific world-conception. They did not say what people imagine they would have said: “I believe what I do not know.” They said: “I believe what I know for certain.” Knowledge is the only foundation of faith. We should know in order to take increasing possession of those forces which are forces of faith in the human soul. In our soul we must have what enables us to look towards a super-sensible world, makes it possible for us to turn all our thoughts and conceptions in that direction.
If we do not possess forces such as are expressed in the word ‘faith’, something in us goes to waste; we wither as do the leaves in autumn. For a while this may not seem to matter—then things begin to go wrong. Were men in reality to lose all faith, they would soon see what it means for evolution. By losing the forces of faith they would be incapacitated for finding their way about in life; their very existence would be undermined by fear, care, and anxiety. To put it briefly, it is through the forces of faith alone that we can receive the life which should well up to invigorate the soul. This is because, imperceptible at first for ordinary consciousness, there lies in the hidden depths of our being something in which our true ego is embedded. This something, which immediately makes itself felt if we fail to bring it fresh life, is the human sheath where the forces of faith are active. We may term it the faith-soul, or—as I prefer—the faith-body. It has hitherto been given the more abstract name of astral body. The most important forces of the astral body are those of faith, so the term astral body and the term faith-body are equally justified.
A second force that is also to be found in the hidden depths of a man's being is the force expressed by the word ‘love’. Love is not only something linking men together; it is also needed by them as individuals. When a man is incapable of developing the force of love he, too, becomes dried-up and withered in his inner being. We have merely to picture to ourselves someone who is actually so great an egoist that he is unable to love. Even where the case is less extreme, it is sad to see people who find it difficult to love, who pass through an incarnation without the living warmth that love alone can generate—love for, at any rate, something on earth.
Such persons are a distressing sight, as in their dull, prosaic way, they go through the world. For love is a living force that stimulates something deep in our being, keeping it awake and alive—an even deeper force than faith. And just as we are cradled in a body of faith, which from another aspect can be called the astral body, so are we cradled also in a body of love, or, as in Spiritual Science we called it, the etheric body, the body of life-forces. For the chief forces working in us from the etheric body, out of the depths of our being, are those expressed in a man's capacity for loving at every stage of his existence. If a man could completely empty his being of the force of love—but that indeed is impossible for the greatest egoist, thanks be to God, for even in egoistical striving there is still some element of love. Take this case, for example: whoever is unable to love anything else can often begin, if he is sufficiently avaricious, by loving money, at least substituting for charitable love another love—albeit one arising from egoism. For were there no love at all in a man, the sheath which should be sustained by love-forces would shrivel, and the man, empty of love, would actually perish; he would really meet with physical death.
This shriveling of the forces of love can also be called a shriveling of the forces belonging to the etheric body; for the etheric body is the same as the body of love. Thus at the very centre of a man's being we have his essential kernel, the ego, surrounded by its sheaths; first the body of faith, and then round it the body of love.
If we go further, we come to another set of forces we all need in life, and if we do not, or cannot, have them at all—well, that is very distinctly to be seen in a man's external nature. For the forces we need emphatically as life-giving forces are those of hope, of confidence in the future. As far as the physical world is concerned, people cannot take a single step in life without hope. They certainly make strange excuses, sometimes, if they are unwilling to acknowledge that human beings need to know something of what happens between death and rebirth. They say: “Why do we need to know that, when we don't know what will happen to us here from one day to another? So why are we supposed to know what takes place between death and a new birth?” But do we actually know nothing about the following day? We may have no knowledge of what is important for the details of our super-sensible life, or, to speak more bluntly, whether or not we shall be physically alive. We do, however, know one thing—that if we are physically alive the next day there will be morning, midday, evening, just as there are to-day. If to-day as a carpenter I have made a table, it will still be there tomorrow; if I am a shoemaker, someone will be able to put on tomorrow what I have made to-day; and if I have sown seeds I know that next year they will come up. We know about the future just as much as we need to know. Life would be impossible in the physical world were not future events to be preceded by hope in this rhythmical way. Would anyone make a table to-day without being sure it would not be destroyed in the night; would anyone sow seeds if he had no idea what would become of them?
It is precisely in physical life that we need hope, for everything is upheld by hope and without it nothing can be done. The forces of hope, therefore, are connected with our last sheath as human beings, with our physical body. What the forces of faith are for our astral body, and the love-forces for the etheric, the forces of hope are for the physical body. Thus a man who is unable to hope, a man always despondent about what he supposes the future may bring, will go through the world with this clearly visible in his physical appearance. Nothing makes for deep wrinkles, those deadening forces in the physical body, sooner than lack of hope.
The inmost kernel of our being may be said to be sheathed in our faith-body or astral body, in our body of love or etheric body, and in our hope-body or physical body; and we comprehend the true significance of our physical body only when we bear in mind that, in reality, it is not sustained by external physical forces of attraction and repulsion—that is a materialistic idea—but has in it what, according to our concepts, we know as forces of hope. Our physical body is built up by hope, not by forces of attraction and repulsion. This very point can show that the new spiritual-scientific revelation gives us the truth.
What then does Spiritual Science give us? By revealing the all-embracing laws of karma and reincarnation, it gives us something which permeates us with spiritual hope, just as does our awareness on the physical plane that the sun will rise tomorrow and that seeds will eventually grow into plants. It shows, if we understand karma, that our physical body, which will perish into dust when we have gone through the gate of death, can through the forces permeating us with hope be re-built for a new life. Spiritual Science fills men with the strongest forces of hope. Were this Spiritual Science, this new revelation for the present time, to be rejected, men naturally would return to earth in future all the same, for life on earth would not cease on account of people's ignorance of its laws. Human beings would incarnate again; but there would be something very strange about these incarnations. Men would gradually become a race with bodies wrinkled and shriveled all over, earthly bodies which would finally be so crippled that people would be entirely incapacitated. To put it briefly, in future incarnations a condition of dying away, of withering up, would assail mankind if their consciousness, and from there the hidden depths of their being right down into the physical body, were not given fresh life through the power of hope.
This power of hope arises through the certainty of knowledge gained from the laws of karma and reincarnation. Already there is a tendency in human beings to produce withering bodies, which in future would become increasingly rickety even in the very bones. Marrow will be brought to the bones, forces of life to the nerves, by this new revelation, whose value will not reside merely in theories but in its life-giving forces—above all in those of hope.
Faith, love, hope, constitute three stages in the essential being of man; they are necessary for health and for life as a whole, for without them we cannot exist. Just as work cannot be done in a dark room until light is obtained, it is equally impossible for a human being to carry on in his fourfold nature if his three sheaths are not permeated, warmed through, and strengthened by faith, love, and hope. For faith, love, hope are the basic forces in our astral body, our etheric body, and our physical body. And from this one instance you can judge how the new revelation makes its entry into the world, permeating the old language with thought-content. Are not these three wonderful words urged upon us in the Gospel revelation, these words of wisdom that ring through the ages—faith, love, hope? But little has been understood of their whole connection with human life, so little that only in certain places has their right sequence been observed.
It is true that faith, love, hope, are sometimes put in this correct order; but the significance of the words is so little appreciated that we often hear faith, hope, love, which is incorrect; for you cannot say astral body, physical body, etheric body, if you would give them their right sequence. That would be putting things higgledy-piggledy, as a child will sometimes do before it understands the thought-content of what is said. It is the same with everything relating to the second revelation. It is permeated throughout with thought; and we have striven to permeate with thought our explanation of the Gospels. For what have they meant for people up to now? They have been something with which to fortify mankind and to fill them with great and powerful perceptions, something to inspire men to enter into the depth of heart and feeling in the Mystery of Golgotha. But now consider the simple fact that people have only just begun to reflect upon the Gospels, and in doing so they have straightway found contradictions upon which Spiritual Science alone can help to throw light. Thus it is only now that they are beginning to let their souls be worked on by the thought-content of what the Gospels give them in language of the super-sensible worlds. In this connection we have pointed out what is so essential and of such consequence for our age: the new appearance of the Christ in an etheric body, for his appearance in a physical body is ruled out by the whole character of our times.
Hence we have indicated that the Christ, in contradistinction as it were to the suffering Christ on Golgotha, is appearing now as Christ triumphant, Christ the Lord of Karma. This has been fore-shadowed by those who have painted Him as the Christ of the Last Judgment. Whether painted or described in words, something is represented which at the appointed time will come to pass.
In truth, this begins in the 20th century and will hold good until the end of the earth. It is in our 20th century that this judgment, this ordering of Karma, begins, and we have seen how infinitely important it is for our age that this revelation should come to men in such a way that even concepts such as faith, love, hope, can be given their true valuation for the first time.
John the Baptist said: Change your mood of soul, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. That is, take to yourselves the human ego that need no longer abstain from approaching the spiritual world—a saying which points clearly to what is here in question, namely, that with the event of Palestine the time came for the super-sensible to pour light into the ego of man, so that into his ego the heavens are able to descend. Previously, the ego could come to men only by sinking into their unconscious. But those who interpret everything materialistically say: The Christ, reckoning with the weaknesses, errors and prejudices of His contemporaries, even foretold, like the credulous people of His time, that the millennium would be realised or that a great catastrophe would fall upon the earth. Neither of these events, however, came about. There was indeed a catastrophe, but perceptible only to the spirit. The credulous and superstitious, who believe Christ to have foretold how His actual coming would be from the clouds, interpreted His meaning in a materialistic way.
To-day, also, there are people who thus interpret what is to be grasped only in spirit, and when nothing happens in a material sense they judge the matter in just the same way as was done in the case of the millennium. How many indeed we find to-day who, speaking almost pityingly of those events, say that Christ was influenced by the beliefs of His time and looked for the impending approach to earth of the Kingdom of Heaven. That was a weakness on Christ's part, they say, and then it was seen—and remarked upon even by distinguished theologians—that the Kingdom of Heaven has not come down on earth.
It may be that men will meet our new revelation, too, in such a way that after a time, when the enhancement of men's faculties is in full swing, they will say, “Well, nothing has come of all these predictions of yours”, not realising that they just cannot see what is there. Thus do events repeat themselves. Spiritual Science is meant to gather together a large number of people, until fulfilment comes for what has been said by those with a right knowledge of how during this century the new revelation and the new super-sensible facts are appearing in human evolution. They will then continue their course in the same way, becoming ever more significant throughout the next 3,000 years, until important new weighty facts are once more revealed to mankind.
Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung - Drei Stufen des Menschheitlichen Lebens
Meine lieben theosophischen Freunde!
Wir werden an dem heutigen und morgigen Abend eine zusammenhängende Betrachtung versuchen über des Menschen Wesen und seinen Zusammenhang mit den okkulten Grundlagen unserer gegenwärtigen Zeit und der nächsten Zukunft. Aus mancherlei Andeutungen, die von mir schon hier in diesem Zweig gemacht worden sind und die Sie sonst hören konnten, werden Sie entnommen haben, dass wir in einer gewissen Beziehung in unserer Gegenwart vor einer Art neuen Offenbarung, neuen Verkündigung an die Menschheit stehen. Wir können wohl, wenn wir die letzten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwicklung ins Auge fassen, dasjenige, was in unserer Zeit kommen soll, am besten verstehen, wenn wir es zusammenbringen mit zwei anderen wichtigen Offenbarungen, die an die Menschheit gemacht worden sind. Wir berücksichtigen dabei allerdings sozusagen nur das, was sich der Zeit nach als das Nächste an Offenbarungen der Menschheit erschlossen hat. Diese drei Offenbarungen, die da in Betracht kommen, unsere kommende und die zwei anderen, die ihr vorangegangen sind, sie lassen sich am besten verstehen, wenn wir sie vergleichen mit der Entwicklung des heranwachsenden Kindes, also des Menschen als solchem.
