The Occult Significance of the Bhagavad Gita
GA 146
2 June 1913, Helsingfors
Lecture VI
It really is exceedingly difficult in our Western civilization to speak intelligently and intelligibly about such a work as the Bhagavad Gita. This is so because at present there is a dominating tendency to interpret any spiritual work of this kind as a kind of doctrine, an abstract teaching, or a philosophy, that makes it hard for people to come to a sound judgment in such matters. They like to approach such spiritual creations from the ideal or conceptual point of view. Here we touch upon something that makes it most difficult in our time to gain a true judgment about the great historical impulses in mankind's evolution. How often, for instance, it is pointed out that this or that saying occurring in the Gospels as the teaching of Christ Jesus is to be found in some earlier work no less profoundly expressed. Then it is said, “You see, it is the same teaching after all.” Certainly, that is not incorrect because in countless instances it can be shown that the teachings of the Gospels occur in earlier spiritual works. Yet, though such a statement is not incorrect, it may be nonsense from the standpoint of a truly fundamental knowledge of human evolution. People's thinking will have to get accustomed to this and realize that a statement can be perfectly correct and yet nonsense. Not until this is no longer regarded as a contradiction will it be possible to judge certain matters in a really unbiased way.
Suppose, for instance, someone says that he sees in the Bhagavad Gita one of the greatest creations of the human spirit, a creation that has never been surpassed in later times. Suppose further, having said this, he adds, “Nevertheless, what entered the world with the revelation inherent in the Christ Impulse, is something altogether different, something to which the Bhagavad Gita could not attain even if its beauty and greatness were increased a hundred times.” These two statements do not contradict each other. According to the habits of modern abstract thinking, however, we may have a contradiction here. Yet, in no sense is it in truth a contradiction. Indeed one might go further, and ask, “When was that mightiest word spoken that may be regarded as giving the impulse to the human ego, so that it may take its place in the evolution of man?” That significant word was uttered at the moment Krishna spoke to Ar-juna; when he poured into Arjuna’s ears the most powerful, incisive, burning words to quicken the consciousness of self in man. In the whole range of the world’s life there is nothing to be found that kindled the self of man more mightily than the living force of Krishna’s words to Arjuna. Of course, we must not take those words in the way words are so often taken in Western countries where the noblest words are given merely an abstract, philosophic interpretation. In any such we would certainly miss the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. In this way Western scholars today have so outrageously misused and tortured the Bhagavad Gita. They have even gone so far as to dispute whether it is more representative of the Sankhya philosophy or of some other school of thought. In fact, a distinguished scholar, in his edition of this poem, has actually printed certain lines in small type because in his view they ought to be expunged altogether, having crept in by mistake. He thinks nothing is really a part of the Gita except what accords with the Sankhya, or at the most with the Yoga philosophy.
It may be said though that no trace is to be found in this great poem of philosophy as we speak of it today. At most one could say that in ancient India certain basic dispositions of soul developed into certain philosophic tendencies. These really have nothing to do with the Bhagavad Gita, at least not in the sense of being an interpretation or exposition of it. It is altogether unfair to the intellectual and spiritual life of the East to set it side by side with what the West knows as philosophy because there was no philosophy in the East in the same sense there is philosophy in the West. In this respect the spirit of our age, just beginning, is as yet imperfectly understood.
In the last lecture we spoke of things that men still have to learn. Above all we must firmly realize how the human soul, under certain conditions, can actually meet the Being whom we tried to describe from a certain aspect, calling him Krishna. We must realize how Arjuna meets that Spirit who prepared the age of self-consciousness. This knowledge is far more important than any dispute as to whether it is Sankhya or Vedic philosophy that is contained in the Bhagavad Gita. To understand it as a real description of world history—of history and of the color and temper of a particular age in which living, individual beings are placed before us—is the important point. We have tried to describe their natures, speaking of Arjuna’s thoughts and feelings as characteristic of that time, trying to throw light on the new age of self-consciousness, and showing how a creative Spiritual Being preparing for a new age appeared before Arjuna. Now, if we seek a living picture of Spiritual Beings in their relation to each other, we need an all-around point of view to know this Krishna Being more exactly. The following may therefore help us complete our picture of him.