Wenn wir das Kind so recht beobachten, dann finden wir, dass das Kind in die Welt tritt zunächst so, dass es von seiner Umgebung vollständig gehegt und gepflegt werden muss, dass es nicht in der Lage ist, irgendwie auszudrücken, was in seinem Inneren lebt, dass es auch noch nicht in der Lage ist, auszudrücken für sich selbst in deutlichen Gedanken das, was die Seele bewegt. Das Kind kann noch nicht sprechen, es kann noch nicht denken, es muss also alles, was für das Kind zu geschehen hat, von denen, die es in ihren Kreis aufgenommen haben, verrichtet werden. Dann beginnt das Kind zu sprechen. Wer nun genau beobachtet - und es ist das ja auch erwähnt in meinem kleinen Büchelchen über «Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Gesichtspunkte der Geisteswissenschaft» -, der wird wissen, dass zuerst das Kind redet, spricht, dass es zuerst das Sprechen lernt durch eine Art von Nachahmung dessen, was in seiner Umgebung gesprochen wird, und dass es eigentlich im Grunde genommen in den ersten Zeiten, wo es spricht, noch nicht das hat, was man ein denkerisches Verständnis der Sprache nennen kann. Nicht als ob die Sprache beim Kinde aus den Gedanken kommen würde, sondern das Umgekehrte ist der Fall. Das Kind lernt erst denken an der Sprache, lernt erst nach und nach das in klaren Gedanken verstehen, was es aus dunklen Gefühlen und Untergründen heraus spricht. So haben wir drei aufeinanderfolgende Perioden in des Kindes Entwicklung: Die erste Periode, da das Kind weder sprechen noch denken kann, da für es alles von außenher geschehen muss, eine zweite Periode, da das Kind sprechen, aber noch nicht denken kann, und eine dritte Epoche, da das Kind lernt, den Gedankengehalt der eigenen Sprache in seinem Bewusstsein zu erfassen. Mit diesen drei Perioden der kindlichen Entwicklung ist zu vergleichen, dasjenige, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, was die Menschheit durchgemacht hat und durchzumachen hat ungefähr seit der Zeit, die verflossen ist seit anderthalb Jahrtausenden vor der christlichen Zeitrechnung und die christliche Zeitrechnung hindurch.
Die erste Offenbarung an die sich entwickelnde Menschenseele des gegenwärtigen Menschheitszyklus, von der wir hier sprechen können, ist die Offenbarung, die erflossen ist vom Sinai herunter, die ihren Ausdruck gefunden hat in den Zehn Geboten des Moses. Derjenige, der tiefer nachdenkt über die eigentliche Bedeutung dieser Offenbarung an die Menschheit, die in den Zehn Geboten gegeben ist, der wird Wundersames gerade in den Zehn Geboten beobachten können. Nur sind diese Dinge so, dass sie sozusagen bereits zu dem alltäglichen Geistesgut des Menschen gehören, über das er nicht mehr scharf nachdenkt. Wenn er aber anfängt nachzudenken, dann wird er sich sagen müssen: Merkwürdig, in diesen Zehn Geboten ist etwas gegeben, was als Gesetz, seitdem es gegeben worden ist, durch die Welt geht und was im Grunde genommen heute noch gilt, was im Grunde genommen den Gesetzgebungen aller Länder des Erdenkreises, sofern sie nach und nach in die neuere Kultur sich einfügen oder sich einfügten im Laufe der letzten Jahrtausende, zugrunde liegt. Es ist etwas Umfassendes, Großartiges, Universelles der Menschheit geoffenbart worden, als ihr sozusagen gesagt worden ist: Es gibt in der geistigen Welt ein Urwesen, dem hier auf der Erde entspricht sein Abbild, das Ich, und dieses Urwesen kann sich so in das Ich des Menschen hineinkraften, sich so hineinergießen, dass der Mensch jenen Normen, jenen Gesetzen folgt, die in den Zehn Geboten gegeben sind.
Die zweite Offenbarung geschah durch das Mysterium von Golgatha. Was können wir von diesem Mysterium von Golgatha sagen? Es ist ja sogar gestern im öffentlichen Vortrag angedeutet worden, was wir von diesem Mysterium von Golgatha sagen können. Wie wir die ganze leibliche Menschheit auf ein Stamm-Menschenpaar der Erde zurückführen müssen und wie wir nur verstehen können diese leibliche Menschheit als generationsweise hervorgehend aus diesem Stamm-Menschenpaar der Menschheit, so müssen wir, wenn wir richtig verstehen dasjenige, was unseres Ichs wertvollstes Gut ist, was sich in unser Ich immer mehr und mehr während des Erdendaseins hinein versenken muss, ableiten von dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Wenn wir - mag nun die althebräische Tradition auch verschieden sein in dieser Beziehung von der heutigen naturwissenschaftlichen Auffassung, darauf kommt es jetzt nicht an -, wenn wir der Menschen Blutsverwandtschaft, den leiblichen Zusammenhang der Menschheit zurückführen auf das Stammpaar der Menschen, Adam und Eva, die also einmal auf der Erde gestanden haben als physische Urpersönlichkeiten, Ureltern der Menschheit, und wir also sagen müssen, das, was die Menschen als Menschenblut fortrinnen haben in ihren Adern, führt zuletzt zurück zu diesem Stamm-Menschenpaar, so können wir auf der anderen Seite sagen, das, was wir als Wertvollstes in unsere Seele hereinnehmen können, als heiligstes, teuerstes Gut, was ein immerwährendes Wunder in den Menschenseelen vollzieht, was wir hereinnehmen können als das Bewusstsein, dass etwas in unserer Seele leben kann, das höher ist als unser gewöhnliches Ich, wenn wir also das, was des Menschen teuerstes Seelengut ist, was gleichsam sein Seelenblut werden muss, seinem Ursprung nach untersuchen wollen, dann müssen wir kommen zu demjenigen, was aus dem Grabe auf Golgatha auferstanden ist. Denn was dazumal auferstanden ist, das lebt in denjenigen Menschenseelen, die eine innere Erweckung erfahren, ebenso fort, wie das Blut von Adam und Eva fortlebt in den leiblichen Menschen. Eine Art Stamm- oder Urvatertum haben wir im auferstandenen Christus zu sehen: den geistigen Adam, der in die Seelen der Menschen, wenn diese ihre Erweckung erleben, einzieht und sie erst zu ihrem vollen Ich bringt, zu demjenigen, was das Ich in der richtigen Weise belebt. So wie des Adam Leibesleben in den physischen Leibern der Menschen, so rinnt dasjenige, was aus dem Grabe von Golgatha sich erhoben hat, in den Seelen derer, die den Weg dazu finden. Das ist die zweite Offenbarung, die an die Menschen ergangen ist, dass sie Kunde erlangt haben von dem, was durch das Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ist.
Wenn mit den Zehn Geboten den Menschen etwas gegeben worden ist, was sie von außen her leitete, so können wir diese Leitung von außen vergleichen mit dem, was an dem Kinde von außen geschieht, bevor es sprechen und denken kann. Was die Umgebung des Kindes in ihm vollbringt, das vollbringt die Führung des althebräischen Gesetzes an der Menschheit, die als solche in gewisser Weise noch nicht sprechen und noch nicht denken kann. Aber die Menschheit hat auch sprechen gelernt, hat, mit anderen Worten, etwas gelernt, was sich nur vergleichen lässt mit dem Sprechenlernen des Kindes, das ist: Die Menschheit hat empfangen die Kunde von dem Mysterium von Golgatha in den Evangelien. Und wie die Menschen die Evangelien zunächst zu verstehen hatten, das lässt sich vergleichen mit dem Sprechenlernen des Kindes. Durch die Evangelien ist an die Menschenseelen und Menschenherzen herangetreten eine Art von Verständnis des Mysteriums von Golgatha, das sich einlebte in die Gefühle, einlebte in die Empfindungen, einlebte in diejenigen Seelenkräfte, welche uns zutage treten, wenn wir, sagen wir, die tief bedeutsamen, anschaulichen Bilder und Szenen aus den Evangelien durch die großen Maler auf uns wirken lassen, auch wenn wir die traditionellen Bilder auf uns wirken lassen, in denen dargestellt ist die Anbetung des Kindes durch die Hirten, die Anbetung des Kindes durch die Weisen aus dem Morgenlande, die Flucht nach Ägypten und so weiter. Was da in die Welt gekommen ist, was die Menschen seit jener Zeit auf ihre Seele haben wirken lassen, das führt zuletzt alles auf die Evangelien zurück, das ist so zum Verständnis der Menschen gekommen, dass die Menschen gleichsam haben sprechen lernen in ihrer Art über das Mysterium von Golgatha.
Jetzt gehen wir dem dritten Zeitraum in dieser Beziehung entgegen, der sich vergleichen lässt damit, dass das Kind in seiner eigenen Sprache den Gedankeninhalt lernt, zum Bewusstsein sich bringen kann, was in seiner Sprache hegt. Wir gehen entgegen jener Offenbarung, die uns bringen soll den vollen Gehalt, den Gedankengehalt, den Geist- und Seelengehalt der Evangelien. Denn die Evangelien sind von der Menschheit nicht besser verstanden worden als die Sprache vom Kinde verstanden wird, che es denken lernt. In welthistorischer Beziehung sollen die Menschen durch die Geisteswissenschaft denken lernen den Gedankengehalt der Evangelien. Den ganzen tiefen Geistesgehalt der Evangelien sollen sie erst jetzt auf sich wirken lassen. Das allerdings hängt zusammen mit einem anderen großen Ereignis, das die Menschheit herannahen fühlen kann und das noch vor Ablauf unseres zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts an die Menschheit herankommen wird. Das ist jenes Ereignis, das wir etwa in der folgenden Weise vor unsere Seele hinstellen können.
Wenn wir noch einmal anknüpfen an das Mysterium von Golgatha, so war es so, dass dazumal das, was vom Christus aus dem Grabe von Golgatha auferstanden ist, nunmehr bei der Erde blieb, so bei der Erde blieb, dass es unmittelbar ergreifen kann jede einzelne Menschenseele und in jeder einzelnen Menschenseele das Ich zu einer höheren Stufe des Daseins erwecken kann. Der Christus wurde Erdengeist, können wir sagen, wenn wir in dieser Art von dem Mysterium von Golgatha sprechen. Und er ist seither Erdengeist geblieben. Aber in unserer Zeit tritt eine bedeutsame Veränderung in der Beziehung des Christus zur Menschheit ein, die ja verknüpft sein wird mit dem, was Sie mehr oder weniger alle schon wissen, mit der neuen Offenbarung des Christus für die Menschen.
Aber man kann diese neue Offenbarung auch noch in anderer Weise charakterisieren. Da müssen wir allerdings Rücksicht nehmen auf das, was eintritt, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht. Was jetzt gesagt werden muss, ist eine Sache, die bisher noch nicht in den Büchern dargestellt werden konnte.
Wenn der Mensch durchgegangen ist durch die Pforte des Todes und durchlebt hat jene Zeit, in welcher er Rückschau halten kann auf das bisherige Erdenleben, durchlebt hat die Zeit bis zu dem Punkt, da er den Ätherleib abgelegt hat, wenn der Mensch übergeht in die Kamaloka-Zeit, dann tritt er vor zwei Gestalten hin. Gewöhnlich wird nur eine von diesen erwähnt, aber wir können der Vollständigkeit halber sagen - und was ich jetzt erzähle, ist für jeden wahren Okkultisten eine reale Tatsache: Es tritt der Mensch vor seiner Kamaloka-Zeit vor zwei Gestalten hin. Allerdings, was ich jetzt erzähle, gilt nur für die Menschen des Abendlandes und für alle diejenigen Menschen, welche mit der Kultur dieses Abendlandes in den letzten Jahrtausenden einen Zusammenhang gehabt haben. Da tritt der Mensch nach seinem Tode zwei Gestalten gegenüber: Moses ist die eine - der Mensch weiß ganz genau, dass er Moses gegenübertritt -, der ihm vorhält die Gesetzestafeln, im Mittelalter nannte man es «Moses mit dem scharfen Gesetz», und der Mensch hat ganz genau in seiner Seele das Bewusstsein, inwiefern er bis in das Innerste seiner Seele abgewichen ist von dem Gesetz. Die andere Gestalt ist diejenige, die man nennt «den Cherub mit dem feurigen Schwert», der da entscheidet über diese Abweichung. Das ist ein Erlebnis, das der Mensch hat nach dem Tode, sodass wir in unserem theosophischen Sinne sagen können: Das, was da dem Menschen entgegentritt durch diese zwei Gestalten, durch Moses mit dem scharfen Gesetz und durch den Cherub mit dem feurigen Schwert, es stellt gewissermaßen das karmische Konto fest.
Diese Tatsache geht in unserer Zeit einer Änderung entgegen. Und das ist eine bedeutsame Änderung. Man kann diese Änderung dadurch ausdrücken, dass man sagt, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, es wird in unserem Zeitalter der Christus der Herr des Karma für alle diejenigen Menschen, die das eben Besprochene nach ihrem Tode durchgemacht haben. Es tritt der Christus sein Richteramt an.
Stellen wir uns diese Tatsache genauer vor! Wir wissen ja alle aus der theosophischen Weltanschauung, dass wir ein karmisches Lebenskonto haben, dass wir für gewisse Taten, die auf der einen Seite unseres karmischen Kontobuches stehen, für alle gescheiten Taten, für alle schönen Taten, für alle guten Taten einen gewissen karmischen Ausgleich zu erfahren haben, aber auch für alle bösen, hässlichen, unwahren Taten und Gedanken. Es kommt nun auf der einen Seite darauf an, dass der Mensch im weiteren Verlaufe seines Erdenlebens für sich selber dieses karmische Konto auslebt, aber es kommt auch darauf an, dass der Mensch dasjenige, was er ausleben kann dadurch, dass er gute Taten, schöne Taten auf seinem karmischen Konto hat, oder was er ausleben muss, weil er böse Taten hat, in den verschiedensten Taten ausleben kann. Es ist nicht eindeutig bestimmt, wie wir, sagen wir, den Ausgleich durch diese oder jene Tat in unserem künftigen Leben finden. Nehmen wir an, irgendein Mensch hätte dieses oder jenes Böse getan, so muss er ein Gutes tun, welches ausgleicht das Böse. Aber dieses Gute, das kann er in zweifacher Weise tun, sodass es vielleicht für ihn die gleiche Anstrengung bedeutet, wenn es nur wenig Menschen zugutekommt, oder so, dass es für ihn die gleiche Anstrengung bedeutet, wenn es vielen Menschen zum Heile gereicht. Dass unser karmisches Konto in der Zukunft so ausgeglichen wird, das heißt in eine solche Weltordnung hineingestellt wird gegen die Zukunft, wenn wir den Weg zum Christus gefunden, dass die Art unseres karmischen Ausgleiches das größtmöglichste Menschenheil für den Rest der Erdenentwicklung hervorrufe, das wird die Sorge sein dessen, der von unserer Zeit an der Herr des Karma wird, es wird die Sorge Christi sein.
Mit dieser Übertragung des Richteramtes über die menschlichen Taten an den Christus ist aber verknüpft, dass dieser Christus auch unmittelbar eingreift in die menschlichen Geschicke. Nicht in einem physischen Leib, aber deshalb doch für diejenigen Menschen, die sich immer mehr und mehr die Fähigkeit erwerben werden, dass sie wahrnehmen können diesen Christus, für die wird der Christus eingreifen in die Geschicke der Erdenmenschheit. Da werden zum Beispiel Menschen sein, welche dieses oder jenes getan haben werden, irgendeine Tat vollbracht haben werden. Dann werden diese Menschen den Drang verspüren - und immer mehr und mehr wird es solche Menschen geben in den nächsten drei Jahrtausenden von unserem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert an -, etwas zurückzutreten von ihrer Tat. Denn etwas wie ein merkwürdiges Traumbild wird ihnen aufsteigen. In diesem Traumbild werden sie wie traumhaft etwas sehen, was so aussieht, wie wenn es ihre eigene Tat wäre, aber doch werden sie sich nicht erinnern können, jemals getan zu haben, was in diesem Bilde auftritt. Diejenigen aber, die sich nicht vorbereitet haben dafür, dass so etwas kommen wird in der Menschheitsentwicklung, die werden das nur als Ausbund einer wüsten Phantasie oder kranken Seele betrachten können. Jene aber, welche sich durch die neue Offenbarung, welche in die Menschheit kommt in unserer Zeit durch die Geisteswissenschaft, durch diese dritte Offenbarung des letzten Menschheitszyklus, genügend vorbereitet haben, werden wissen, dass dies heranwachsende neue Fähigkeiten der Menschen sind, solche Fähigkeiten, welche hineinschauen können in die geistige Welt. Und sie werden wissen, dass das Bild, das vor ihre Seele tritt, eine Vorherverkündigung jener karmischen Tat ist, welche eintreten muss einmal in der Zukunft, sei es in diesem Leben, sei es namentlich in den nächsten Erdenleben, um einen Ausgleich für das zu schaffen, was wir begangen haben. Kurz, die Menschen werden nach und nach die Fähigkeit erringen, den karmischen Ausgleich, die ausgleichende Tat, die in der Zukunft geschehen muss, zu schauen wie im Traumbilde. An dieser Tatsache können wir schon sehen, wie auch in unserer Zeit gesagt werden darf, ähnlich wie der Täufer Johannes am Jordan gesagt hat: Ändert die Seelenverfassung, denn neue Zeiten kommen, in denen neue Fähigkeiten der Menschen erwachen.
Aber was so gesagt ist über eine Art Wahrnehmung des Karma, das tritt noch dadurch in der kommenden Menschheit hervor, dass einem in solchem Schauen direkt entgegentritt da oder dort die ätherische Christus-Gestalt, der wirkliche Christus, wie er auf dem astralischen Plane lebt, wie er zwar nicht im physischen Leibe sich verkörpert, wie er aber auf der Erde auftritt, sichtbar für die neu erwachten Fähigkeiten der Menschen als Ratgeber, als Beschützer der Menschen, die Rat oder Hilfe oder Trost brauchen in der Einsamkeit ihres Lebens. Da werden die Zeiten kommen, wo die Menschen, sagen wir, sich durch das oder jenes betrübt und elend fühlen werden. Die Zeiten werden immer mehr und mehr solche werden, wo weniger Bedeutung und Wert haben wird das, was Hilfe des einen Menschen für den anderen ist, weil die Individualitätskraft, das individuelle Leben des Menschen immer mehr und mehr zunimmt, wo immer weniger wird, wie das in alten Zeiten unmittelbar der Fall war, dass der eine Mensch in die Seele des anderen helfend hineinwirken könne. Dafür aber wird der große Ratgeber als Äthergestalt da und dort erscheinen.
Der beste Rat, der uns für die Zukunft gegeben werden kann, ist der, unsere Seele zu stärken und zu kräftigen, damit wir immer mehr und mehr erkennen, je mehr wir der Zukunft entgegenwachsen, sei es schon in dieser Inkarnation - was für die Jugend der Gegenwart der Fall ganz gewiss ist —, sei es für die nächste Inkarnation, dass neu erwachte Fähigkeiten der Menschen den großen Ratgeber, der zugleich der Richter des Karma für die kommende Menschheit wird, den Christus in seiner neuen Gestalt erkennen lernen.
Für die Menschen, die sich schon jetzt vorbereiten auf dieses Christus-Ereignis des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, wird es keinen Unterschied machen, ob sie dann, wenn dieses Christus-Ereignis in umfassendem Maße eintritt, in einem physischen Leibe verkörpert sind oder durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind. Denn auch diejenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, wenn sie sich hier auf das Christus-Ereignis vorbereitet haben, werden nach dem Tode das richtige Verständnis und Verhältnis erhalten können für und zu dem Christus-Ereignis, nicht aber diejenigen, welche achtlos an der dritten großen Verkündigung für die Menschheit, an der Theosophie, vorübergegangen sind. Denn die Vorbereitung für das Christus-Ereignis muss hier im physischen Leibe gewonnen werden. Diejenigen, welche durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, ohne die Blicke hingewendet zu haben zur Theosophie in der gegenwärtigen Inkarnation, werden abwarten müssen die nächste Inkarnation, bis sie in der richtigen Weise Verständnis werden gewinnen können für das Christus-Ereignis. In der Tat, wer niemals von diesem Christus-Ereignis gehört hat auf dem physischen Plan, kann auch das Verständnis nicht gewinnen zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, der muss dann warten, bis er wiederum auf dem physischen Plan dazu vorbereitet wird.
So also steht die Menschenwesenheit, gleichgültig wann sie für die jetzt bestehende Inkarnation stirbt, vor dem großen angedeuteten Ereignis, vor dem Übergang des Christus zu seinem Richteramt, vor der Möglichkeit, dass der Christus im ätherischen Leibe vom astralischen Plane herunter in die Menschheitsentwicklung unmittelbar eingreift, sichtbar wird unter den Menschen, da und dort auftritt.
Das ist das Eigentümliche der Menschheitsentwicklung aber, dass alte, nicht so sehr mit der geistigen Entwicklung zusammenhängende Eigenschaften der Menschen immer mehr und mehr ihre Bedeutung verlieren. Wenn wir die Menschheitsentwicklung seit der atlantischen Katastrophe überblicken, so können wir sagen: Von den großen Unterschieden, die sich in der atlantischen Zeit vorbereitet haben, haben sich hereingelebt in die gegenwärtigen Menschen die Unterschiede, die wir als Rassenunterschiede bezeichnen, und wir können in einem gewissen Sinne noch sprechen von einer altindischen Rasse, von einer urpersischen Rasse, von einer ägyptischen Rasse, von einer griechisch-lateinischen Rasse, selbst noch in unserer Zeit können wir von einer Art fünften Rasse sprechen. Aber jetzt schon hört der Rassenbegriff auf, in Bezug auf die Entwicklung der Menschheit einen rechten Sinn zu haben. Nicht wird es so sein, wie es zum Beispiel in früheren Zeiten war, dass für das, was als sechster Kulturzeitraum auf den unserigen folgt, von irgendeinem räumlichen Zentrum aus die Verbreitung dieser Kultur im Wesentlichen geschieht, sondern, was wichtig ist, das ist, dass Theosophie sich verbreitet unter der Menschheit, dass sie- wie man bei ihrem Ursprunge sagte, als man noch mehr ein dunkles Bewusstsein von dem gehabt hat, was als theosophische Bewegung notwendig ist - eine Lehre sein muss ohne Unterschied von Rasse, Nation und Geschlecht. Aus allen Rassen heraus werden diejenigen, die durch die Theosophie gegangen sind, für die sechste Kulturepoche kommen und über die Erde hin eine neue Kulturepoche begründen, welche nicht mehr auf einen Rassenbegriff gegründet ist, gegenüber welcher der Rassenbegriff nicht mehr seine Bedeutung hat. Kurz, das, was in der Welt der Maya, der äußeren Räumlichkeit, eine Bedeutung hat, schwindet dahin. Das müssen wir allmählich verstehen lernen, indem wir uns weiter entwickeln mit der Theosophischen Bewegung. Das wurde im Anfange noch nicht verstanden. Deshalb sehen wir, wie das sonst so verdienstvolle Buch «Der buddhistische Katechismus» von Olcott, wenn wir es durchlesen, etwas hervorruft, als wenn sich Rassen immer gleichartig abwickeln wie Räder. Aber diese Begriffe verlieren ihre Bedeutung für die nächste Zeit, und wir müssen uns klar sein, dass diese Anfangsstadien der theosophischen Bewegung überholt sind und dass wir für die sechste Kulturperiode dem Rassenbegriff keinen rechten Sinn mehr beilegen können.