To really penetrate into the region where we can perceive such a mighty being as Krishna one must have progressed far enough to be able to have real perceptions and real experiences in the spiritual world. That may seem obvious. Yet when we consider what people generally expect of the higher worlds the matter is by no means so self-evident. I have often indicated that misunderstandings without number arise from the fact that people wish to lift their lives into the super-sensible world carrying a mass of prejudices with them. They desire to be led along the path into the super-sensible toward something already familiar to them in the sense world. In that higher realm one perceives, for instance, forms, not indeed of gross matter, but forms that appear as forms of light. One finds that he hears sounds like the sounds of the physical world. He does not realize that by expecting such things, by entering the higher world with such preconceived ideas, he is wanting a spiritual world just like the sense world though in a refined form. In our world here man is accustomed to color and brightness, so he imagines he will only reach the higher realities if the Beings there appear to him in the same way. It ought not to be necessary to say all this since the super-sensible beings are far above all attributes of the senses and in their true form do not appear at all with sense qualities because the latter presuppose eyes and ears, that is, sense organs. In the higher worlds, however, we do not perceive by means of sense organs but by soul organs.
What can happen in this connection I can illustrate by a childish comparison. Suppose I am describing something to you, verbally. Then I feel impelled to represent it with a few strokes on the blackboard, thereby materializing what I have expressed in words. No one would dream of taking the diagram for the reality. It is the same when we express what we have experienced supersensibly by giving it form and color and stamping it in words borrowed from the sense world. Only that in doing so we do not use our ordinary intellect, but a higher faculty of feeling that thus translates the super-sensible into sense terms. In such a way our soul lives into invisible worlds, for instance into that of the Krishna Being. Then it feels the need of representing to itself that Being. What it represents, however, is not the Being himself but a kind of sketch, a super-sensible diagram. Such sketches, super-sensible illustrations so to say, are Imaginations. The misunderstanding that so often arises amounts to this, that we sensualize what the higher forces of the soul sketch out before us. By thus interpreting it sensually we lose its real essence. The essence is not contained in these pictures, but through them it must be dimly felt at first, until by slow degrees we actually begin to see it.
I have mentioned among other things the wonderful dramatic composition of the Bhagavad Gita. I tried to give an idea of the form of the first four discourses. This same dramatic impulse increases from one discourse to the next as we penetrate on and on into the realms of occult vision. A sound idea of the artistic composition of this poem may be suggested by looking to see if there is not a central point, a climax to this increase of force and feeling. There are eighteen discourses, therefore we might look for the climax in the ninth. In fact, in the ninth one, that is in the very middle, we read these striking words, “And now, having told thee everything, I will declare to thee the profoundest secret for the human soul.” Here indeed is a strange saying that seems to sound abstract yet has deep significance. Then there follows this most profound mystery. “Understand me well. I am in all beings, yet they are not in me.”
How often men ask today, “What is the judgment of true mystic wisdom about this or that?” They want absolute truths, but actually there are no such truths. There are only truths that hold good in certain contexts, that are true in definite circumstances and under definite conditions. Then they are true. This statement, “I am in all beings but they are not in me,” cannot be taken as an abstractly, absolutely true statement. Yet this was spoken out of the deepest wisdom of Krishna at the time when he stood before Arjuna, and its truth is real and immediate, referring to Him Who is the creator of man’s inmost being, of his consciousness of self.
Thus, through a wonderful approach we are carried on to the central point of the Gita, to the ninth discourse where these words are poured out, to Arjuna. Then, in the eleventh discourse, another element enters. What may we expect here, realizing the artistic form of the poem and the deep occult truths contained in it? When we take up the ninth and tenth discourses, the very middle of the poem, we notice a remarkable thing—a peculiar difficulty in imagining and bringing to life in our souls the ideas presented to us in this part of the song.