Also alles räumlich Beschränkte wird seine Bedeutung verlieren. Daher kann derjenige, der den ganzen Sinn der Menschheitsentwicklung versteht, auch verstehen, dass die Erscheinung des Christus, wie sie herantritt in den nächsten drei Jahrtausenden, nicht so sein darf, dass der Christus beschränkt ist auf einen räumlich beschränkten Leib, der doch auf ein bestimmtes Territorium beschränkt sein müsste. Wenn auch die Verkehrsmittel noch so sehr sich gehoben hätten und jetzt jemand Hilfe bräuchte in Südamerika und der Christus in Europa wäre, so müsste, wenn der Christus beschränkt wäre auf einen physischen Leib, er wenigstens mit einem Ballon nach Südamerika fahren, wenn die nächste Hilfe dort geleistet werden müsste. Wenn nun auch in noch so beliebiger Weise vorgestellt werden können die Schnelligkeiten in der Überwindung des Raumes: Das, was der Christus bei seinem Wiederkommen auf der Erde als Menschenhilfe zu leisten haben wird, wird sich nimmer darauf beschränken, was eine Wesenheit leisten kann in dem physischen Leib. Nicht einmal darauf wird es sich beschränken, dass der Christus zu gleicher Zeit nur an einem Orte sein kann: Er wird helfen können zu gleicher Zeit an einem Orte und an einem anderen Orte. Weil die geistige Wesenheit nicht an die Raumordnungen gebunden ist, so wird der, dem geholfen werden kann durch den Christus in seiner unmittelbaren Erscheinung, an dem einen Ende der Erde ebenso seine Hilfe erhalten können wie der, dem geholfen werden soll an dem anderen Ende. Nicht an Raumesgrenzen und nicht an einen fleischlichen, physischen Leib ist die neue Erscheinung des Christus gebunden. Nur derjenige, der nichts verstehen will von dem Fortschritte der Menschheit zur Geistigkeit, von dem, was umwandelt alle wichtigsten Ereignisse allmählich in Geistigkeit, nur der kann gerade das, was mit der Christus-Wesenheit gemeint ist, eben gebunden erklären an den physischen Leib.
Damit aber haben wir, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, schon charakterisiert, wie die Tatsachen liegen gegenüber der dritten Offenbarung und wie in dieser dritten Offenbarung auftreten muss das, was ja jetzt schon auftritt zur Durchleuchtung, zur Erklärung des Evangeliums. Das Evangelium ist die Sprache, die Theosophie in ihrem Verhältnis zum Evangelium ist der Gedankengehalt des Evangeliums, Wie die Sprache zum vollen Bewusstsein des Kindes sich verhält, so verhält sich das Evangelium, wie es verkündet worden ist, zur neuen Offenbarung, die unmittelbar aus der geistigen Welt herauskommt, zu dem, was Theosophie der Menschheit werden soll.
Dessen müssen wir uns bewusst sein, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, dass wir in der Tat eine gewisse Aufgabe haben, eine Aufgabe des Verständnisses, wenn wir zuerst aus dem Unbewussten der Seele heraus und dann immer klarer und klarer unsere Zugehörigkeit zur Theosophie verspüren. Wir müssen es gewissermaßen als eine Auszeichnung vonseite des Weltgeistes, als Gnade vonseiten der schöpferischen, führenden Weltgeister betrachten, wenn unser Herz uns heute hintreibt zu dieser neuen Verkündigung, die sich als dritte zur Verkündigung vom Sinai und vom Jordan hinzugesellt. Das ist die Aufgabe dieser neuen Verkündigung, den gesamten Menschen uns erkennen zu lassen, uns tief und immer tiefer hinzuweisen darauf, dass das, dessen sich der Mensch zunächst bewusst ist, umhüllt ist von anderen Wesensgliedern der menschlichen Natur, die aber ihre Bedeutung haben für das gesamte Leben des Menschen. Und es ist notwendig, dass unsere Freunde von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten aus kennenlernen, was die Glieder der Menschenwesenheit sind.
Heute wollen wir einmal, von dem Innern des Menschen ausgehend, einiges sagen über diese Wesenheit des Menschen. Da wissen unsere Freunde zunächst, dass, wenn wir von dem Ich, dem eigentlich zentralen Wesenskern des Menschen ausgehen, wir als die nächste Hülle finden das, was wir mehr oder weniger abstrakt genannt haben den astralischen Leib. Dann weiter nach außen gehend finden wir den sogenannten Ätherleib und wiederum weiter nach außen den physischen Leib. Wir können aber, wenn wir auf das reale Leben blicken, noch in einer anderen Weise von diesen Hüllen des Menschen sprechen. Und wir wollen heute unmittelbar aus dem Leben herausgreifen, was allerdings nur aus den Vorstellungen des Okkultismus heraus erkannt werden kann, was aber verstanden werden kann durch eine unbefangene Beobachtung des Lebens.
Heute sagt gar mancher, der hochmütig und hochfahrend geworden ist durch das, was man naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung nennt: Die Zeiten des Glaubens der Menschheit sind lange vorbei, das Glauben entspricht der Kindheitsstufe der Menschheit, heute ist die Menschheit aufgerückt zum Wissen, heute muss man alles wissen, darf nicht mehr bloß glauben.
Nun, das mag ja alles leidlich klingen, aber es ist doch, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, kein Verstand dabei im Grunde genommen, denn bei solchen Dingen muss man auch noch manche andere Frage aufwerfen als just die, ob im Laufe der Entwicklung heute etwa das Wissen an die Menschheit herangetreten ist durch die äußere Wissenschaft. Man muss die andere Frage aufwerfen: Bedeutet denn die Tatsache des Glaubens als solche etwas für die Menschheit? Gehört es vielleicht nicht zur Menschennatur überhaupt, zu glauben? Es könnte ja natürlich durchaus sein, dass durch das oder jenes die Menschen den Glauben ablegen, abwerfen wollen. Aber so, wie es den Menschen gestattet ist, auch manchmal auf eine kurze Zeit hindurch auf ihre äußere Gesundheit loszuwüten, ohne dass sich der Schaden gleich zeigt, so könnte es sehr wohl sein, und es ist so: Die Menschen mögen den Glauben zu den abgetanen Gütern ihrer Väter legen. Das ist aber gerade so, wie wenn die Menschen eine Weile wüst auf ihre Gesundheit losstürmten und die alten Kräfte verbrauchten. Wenn der Mensch heute den Glauben zu den überlebten Gütern seiner Väter legt, so zehrt er doch in Bezug auf seine Lebenskräfte der Seele von den alten Glaubensgütern, die er mit den Traditionen und Überlieferungen ererbt hat. Es hängt gar nicht vom Menschen ab, den Glauben abzulegen oder nicht, denn der Glaube stellt in der Menschenseele eine Anzahl von Kräften dar, eine Summe von Kräften, die zu den Lebenskräften der Seele gehören. Es kommt gar nicht darauf an, ob wir glauben wollen oder nicht, sondern darauf, dass wir die Kräfte, die das Wort «Glaube» ausdrückt, als Lebenskräfte der Seele haben müssen, dass die Seele verdorrt, verödet und vereinsamt, wenn sie nichts glauben kann.
Es gab ja übrigens auch Menschen, die ohne Kenntnis der Naturwissenschaft viel gescheiter waren als diejenigen, die die naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung heute vertreten. Die haben nicht gesagt, wie man glaubt, dass durchaus gesagt worden sei: Ich glaube, was ich nicht weiß - sondern: Ich glaube das, was ich weiß, eben erst recht. - Das Wissen ist nur die Grundlage des Glaubens. Wir sollen wissen, damit wir uns immer mehr zu den Kräften erheben können, die die Glaubenskräfte der menschlichen Seele sind. Wir müssen in unserer Seele haben, was hinblicken kann auf eine übersinnliche Welt, was Hinlenkung aller unserer Gedanken und Vorstellungen ist auf eine übersinnliche Welt. Wenn wir diese Kräfte nicht haben, die also das Wort «Glaube» ausdrückt, so verödet etwas an uns, wir werden dürr, trocknen ein wie das Laub im Herbst. Eine Weile kann es gehen für die Menschheit, aber dann geht es nicht mehr. Und wenn die Menschheit wirklich den Glauben verlieren würde, dann würde sie schon in den nächsten Jahrzehnten sehen, was das für die Entwicklung bedeuten würde. Dann würden durch die verlorenen Glaubenskräfte die Menschen herumgehen müssen so, dass keiner mehr recht weiß, was er mit sich anzufangen hat, um sich im Leben zurechtzufinden, dass keiner eigentlich bestehen kann in der Welt, weil er Furcht, Sorge und Ängstlichkeit hat vor dem und jenem. Kurz, jenes Leben, das in unserer Seele frisch quellen soll, kann uns nur durch die Glaubenskräfte gegeben werden.
Das ist aus dem Grunde so, weil in den verborgenen Tiefen unseres Wesens, für das äußere Bewusstsein zunächst unwahrnehmbar, etwas ruht, in das eingebettet ist unser eigentliches Ich. Und das, worin unser Ich ruht, was sich gleich geltend macht, wenn wir es nicht beleben, das ist das, was wir nennen können jene menschliche Hülle, in welcher die Glaubenskräfte lebendig sind, was wir nennen können die Glaubensseele oder meinetwillen den Glaubensleib. Und das ist dasselbe, was wir bisher mehr abstrakt den astralischen Leib genannt haben. Die Glaubenskräfte sind die wichtigsten Kräfte des astralischen Leibes, und ebenso wie richtig ist der Ausdruck «Astralleib», ebenso ist richtig der Ausdruck «Glaubensleib».
Ein Zweites, was in den verborgenen Tiefen des menschlichen Wesens als Kräfte da sein muss, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, ist das, was zum Ausdruck gebracht wird mit dem Worte «Liebe». Liebe ist nicht nur etwas, was die Menschen durch entsprechende Bande zusammenhält, sondern etwas, was auch der einzelne Mensch braucht. Der Mensch, der keine Liebekraft entwickeln kann, verödet und verdorrt auch in seinem Wesen. Man stelle sich nur einen Menschen vor, der nun wirklich so voll von Egoismus ist, dass er nicht lieben kann. Es ist im Grunde genommen - wenn es solche Menschen auch nur bis zu einem gewissen Grade gibt und sie also doch gesehen werden können - recht traurig, solche Gestalten zu sehen, die nicht lieben können, die ihr Leben in irgendeiner Inkarnation zubringen ohne jene lebendige Wärme in sich zu erzeugen, die nur dann erzeugt wird, wenn wir nur irgendetwas, dieses oder jenes in der Welt, lieben können. Gestalten, die das nicht können, in ihrer Dürre und Trockenheit durch die Welt schreiten zu sehen, haben etwas recht Trauriges; denn die Liebekraft ist eine Lebenskraft, die etwas, was noch tiefer in unserem Wesen ruht, entfacht und wach und lebendig erhält, eine noch tiefere Kraft als selbst der Glaube.
Und so wie wir eingebettet sind in einen Glaubensleib, den wir auch von anderen Gesichtspunkten aus den Astralleib nennen, so sind wir eingebettet in einen Liebeleib, den wir von anderen Gesichtspunkten aus in der Theosophie benennen gelernt haben den ätherischen oder Lebensleib. Denn die Kräfte, die zunächst aus den Tiefen unseres Wesens heraufwirken zu uns aus unserem Ätherleib, sind die Kräfte, die sich dadurch ausdrücken, dass der Mensch lieben kann, lieben auf allen Stufen seines Daseins. Wenn der Mensch ganz und gar die Liebekraft aus seinem Wesen entfernen könnte - das kann selbst nämlich der egoistischste Mensch nicht, denn es gehört, Gott sei Dank, zu dem, was der Mensch egoistisch erstreben kann, auch das, dass er etwas lieben kann; sagen wir, um ein naheliegendes Beispiel zu gebrauchen, wenn derjenige, der nichts anderes mehr lieben kann, oftmals noch anfängt, wenn er recht geizig wird, das Geld zu lieben und sich so eine wohltätige Liebekraft doch wenigstens noch ersetzt durch eine aus dem gründlichen Egoismus herauskommende Liebekraft -, so würde diese Hülle, welche von den Liebekräften unterhalten wird, wenn gar nichts von Liebe in dem Menschen wäre, ganz zusammenschrumpfen, und der Mensch würde tatsächlich an Liebeleerheit sterben müssen. Wirklich physisch sterben würde der Mensch an Liebeleerheit. Das Zusammenschrumpfen der Liebekräfte ist dasselbe, was wir nennen können das Zusammenschrumpfen der Kräfte des Ätherleibes, denn der Ätherleib ist zugleich der Liebeleib.
So haben wir, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, im Mittelpunkte des menschlichen Wesens des Menschen zentralen Wesenskern, das Ich. Umgeben haben wir dieses Ich von seiner nächsten Hülle, dem Glaubensleib, und den Glaubensleib wiederum umgeben von dem Liebeleib.
Wenn wir weitergehen, so kommen wir noch zu einer Klasse von Kräften, die wir im Leben brauchen. Wenn wir diese Kräfte nicht haben können, gar nicht haben können, dann, ja dann drückt sich das in unserer äußeren Menschlichkeit in sehr bedeutsamer Weise aus. Das, was wir im Leben brauchen als im eminentesten Sinne belebende Kräfte, das sind die Kräfte der Hoffnung, der Zuversicht für das Zukünftige. Der Mensch kann ohne die Hoffnung überhaupt nicht einen Schritt im Dasein machen, insoweit es der physischen Welt angehört. Der Mensch hat allerdings manchmal sonderbare Ausreden, wenn er zum Beispiel nicht einsehen will, dass es in gewisser Be: hung für den Menschen notwendig ist zu wissen, was sich zuträgt zwischen Tod und Geburt. Er sagt: Was brauchen wir denn das zu wissen, wir wissen ja nicht einmal, was mit uns am nächsten Morgen los ist, was sollen wir uns erst Kenntnisse aneignen über das, was zwischen Tod und Geburt sich zuträgt?
Kennen wir wirklich nicht den nächsten Tag? Wir kennen etwas nicht in Bezug auf den nächsten Tag, was für die Einzelheiten unseres übersinnlichen Lebens bedeutsam ist. Gröber ausgesprochen: Wir wissen vielleicht nicht, ob wir noch physisch am Leben sind. Aber eines wissen wir: Sofern wir physisch am Leben sind, wird am nächsten Tage geradeso Morgen, Mittag und Abend sein wie heute. Und wenn wir heute als Tischler einen Tisch gemacht haben, so wird er am nächsten Tage da sein, und wenn wir heute Stiefel gemacht haben, so wird siejemand am nächsten Tag anziehen können, und wenn wir Samen gelegt haben, so wissen wir, dass sie im nächsten Jahre aufgehen werden. Wir wissen just das, was wir zu wissen brauchen von der Zukunft. Wenn das nicht so wäre, dass sich in rhythmischer Weise, in einer vorher zu erholenden Weise die Ereignisse der Zukunft zutrügen, so wäre das Leben in der physischen Welt unmöglich. Würde jemand heute einen Tisch machen, wenn er nicht sicher sein könnte, dass er über Nacht nicht zerstört würde? Würde er Samen pflanzen, wenn er keine Ahnung hätte, was das nächste Jahr daraus wird? Gerade für das physische Leben brauchen wir die Hoffnung, denn es hält die Hoffnung alles physische Leben zusammen und aufrecht.
Nichts kann geschehen auf dem äußeren physischen Plan ohne die Hoffnung. Daher hängen auch die Hoffnungskräfte mit der letzten Hülle unseres menschlichen Wesens zusammen, mit unserem physischen Leib. Was die Glaubenskräfte für den Astralleib, die Liebekräfte für den Ätherleib sind, das sind die Hoffnungskräfte für den physischen Leib. Daher ein Mensch, der nicht hoffen könnte, ein Mensch, der verzweifeln müsste an demjenigen, was er voraussetzen muss für die Zukunft, er würde so durch die Welt gehen, dass das an
seinem physischen Leibe wohl bemerkbar ist. Nichts so sehr als die Hoffnungslosigkeit drückt sich aus in den groben Furchen, in den ertötenden Kräften unseres physischen Leibes. Wir können sagen: Unser zentraler Wesenskern ist umhüllt von dem Glaubens- oder Astralleib, von dem Liebe- oder Ätherleib und von dem Hoffnungsleib, dem physischen Leib. Und erst dann fassen wir den physischen Leib in seiner richtigen Bedeutung, wenn wir das ins Auge fassen, was er ist: dass er in Wahrheit nicht äußere physische Anziehungsoder Abstoßungskräfte hat - das ist materialistische Anschauung -, sondern das, was wir in unseren Begriffen kennen als Hoffnungskräfte. Das ist in Wahrheit das, was in unserem physischen Leibe ist. Die Hoffnung baut unseren physischen Leib auf, nicht Anziehungs- und Abstoßungskräfte. Gerade in dieser Beziehung können wir einsehen, dass uns die neue Offenbarung, die theosophische oder geisteswissenschaftliche Offenbarung das Richtige gibt.
Was gibt uns diese Geisteswissenschaft? Sie gibt uns dadurch, dass sie uns bekannt macht mit dem allumfassenden Karmagesetz, mit dem Gesetze der wiederholten Erdenleben, das, was in geistiger Beziehung uns ebenso mit der Hoffnung durchdringt, wie uns das Bewusstsein, dass morgen die Sonne aufgehen wird, dass die Samen als Pflanzen wachsen werden, für den physischen Plan mit der Hoffnung ausstattet. Sie zeigt uns, dass das, was von uns auch noch im physischen Plan gesehen werden kann als das Untergehende, als das Pulverisiert-Werdende, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, dass dieser physische Leib von den Kräften, die uns als Hoffnungskräfte durchdringen, wenn wir Karma verstehen, wieder aufgebaut wird in einem neuen Leben. Mit den stärksten Hoffnungskräften stattet die Menschheit aus die Geisteswissenschaft, die Theosophie.
Wenn diese Theosophie als eine neue Offenbarung in der gegenwärtigen Zeit von den Menschen zurückgewiesen würde, so würden die Menschen natürlich auch in künftigen Leben auf der Erde wiedererscheinen. Denn dadurch hört das Leben nicht auf, dass die Menschen von den Gesetzen dieses Lebens nichts wissen. Die Menschen würden verkörpert werden, aber es würde sich etwas sehr Merkwürdiges erfüllen in diesen menschlichen Wiederverkörperungen. Es würde nämlich in diesen Wiederverkörperungen eintreten, dass die Menschen allmählich ein am ganzen Leib runzliges und welkes Geschlecht würden, ein Geschlecht, das zuletzt so lahme Leiber hätte auf dieser Erde, dass die Menschen nichts mehr verrichten könnten. Kurz, ein Absterben und Abdorren würde über die Menschheit kommen in den künftigen Inkarnationen, wenn nicht beleben würde das Bewusstsein - und von da aus die verborgensten Tiefen des menschlichen Wesens bis zum physischen Leib - jene starke Hoffnung, welche uns kommt durch die Sicherheit des Wissens, das wir erlangen aus dem Karmagesetz heraus und aus dem Gesetz von den wiederholten Erdenleben. Die Menschheit ist schon in der Tendenz, absterbende, verdorrende Leiber zu erzeugen, Leiber, die in der Zukunft immer rachitischer, selbst in Bezug auf das Knochensystem, werden würden. Mark in die Knochen, Lebenskraft in die Nerven hinein wird die neue Offenbarung bringen, die sich nicht bloß als Theorie geltend machen wird, sondern als belebende Kräfte, vor allen Dingen als belebende Hoffnungskräfte.
Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung sind drei Stufen menschlichen Wesens, die zur gesamten Gesundheit und zum gesamten Leben gehören, ohne die der Mensch nicht sein kann. Und ebenso wenig, wie ein dunkler Raum ein Arbeitsraum sein kann, wenn er nicht beleuchtet wird, so kann das menschliche Wesen in seiner vierfachen Natur nicht bestehen, wenn seine drei Hüllen nicht durchtränkt, durchglüht und durchkraftet sind von Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung, von demjenigen, was die Grundkräfte sind unseres Astralleibes, unseres Ätherleibes und unseres physischen Leibes. Und nehmt, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, nur den einen Fall in Bezug auf die Art und Weise, wie sich in die Welt hineinstellt die neue Offenbarung, die durchdringt mit Gedankengehalt die alte Sprache! Dringen uns nicht herauf aus der Evangelienoffenbarung die drei wunderbaren Worte, die sozusagen wie Weisheitsworte durch die Zeiten klingen: Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung! Aber man hat sie in ihrem ganzen Zusammenhange für das Menschenleben nicht verstanden, so wenig verstanden, dass nur in manchen Gegenden die richtige Reihenfolge eingehalten wird. Man sagt zwar zuweilen: Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung, weil das der richtigen Reihenfolge entspricht, aber man hat den Gedankengehalt so wenig verstanden, dass man oft sagt: Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe, was falsch ist, weil man nicht sagen kann: Astralleib, physischer Leib, Ätherleib, wenn man der Reihe nach aufzählen will. Das ist durcheinandergeworfen worden etwa in derselben Weise, wie das Kind, das noch nicht den Gedankengehalt der Sprache hat, manchmal etwas durcheinanderwirft in der Sprache.