As you begin with the first discourse your soul is borne along by the continually increasing current of feeling and idea. First, immortality is the subject. Then you are uplifted and inspired by the concepts awakened through Yoga. All the time your feeling is being borne along by something in which it can feel at home, one may say. We go still further and the poem works up in a wonderful way to the concept of Him Who inspired the age of self-consciousness. Our enthusiasm is kindled as we approach this Being. All this time we are living in definite, familiar feelings. Then comes a still greater climax. We are told how the soul can become ever more free of the outer bodily life. We are led on to the idea, so familiar to the man of India, of how the soul can retire into itself, realizing inaction in the actions the body experiences. The soul can become a complete whole, independent of outer things as it gradually attains Yoga and becomes one with Brahma. In the succeeding discourses we see how our certainty of feeling—the feeling that can still gain nourishment from daily life—gradually vanishes. Then as we approach the ninth discourse our soul seems to rise into giddy heights of unknown experience. If now in these ninth and tenth discourses we try to make the ideas borrowed from ordinary life suffice, we fail, As we reach this part of the song we feel as if we were standing on a summit of mankind’s attainment, born directly out of the occult depths of life. If we are to understand it, we must bring to it something our soul in its development has first to attain by its own effort.
It is remarkable how fine and unerring the composition of the Bhagavad Gita is in this respect. We can get as far as the fifth, sixth, or seventh discourse by developing the concepts given us at the very beginning, in the first discourse. In the second our soul is awakened to realize the presence of the eternal in the ever-changing flow of appearance. Then follows all that passes into the depths of Yoga, from the third song onward. After that an altogether new mood begins to appear. Whereas the first discourses still have an intellectual quality, reminding us at times of the Western philosophic mode of thinking, something enters now that requires Yoga, the devotional mood, for its understanding. As we continue purifying more and more this mood of devotion, our soul rises higher in reverence. The Yoga of the first discourses no longer carries us. It ceases, and an altogether new mood of soul bears us up into the ninth and tenth discourses because the words here spoken are no more than a dry, empty sound echoing in our ear if we approach them intellectually. But they radiate warmth to us if we approach them devotionally. One who would understand this sublime poem may start with intellectual understanding and so follow the opening discourses, but as the song proceeds toward the ninth a deep devotional mood must be awakened in him. Then the words of the mighty Krishna will be like wonderful music echoing and re-echoing in his soul. Whoever reaches this ninth song may feel this devotional mood as if he must take off his shoes before treading on holy ground; there he feels he must walk with reverence. Then follows the eleventh discourse. What can come next, now that we have reached the climax of this devotional mood?
When man has risen to the summit where Krishna has led Arjuna—a height that cannot be attained except in occult vision or in reverent devotion—it can only be the holy and formless, the super-sensible, that appears before him. Then the super-sensible can be poured out into Imagination. Then the uplifted and strengthened soul-force that belongs not to the realm of the intellect but to imaginative perception, can cast into living pictures what in its essential being is without form or likeness. This is what happens at the beginning of the second half of the sublime song—that is to say, about the eleventh discourse. Here, after due preparation, the Krishna Being to whom Arjuna has been led step by step, is conjured up before his soul in Imaginations. This is where the majesty of description in this Eastern poem appears in its fullness, where Krishna finally appears in a picture, in an Imagination.
We may truly say that experiences such as this, which only the innermost power of the human soul can undergo, have almost nowhere else been described in such a wonderful way, so filled with meaning. For those who are able to realize it the Imagination of Krishna as Arjuna now describes it will always be of most profound significance. Up to the tenth discourse we are led on by Krishna as by an inspiring Being. Now the radiant bliss of Arjuna’s opened vision comes before us. Arjuna becomes the narrator, and describes his Imagination in words so wonderful that one fears to reproduce them.