So geht es mit allem, was sich auf die zweite Offenbarung bezieht, es wird durchdrungen von dem Gedankengehalt. Das haben wir angestrebt zum Beispiel in der Erklärung der Evangelien. Was sind diese Evangelien zunächst gewesen bisher? Etwas, was die Menschen erbauen konnte, mit großen, gewaltigen Empfindungen durchdringen konnte, was der Menschheit ein Verständnis geben konnte für das Gemüt und Gefühl von dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Aber man nehme nur die ganz einfache Sache, dass man überhaupt erst angefangen hat über die Evangelien nachzudenken! Und als man nachzudenken angefangen hat, da hat man gleich Widersprüche gefunden, und erst die geistige Wissenschaft wird zeigen, wie diese Widersprüche zu erklären sind. So wird man erst jetzt anfangen das, was der Menschheit als eine Sprache der übersinnlichen Welten in den Evangelien gegeben worden ist, als Gedankengehalt auf die Seele wirken zu lassen. Damit haben wir auf das ganz Wichtige und Wesentliche unserer Zeit hingedeutet, auf die neue Erscheinung des Christus im ätherischen Leibe, die durch den ganzen Charakter unserer Zeit eben nicht an einen physischen Leib gebunden sein darf. Darauf haben wir hingedeutet, dass der Christus erscheint auf der Erde in seinem Richteramt, gleichsam gegenüber dem leidenden Christus von Golgatha als der triumphierende Christus, als der Herr des Karma, der schon vorausgeahnt worden ist von denjenigen, die den Christus des jüngsten Gerichts gemalt haben. Malt oder schildert man das in Bildern, so stellt man etwas, das in einem Zeitmoment geschehen wird, hin. In Wahrheit ist das etwas, was in dem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert beginnt und durchgeht bis zu dem Erdenende. Das Gericht beginnt von unserem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert ab, das heißt die Ordnung des Karma. Und dann haben wir gesehen, wie unendlich wichtig es ist für unsere Zeit, dass diese Offenbarung herantritt an die Menschheit, sodass selbst Dinge wie Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung erst richtig gewürdigt werden können.
Und nun, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, mögen diejenigen, die immer nur an Materielles glauben können, es zunächst wiederum so machen, wie es viele Menschen heute in Bezug auf die Ereignisse von Palästina machen. Während Johannes der Täufer gesagt hat: Ändert die Seelenverfassung, die Reiche der Himmel sind nahe herbeigekommen; nehmt an das menschliche Ich, das sich nicht mehr zu entäußern braucht, um in die geistige Welt zu kommen — damit ist klar und deutlich gesagt, um was es sich handelt, gesagt, dass die Zeit herangekommen ist mit den Ereignissen von Palästina, wo das Übersinnliche hineinleuchten kann in das menschliche Ich, sodass die Himmel heruntergestiegen sind bis zum menschlichen Ich -, während früher das Ich ins Unbewusste untertauchen musste, um zu ihnen zu kommen, sagen diejenigen, die alles materiell ausdeuten: Ja, der Christus hat, mit den Schwächen und Fehlern, mit den Vorurteilen seiner Zeit rechnend, eben verkündigt wie die Leichtgläubigen seiner Zeit: Das tausendjährige Reich werde sich verwirklichen, oder es werde eine große Erdenkatastrophe kommen. Die sei aber gar nicht gekommen.
Es war schon eine Katastrophe, die ist wirklich gekommen, aber nur für den Geist bemerkbar. Diejenigen, die leichtgläubig, die abergläubisch sind, die da glauben, Christus hätte verkündigt ein buchstäbliches Herunterkommen aus den Wolken, das sind die materialistischen Ausleger dessen, was Christus gemeint hat. So mag es heute auch wiederum Leute geben, die das, was im Geiste zu erfassen ist, materiell auslegen, und wenn es sich materiell nicht vollzieht, dann über die Sache ebenso denken, wie man gedacht hat über die Ereignisse von der Verwirklichung des tausendjährigen Reiches. Wie sieht da heute mancher fast mitleidsvoll auf das Christus-Ereignis und sagt: Nun ja, der Christus war eben in dieser Beziehung auch von dem Glauben seiner Zeit befangen, er dachte an ein baldiges Herankommen des Reiches der Himmel auf die Erde. Das war eine Schwäche von dem Christus, meinen sie, und dann sah man - das sagen selbst große Theologen -, dass die Reiche der Himmel doch nicht auf die Erde heruntergekommen sind.
Es mag sein, dass auch unserer neuen Offenbarung die Menschen so begegnen, dass sie nach einiger Zeit, wenn schon in vollem Gange sein wird die Erhöhung der menschlichen Fähigkeiten, sagen: Nun ja, es ist ja nichts gekommen von all dem, was ihr da verkündigt habt! - Sie werden nicht ahnen, dass alles schon da ist, dass sie nur nichts sehen. Das wird sich wiederholen. Theosophie als solche soll eine große Anzahl von Menschen zusammenbringen, bis die Zeit da ist der Erfüllung dessen, was gesagt worden ist von Menschen, die da wissen den rechten Sinn, wie die neue Offenbarung und die neuen übersinnlichen Tatsachen in unserem Jahrhundert eintreten in die Menschheitsentwicklung und von da ab, zunächst in der gleichen Art verlaufend, durch die nächsten drei Jahrtausende immer bedeutsamer werden, bis wiederum neue große Offenbarungstatsachen für die Menschheit eintreten werden.
Davon dann morgen weiter.
Faith, Love, Hope—Three Stages of Human Life
My dear Theosophical friends!
This evening and tomorrow evening we will attempt a coherent examination of the nature of the human being and his connection with the occult foundations of our present time and the near future. From various hints I have already given here in this branch, and which you have heard elsewhere, you will have gathered that we are in a certain sense standing before a kind of new revelation, a new proclamation to humanity. If we consider the last stages of human development, we can best understand what is to come in our time by bringing it together with two other important revelations that have been made to humanity. However, we will only consider what has subsequently become apparent as the next revelation to humanity. These three revelations, the one that is coming and the two that preceded it, can best be understood when we compare them with the development of the growing child, that is, of the human being as such.
If we observe the child closely, we find that the child enters the world in such a way that it must be completely cared for and nurtured by its environment, that it is not able to express in any way what lives within it, that it is not yet able to express for itself in clear thoughts what moves the soul. The child cannot yet speak, it cannot yet think, so everything that has to happen for the child must be done by those who have taken it into their circle. Then the child begins to speak. Anyone who observes this closely—and this is also mentioned in my little book on “The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science” — will know that the child first talks, speaks, that it first learns to speak by imitating what is spoken in its environment, and that in the early stages of speech it does not yet have what we would call a conceptual understanding of language. It is not as if language comes from the child's thoughts; rather, the opposite is true. The child first learns to think through language and only gradually learns to understand in clear thoughts what it expresses through dark feelings and underlying emotions. Thus, we have three successive periods in the child's development: the first period, when the child can neither speak nor think, when everything must happen to it from outside; a second period, when the child can speak but not yet think; and a third period, when the child learns to grasp the thought content of its own language in its consciousness. My dear theosophical friends, what humanity has gone through and is going through since the time that has elapsed since one and a half millennia before the Christian era and throughout the Christian era can be compared to these three periods of child development.
The first revelation to the developing human soul of the present human cycle, of which we can speak here, is the revelation that flowed down from Sinai and found expression in the Ten Commandments of Moses. Those who think more deeply about the actual meaning of this revelation to humanity, which is given in the Ten Commandments, will be able to observe something miraculous in the Ten Commandments themselves. However, these things are such that they already belong, so to speak, to the everyday intellectual heritage of human beings, about which they no longer think deeply. But when they begin to think about them, they will have to say to themselves: Strange, there is something in these Ten Commandments that has been given as law since it was given, that has spread throughout the world, and that is basically still valid today, that is basically the foundation of the laws of all countries on earth, insofar as they have gradually been incorporated into the newer culture or have been incorporated over the course of the last millennia. Something comprehensive, magnificent, and universal has been revealed to humanity when it was told, so to speak: There is a primordial being in the spiritual world, which has its counterpart here on earth in the form of the I, and this primordial being can work its way into the I of the human being, pour itself into it, so that the human being follows those norms, those laws that are given in the Ten Commandments.
The second revelation came through the Mystery of Golgotha. What can we say about this Mystery of Golgotha? What we can say about this Mystery of Golgotha was even hinted at yesterday in the public lecture. Just as we must trace the entire physical humanity back to a pair of human ancestors on earth, and just as we can only understand this physical humanity as emerging generation after generation from this pair of human ancestors, so too, if we understand correctly what is the most valuable asset of our ego, what must sink deeper and deeper into our ego during our earthly existence, we must derive this from the mystery of Golgotha. If we—regardless of whether the ancient Hebrew tradition differs in this respect from today's scientific view, which is not important here—if we trace the blood relationship of human beings, the physical connection of humanity, back to the original pair of human beings, Adam and Eve, who once stood on Earth as physical archetypes, the first parents of humanity, and if we must therefore say that what human beings carry in their veins as human blood ultimately leads back to this original human couple, then we can say, on the other hand, that what we can take into our souls as the most valuable thing, as the most sacred and precious gift, which performs an everlasting miracle in human souls, which we can take in as consciousness, that something can live in our soul that is higher than our ordinary self, if we therefore want to investigate the origin of what is most precious to the human soul, what must become, as it were, its soul's blood, then we must come to that which rose from the grave on Golgotha. For what rose again at that time lives on in those human souls that experience an inner awakening, just as the blood of Adam and Eve lives on in physical human beings. We see a kind of ancestry or primal fatherhood in the risen Christ: the spiritual Adam, who enters into the souls of human beings when they experience their awakening and brings them to their full self, to that which animates the self in the right way. Just as Adam's physical life flowed into the physical bodies of human beings, so what rose from the tomb at Golgotha flows into the souls of those who find the way to it. This is the second revelation that has come to human beings, that they have gained knowledge of what happened through the mystery of Golgotha.
If the Ten Commandments gave people something that guided them from outside, we can compare this guidance from outside with what happens to a child from outside before it can speak and think. What the child's environment accomplishes in it is accomplished by the guidance of the ancient Hebrew law on humanity, which as such cannot yet speak or think in a certain sense. But humanity has also learned to speak; in other words, it has learned something that can only be compared to a child learning to speak. That is: humanity has received the message of the mystery of Golgotha in the Gospels. And how people first had to understand the Gospels can be compared to a child learning to speak. Through the Gospels, a kind of understanding of the mystery of Golgotha has come to the souls and hearts of human beings, settling into their feelings, into their sensations, into those soul forces that come to light when we allow the deeply meaningful vivid images and scenes from the Gospels as depicted by the great painters, even when we allow the traditional images to work on us, depicting the adoration of the child by the shepherds, the adoration of the child by the wise men from the East, the flight to Egypt, and so on. What came into the world then, what people have allowed to work on their souls since that time, ultimately all leads back to the Gospels. This has come to be understood by people in such a way that they have, as it were, learned to speak in their own way about the mystery of Golgotha.
Now we are approaching the third period in this connection, which can be compared to the child learning the content of thoughts in its own language, becoming conscious of what is contained in its language. We are approaching that revelation which is to bring us the full content, the thought content, the spirit and soul content of the Gospels. For the Gospels have not been understood by humanity any better than the language is understood by the child who is learning to think. In relation to world history, human beings are to learn to think through spiritual science in order to grasp the thought content of the Gospels. Only now are they to allow the whole deep spiritual content of the Gospels to work upon them. This, however, is connected with another great event that humanity can sense approaching and that will come to humanity before the end of our twentieth century. This is the event that we can present to our souls in the following way.
If we return once more to the mystery of Golgotha, we see that what rose from the tomb at Golgotha remained with the earth, remained with the earth in such a way that it could directly grasp every single human soul and awaken the I in every single human soul to a higher stage of existence. Christ became the Earth Spirit, we can say, when we speak in this way about the mystery of Golgotha. And He has remained the Earth Spirit ever since. But in our time, a significant change is taking place in Christ's relationship to humanity, which will be connected with what you all already know more or less, with the new revelation of Christ to humanity.
But this new revelation can also be characterized in another way. Here, however, we must take into account what happens when a person passes through the gate of death. What must now be said is something that could not yet be presented in books.
When human beings have passed through the gate of death and lived through that time in which they can look back on their previous life on earth, lived through the time up to the point where they have shed their etheric body, when human beings pass into the Kamaloka period, they then appear before two figures. Usually only one of these is mentioned, but for the sake of completeness we can say—and what I am now telling you is a real fact for every true occultist—that before their Kamaloka period, human beings stand before two figures. However, what I am now telling you applies only to people of the West and to all those who have had a connection with Western culture in the last few millennia. After death, the human being stands before two figures: Moses is one—the human being knows very well that he is facing Moses—who holds up the tablets of the law, which in the Middle Ages were called “Moses with the sharp law,” and the human being is fully aware in his soul of the extent to which he has deviated from the law in the depths of his soul. The other figure is the one called “the cherub with the fiery sword,” who decides on this deviation. This is an experience that human beings have after death, so that we can say in our theosophical sense: What confronts human beings through these two figures, through Moses with the sharp law and through the cherub with the fiery sword, determines, in a sense, the karmic account.
This fact is undergoing a change in our time. And this is a significant change. This change can be expressed by saying, my dear theosophical friends, that in our age, Christ will become the Lord of Karma for all those people who have gone through what we have just discussed after their death. Christ will take up his office as judge.
Let us imagine this fact more precisely! We all know from the theosophical worldview that we have a karmic account, that we have to experience a certain karmic compensation for certain deeds that are on one side of our karmic account book, for all wise deeds, for all beautiful deeds, for all good deeds, but also for all evil, ugly, untrue deeds and thoughts. On the one hand, it is important that human beings live out this karmic account for themselves in the further course of their earthly lives, but it is also important that human beings can live out what they can live out by having good deeds, beautiful deeds on their karmic account, or what they must live out because they have evil deeds, in the most diverse deeds. It is not clearly determined how we will find balance in our future life through this or that deed. Let us assume that a person has done this or that evil deed. Then he must do a good deed to compensate for the evil. But he can do this good deed in two ways, so that it may require the same effort on his part if it benefits only a few people, or so that it requires the same effort on his part if it benefits many people. That our karmic account will be balanced in the future, that is, placed in such a world order for the future, when we have found the way to Christ, that the nature of our karmic compensation will bring about the greatest possible human salvation for the rest of the Earth's development, will be the concern of the one who becomes the Lord of Karma from our time onward; it will be the concern of Christ.
However, this transfer of the office of judge over human deeds to Christ is linked to the fact that Christ also intervenes directly in human destinies. Not in a physical body, but nevertheless for those people who will increasingly acquire the ability to perceive this Christ; for them, Christ will intervene in the destinies of the human race on earth. There will be people, for example, who will have done this or that, who will have committed some deed. Then these people will feel the urge—and there will be more and more such people in the next three millennia from our twentieth century—to withdraw somewhat from their deed. For something like a strange dream image will arise in them. In this dream image, they will see something dreamlike that looks as if it were their own deed, but they will not be able to remember ever having done what appears in this image. However, those who have not prepared themselves for something like this to come in human development will be able to regard it only as the product of a wild imagination or a sick soul. But those who have prepared themselves sufficiently through the new revelation that is coming to humanity in our time through spiritual science, through this third revelation of the last human cycle, will know that these are the new abilities of human beings that are emerging, abilities that can look into the spiritual world. And they will know that the image that appears before their soul is a foretelling of those karmic deeds that must occur in the future, whether in this life or in the next earthly life, in order to create a balance for what we have done. In short, people will gradually gain the ability to see the karmic compensation, the balancing deed that must happen in the future, as if in a dream image. From this fact we can already see how it can be said in our time, similar to what John the Baptist said at the Jordan: Change your soul, for new times are coming in which new abilities of human beings will awaken.
But what has been said about a kind of perception of karma will become even more apparent in the coming humanity, in that in such vision the etheric Christ figure, the real Christ, will appear directly before us here and there, as he lives on the astral plane, not incarnated in a physical body, but appearing on earth, visible to the newly awakened abilities of human beings as an advisor, as a protector of human beings who need advice or help or comfort in the loneliness of their lives. There will come times when human beings will feel sad and miserable because of this or that. Times will increasingly become such that what one person does to help another will have less and less meaning and value, because the power of individuality, the individual life of human beings, will increase more and more, and it will become less and less possible, as was immediately the case in ancient times, for one person to help another by influencing their soul. But in place of this, the great advisor will appear here and there in etheric form.
The best advice that can be given to us for the future is to strengthen and fortify our souls so that we may recognize more and more, the more we grow toward the future, whether in this incarnation—which is certainly the case for the youth of today—or in the next incarnation, that newly awakened abilities of human beings will enable them to recognize the great counselor, who will also be the judge of karma for the coming humanity, in his new form.
For those who are already preparing themselves for this Christ event of the twentieth century, it will make no difference whether they are embodied in a physical body or have passed through the gate of death when this Christ event occurs on a comprehensive scale. For even those who have passed through the gate of death, if they have prepared themselves here for the Christ event, will be able to gain the right understanding of and relationship to the Christ event after death, but not those who have carelessly passed by the third great proclamation to humanity, theosophy. For the preparation for the Christ event must be gained here in the physical body. Those who pass through the gate of death without having turned their gaze to theosophy in their present incarnation will have to wait until their next incarnation before they can gain the right understanding of the Christ event. Indeed, those who have never heard of this Christ event on the physical plane cannot gain understanding between death and new birth; they must wait until they are prepared for it again on the physical plane.
Thus, regardless of when they die for the present incarnation, human beings stand before the great event that has been indicated, before the transition of Christ to his judgment, before the possibility that Christ, in his etheric body, will intervene directly in human evolution from the astral plane, become visible among human beings, and appear here and there.
But it is peculiar to human development that old characteristics of human beings, which are not so closely connected with spiritual development, lose more and more of their significance. If we look back over human development since the Atlantean catastrophe, we can say that of the great differences that were prepared during the Atlantean epoch, those differences have become established in present-day human beings which we call racial differences, have become established in the present human being, and in a certain sense we can still speak of an ancient Indian race, a primitive Persian race, an Egyptian race, a Greek-Latin race, and even in our time we can speak of a kind of fifth race. But already now the concept of race is ceasing to have any real meaning in relation to the development of humanity. It will not be as it was in earlier times, for example, when what followed our cultural epoch as the sixth cultural period spread essentially from a spatial center. What is important is that Theosophy spreads among humanity, that it—as was said at its origin, when people still had a more obscure awareness of what was necessary for the Theosophical movement—must be a teaching without distinction of race, nation, or sex. From all races, those who have passed through Theosophy will be drawn to the sixth cultural epoch. what is necessary for the theosophical movement—a teaching without distinction of race, nation, or gender. From all races, those who have gone through theosophy will come for the sixth cultural epoch and establish a new cultural epoch throughout the earth, which will no longer be based on the concept of race, toward which the concept of race will no longer have any meaning. In short, what has meaning in the world of Maya, of outer space, is fading away. We must gradually learn to understand this as we develop further with the Theosophical Movement. This was not understood at the beginning. That is why, when we read Olcott's otherwise very meritorious book, “The Buddhist Catechism,” we see that it gives the impression that races always develop in the same way, like wheels. But these concepts will lose their meaning in the near future, and we must be clear that these initial stages of the Theosophical Movement are outdated and that we can no longer attach any real meaning to the concept of race in the sixth cultural period.
So everything that is spatially limited will lose its meaning. Therefore, those who understand the whole meaning of human development can also understand that the appearance of Christ, as it approaches in the next three millennia, cannot be such that Christ is limited to a spatially limited body, which would have to be confined to a certain territory. Even if means of transportation had advanced greatly and someone needed help in South America and Christ was in Europe, if Christ were limited to a physical body, he would at least have to travel to South America by balloon if the nearest help were to be provided there. Even if we can imagine the speed with which space can be overcome in any way we like, what Christ will have to do when he returns to earth to help humanity will never be limited to what a being can do in a physical body. It will not even be limited to Christ being in only one place at a time: He will be able to help in one place and in another place at the same time. Because spiritual beings are not bound by spatial arrangements, those who can be helped by Christ in His immediate appearance will be able to receive His help at one end of the earth just as those who are to be helped at the other end. The new appearance of Christ is not bound by spatial limits or by a physical body. Only those who do not want to understand the progress of humanity toward spirituality, what gradually transforms all important events into spirituality, can explain what is meant by the Christ being as bound to the physical body.
But with this, my dear theosophical friends, we have already characterized how the facts stand in relation to the third revelation and how that which is already appearing now must appear in this third revelation in order to illuminate and explain the Gospel. The Gospel is the language, and theosophy in its relationship to the Gospel is the thought content of the Gospel. Just as language relates to the full consciousness of the child, so the Gospel as it has been proclaimed relates to the new revelation that comes directly from the spiritual world, to what theosophy is to become for humanity.
We must be aware, my dear theosophical friends, that we do indeed have a certain task, a task of understanding, when we first feel our affiliation with theosophy out of the unconscious of the soul and then more and more clearly. We must regard it as a distinction on the part of the world spirit, as a grace on the part of the creative, guiding world spirits, when our hearts draw us today to this new proclamation, which joins the proclamations of Sinai and Jordan as the third. This is the task of this new proclamation: to let us recognize the whole human being, to point out to us deeply and ever more deeply that what the human being is initially conscious of is enveloped by other members of the human nature, which, however, have their significance for the whole of human life. And it is necessary that our friends learn from the most diverse points of view what the members of the human being are.
Today we would like to say a few words about this essence of the human being, starting from the innermost part of the human being. Our friends already know that when we start from the I, the actual central core of the human being, we find as the next shell what we have called, in a more or less abstract way, the astral body. Then, moving further outwards, we find the so-called etheric body and, further out again, the physical body. However, when we look at real life, we can speak of these human shells in another way. And today we want to take something directly from life, something that can only be recognized from the perspective of occultism, but which can be understood through unbiased observation of life.
Today, many who have become arrogant and haughty through what is called a scientific worldview say: The age of faith is long past for humanity; faith belongs to the childhood stage of humanity; today, humanity has advanced to knowledge; today, one must know everything and can no longer merely believe.
Well, that may all sound reasonable, but, my dear theosophical friends, there is no real understanding behind it, because with such things one must also raise many other questions than just whether, in the course of development, knowledge has come to humanity through external science. One must raise the other question: Does the fact of belief as such mean anything for humanity? Is it not perhaps part of human nature to believe? It could well be that through this or that, people want to abandon belief, to cast it off. But just as people are allowed to rage against their external health for a short time without the damage being immediately apparent, so it may well be, and indeed it is, that people may regard the faith of their fathers as something to be discarded. But this is just as when people rush headlong into ruin for a while and exhaust their old energies. When people today place their faith in the outdated possessions of their fathers, they are feeding on the old beliefs they have inherited with traditions and customs in terms of their soul's life forces. It does not depend on man at all whether he renounces his faith or not, for faith represents in the human soul a number of forces, a sum of forces that belong to the life forces of the soul. It does not matter whether we want to believe or not, but rather that we must have the forces expressed by the word “faith” as the life forces of the soul, that the soul withers, becomes desolate and lonely if it cannot believe anything.
Incidentally, there were also people who, without any knowledge of natural science, were much more intelligent than those who represent the scientific worldview today. They did not say, as has often been said, “I believe what I do not know,” but rather, “I believe what I know, and all the more so.” Knowledge is only the foundation of faith. We should know so that we can rise more and more to the powers that are the powers of faith in the human soul. We must have in our soul something that can look toward a supersensible world, something that directs all our thoughts and ideas toward a supersensible world. If we do not have these powers, which are expressed by the word “faith,” something in us withers away, we become barren, we dry up like the leaves in autumn. This may work for humanity for a while, but then it will no longer work. And if humanity were to truly lose its faith, it would see within the next few decades what this would mean for its development. Then, due to the loss of the power of faith, people would have to go about their lives without really knowing what to do with themselves in order to find their way in life, and no one would really be able to exist in the world because they would be filled with fear, worry, and anxiety about this and that. In short, the life that should spring fresh from our souls can only be given to us through the power of faith.
This is so because in the hidden depths of our being, imperceptible to the outer consciousness, there rests something in which our actual self is embedded. And that in which our ego rests, which immediately asserts itself when we do not enliven it, is what we can call that human shell in which the powers of faith are alive, what we can call the soul of faith or, for my part, the body of faith. And that is the same thing that we have hitherto called, more abstractly, the astral body. The forces of faith are the most important forces of the astral body, and just as the term “astral body” is correct, so too is the term “faith body.”
A second thing that must exist as forces in the hidden depths of the human being, my dear theosophical friends, is what is expressed by the word ”love.” Love is not only something that holds people together through corresponding bonds, but also something that each individual human being needs. A person who cannot develop the power of love becomes desolate and withers away in their being. Just imagine a person who is so full of selfishness that they are incapable of love. It is basically quite sad – even if such people exist only to a certain degree and can therefore be seen – to see such beings who are incapable of love, who spend their lives in some incarnation without generating that living warmth within themselves that can only be generated when we are able to love something, this or that, in the world. There is something quite sad about seeing figures who are incapable of this, striding through the world in their aridity and dryness; for the power of love is a life force that ignites something that lies even deeper in our being and keeps it awake and alive, a power even deeper than faith itself.
And just as we are embedded in a body of faith, which we also call the astral body from other points of view, so we are embedded in a body of love, which we have learned to call the etheric or life body in theosophy from other points of view. For the forces that initially work up to us from the depths of our being, from our etheric body, are the forces that express themselves in the fact that human beings can love, love at all stages of their existence. If human beings could completely remove the power of love from their being — which even the most selfish person cannot do, because, thank God, it is part of what human beings can selfishly strive for, including the ability to love something — let us take an obvious example: if someone who can no longer love anything else often begins when he becomes quite miserly, to love money and thus at least replace a benevolent power of love with a power of love arising from thorough egoism—then this shell, which is sustained by the powers of love, would shrink completely if there were nothing at all of love in the human being, and the human being would actually have to die of a lack of love. The human being would actually die physically from a lack of love. The shrinking of the forces of love is the same thing we can call the shrinking of the forces of the etheric body, for the etheric body is at the same time the body of love.
So, my dear theosophical friends, at the center of the human being we have the central core of the human being, the I. We have surrounded this I with its nearest shell, the faith body, and the faith body in turn is surrounded by the love body.
If we go further, we come to another class of forces that we need in life. If we cannot have these forces, cannot have them at all, then this is expressed in our outer humanity in a very significant way. What we need in life as the most eminent life-giving forces are the forces of hope and confidence in the future. Without hope, human beings cannot take a single step in existence, insofar as it belongs to the physical world. However, human beings sometimes have strange excuses when, for example, they do not want to accept that it is necessary for them to know what happens between death and birth. They say: Why do we need to know that? We don't even know what will happen to us tomorrow morning, so why should we acquire knowledge about what happens between death and birth?
Do we really not know what tomorrow will bring? We do not know something about tomorrow that is significant for the details of our supernatural life. To put it more bluntly, we may not know whether we will still be physically alive. But we do know one thing: as long as we are physically alive, tomorrow will be just like today, with morning, noon, and evening. And if we have made a table today as a carpenter, it will be there tomorrow, and if we have made boots today, someone will be able to wear them tomorrow, and if we have sown seeds, we know that they will sprout next year. We know exactly what we need to know about the future. If this were not the case, if the events of the future did not occur in a rhythmic manner, in a manner that can be predicted in advance, life in the physical world would be impossible. Would anyone make a table today if they could not be sure that it would not be destroyed overnight? Would he plant seeds if he had no idea what would become of them next year? We need hope especially for physical life, because hope holds all physical life together and keeps it going.
Nothing can happen on the outer physical plane without hope. Therefore, the forces of hope are also connected with the last shell of our human being, with our physical body. What the forces of faith are for the astral body and the forces of love are for the etheric body, the forces of hope are for the physical body. Therefore, a person who could not hope, a person who would have to despair of what he must assume for the future, would go through the world in such a way that it would be clearly noticeable in his physical body.
his physical body. Nothing expresses hopelessness so much as the deep furrows, the deadening forces of our physical body. We can say that our central core of being is enveloped by the faith or astral body, by the love or etheric body, and by the hope body, the physical body. And only then do we grasp the physical body in its true meaning when we see it for what it is: that in truth it has no external physical forces of attraction or repulsion—that is the materialistic view—but rather what we know in our concepts as forces of hope. That is truly what is in our physical body. Hope builds our physical body, not forces of attraction and repulsion. It is precisely in this relationship that we can see that the new revelation, the theosophical or spiritual scientific revelation, gives us what is right.
What does this spiritual science give us? By acquainting us with the all-encompassing law of karma, with the law of repeated earthly lives, it gives us what, in a spiritual sense, fills us with hope just as the awareness that the sun will rise tomorrow and that seeds will grow into plants fills us with hope on the physical plane. It shows us that what we can still see on the physical plane as decaying, as becoming pulverized when we pass through the gate of death, that this physical body will be rebuilt in a new life by the forces that permeate us as forces of hope when we understand karma. Humanity endows spiritual science, theosophy, with the strongest forces of hope.
If this theosophy were rejected by people as a new revelation in the present time, people would naturally reappear in future lives on Earth. For life does not cease because people know nothing of the laws of this life. People would be incarnated, but something very strange would happen in these human reincarnations. In these reincarnations, people would gradually become a race with wrinkled and withered bodies, a race that would ultimately have such lame bodies on this earth that they would no longer be able to do anything. In short, a dying and withering away would come upon humanity in future incarnations, if the consciousness—and from there the most hidden depths of the human being down to the physical body—were not enlivened by that strong hope which comes to us through the certainty of the knowledge we gain from the law of karma and from the law of repeated earthly lives. Humanity is already tending to produce dying, withering bodies, bodies that in the future would become increasingly rickety, even in terms of the skeletal system. The new revelation will bring vitality to the bones and life force to the nerves, and it will not merely assert itself as a theory, but as invigorating forces, above all as invigorating forces of hope.
Faith, love, and hope are three stages of human existence that belong to overall health and life, without which humans cannot exist. And just as a dark room cannot be a working room if it is not lit, so the human being in its fourfold nature cannot exist if its three sheaths are not saturated, permeated, and energized by faith, love, and hope, by what are the fundamental forces of our astral body, our etheric body, and our physical body. And take, my dear Theosophical friends, just one example of the way in which the new revelation, which permeates the old language with its content of thought, enters the world! Do not the three wonderful words, which resound through the ages like words of wisdom, rise up to us from the Gospel revelation: faith, love, hope! But they have not been understood in their entire context for human life, so little understood that only in some regions is the correct order observed. People sometimes say: faith, love, hope, because that corresponds to the correct order, but they have understood the thought content so little that they often say: faith, hope, love, which is wrong, because one cannot say: astral body, physical body, etheric body, if one wants to list them in order. This has been jumbled up in much the same way as a child who does not yet have the conceptual content of language sometimes jumbles things up in speech.
This is how it is with everything that relates to the second revelation; it is permeated by the conceptual content. This is what we have strived for, for example, in the explanation of the Gospels. What have these Gospels been up to now? Something that could edify people, permeate them with great, powerful feelings, something that could give humanity an understanding of the mind and feeling of the mystery of Golgotha. But take just the very simple fact that one has begun to think about the Gospels in the first place! And when people began to think about them, they immediately found contradictions, and only spiritual science will show how these contradictions can be explained. Only now will people begin to allow what has been given to humanity in the Gospels as a language of the supersensible worlds to work on the soul as thought content. We have thus pointed to what is most important and essential in our time, to the new appearance of Christ in the etheric body, which, due to the very character of our time, cannot be bound to a physical body. We have pointed out that Christ appears on earth in his role as judge, as it were opposite the suffering Christ of Golgotha, as the triumphant Christ, as the Lord of Karma, who was already foreshadowed by those who painted the Christ of the Last Judgment. When one paints or depicts this in pictures, one presents something that will happen at a moment in time. In truth, it is something that begins in the twentieth century and continues until the end of the earth. The judgment begins in our twentieth century, that is, the order of karma. And then we have seen how infinitely important it is for our time that this revelation comes to humanity, so that even things like faith, love, and hope can be properly appreciated.
And now, my dear Theosophical friends, may those who can only believe in material things do as many people do today with regard to the events in Palestine. While John the Baptist said, “Change your hearts, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; accept the human ego, which no longer needs to renounce itself in order to enter the spiritual world — this clearly and unambiguously states what is at stake, that the time has come with the events in Palestine when the supersensible can shine into the human ego so that the heavens have descended to the human ego — whereas in the past the ego had to sink into the unconscious in order to reach them, those who interpret everything materially say: Yes, Christ, reckoning with the weaknesses and errors, with the prejudices of his time, proclaimed just like the gullible people of his time: The thousand-year kingdom will come to pass, or there will be a great catastrophe on earth. But it did not come at all.
It was indeed a catastrophe, but only perceptible to the spirit. Those who are gullible, superstitious, who believe that Christ proclaimed a literal descent from the clouds, are the materialistic interpreters of what Christ meant. So today there may again be people who interpret what can be grasped in the spirit in a material way, and when it does not happen materially, they think about it in the same way as people thought about the events surrounding the realization of the thousand-year kingdom. How do some people today look almost pityingly at the Christ event and say: Well, Christ was also influenced by the beliefs of his time in this respect; he thought that the kingdom of heaven would soon come to earth. That was a weakness of Christ, they think, and then one saw—even great theologians say this—that the kingdom of heaven did not come down to earth after all.
It may be that people will also respond to our new revelation in such a way that after some time, when the elevation of human abilities is already in full swing, they will say: Well, nothing has come of all that you have proclaimed! They will not suspect that everything is already there, that they simply cannot see it. This will happen again. Theosophy as such is intended to bring together a large number of people until the time comes for the fulfillment of what has been said by people who know the true meaning how the new revelation and the new supersensible facts will enter into human development in our century and from then on, initially in the same way, will become increasingly significant over the next three millennia, until new great revelatory facts will again appear before humanity.
More on this tomorrow.