“The Gods do I behold in all thy Frame, O God. Also the hosts of creatures; Brahma the Lord upon His lotus throne; the Rishis all; the Serpent of Heaven. With many arms and with many bodies, with many mouths and many eyes I see Thee, on every side endless in Thy Form. No end, no center, no beginning see I in Thee, O Lord of All! Thou, Whom I behold in every form, I see Thee with diadem, with club and sword, a mountain flaming fire, streaming forth on every side—thus do I behold Thee. Dazzled is my vision. As fire streaming from the radiance of the Sun, immeasurably great art Thou! Lost beyond all thought, unperishing, greatest of all Good, thus dost Thou appear to me in the Heaven’s expanse. Eternal Dharma’s changeless guardian, Thou! Spirit primeval and Eternal, Thou standest before my soul. Neither source, nor midst, nor end; in-. finite in power, infinite in realms of space. Great are Thine eyes like to the Moon; yea, like to the Sun itself. And what streams forth from Thy mouth is as the Fire of Sacrifice. I look upon Thee in Thy glowing Fire; Thy splendor, warming all worlds. All that I can dream of between floor of earth and fields of Heaven, Thy power fills it all. Alone with Thee I stand. And that heavenly universe wherein the three worlds live, that too doth in Thee dwell, when to my gaze is shown Thy wondrous, awesome Form. I see whole hosts of Gods approaching Thee, hymning Thy praise. Stricken with fear I stand before Thee, folding my hands in prayer. ‘Hail to Thee!’ cry all the companies of holy seers and Saints, chanting Thy praises with resounding songs. Filled with wonder stand multitudes beholding Thee. Thy Form stupendous with many mouths, arms, limbs, feet, many bodies, many jaws full of teeth—before it all the universe doth quake, and I with dread am filled. Radiant, Thou shakest Heaven. With many arms I see Thee, and mouth like to vast-flaming eyes. My soul trembles. Nothing firm I find, nor rest, O Mighty Krishna, Who art as Vishnu unto me. I see within Thine awful form, like unto fire itself. I see how Being works, the end of all the ages. Nought know I anywhere; no shelter I find. O, be Thou merciful to me, Thou Lord of all the Gods, refuge of all the worlds!”
Such is the Imagination that Arjuna beholds when his soul has been raised to that height where an Imagination of Krishna is possible. Then we hear what Krishna is echoing across to Arjuna once more as a mighty inspiration. In reality it is as if it were not merely sounding for the spiritual ear of Arjuna, but echoing down through all the ages that followed. At this point we begin dimly to perceive what it really means when a new impulse is given for a new epoch in the world’s history, and when the author of this impulse appears to the clairvoyant gaze of Arjuna. We feel with Arjuna. We remind ourselves that he is in the midst of the turmoil of battle where brother-blood is pitted against its like. We know that what Krishna has to give depends above all upon the old clairvoyant epoch ceasing, together with all that was holy in it, and a new epoch to begin. When we reflect on the impulse of this new epoch that was to begin with fratricide; when we rightly understand the impulse that forced its way in through all the swaying concepts and institutions of the preceding epoch; then we get a correct concept of what Krishna lets Arjuna hear.
“I am time primeval, bringing all worlds to naught, made manifest on earth to slay mankind! And even though thou wilt bring them unto death in battle, without thee hath death taken all the warriors who stand there in their ranks. Therefore arise; arise without fear. Renown shalt thou win, and shalt conquer the foe. Rejoice in thy mastery, and in the victory awaiting thee. It is not thou who wilt have slain them when they fall in battle. By Me already are they slain, e’er thou lay them low. The instrument art thou, nought else than he who fighteth with his arm. The Drona, the Jayandana, the Bhishma, the Karna and the other heroes of the strife I have slain. Already they are slain, now do thou slay, that My work burst forth externally apparent. When they fall dead in Maya, slain by Me, do thou slay them. And what I have done will through thee become perceptible. Tremble not! Thou canst not do what I have not already done. Fight! They whom I have slain will fall beneath thy sword!”
It was not in order to bring to mankind’s ears the voice that should speak of slaying that these words were uttered, but to make them hear the voice that tells that there is a center in man’s being that has to develop in the age to come; that into this center there were focused the highest impulses realizable by man at that time, and that there is nothing in human evolution with which the human ego is not connected. Here we find in the Bhagavad Gita something that lifts us up and sets us on the horizon of the whole of human evolution.
If we let the changing moods of this great poem work upon us we shall gain much more than those who try to read into it pedantic doctrines of Sankhya or Yoga philosophies. If we can only dimly feel the dazzling heights that can be reached through Yoga, we shall begin to lay hold on the meaning and spirit of such a mighty Imagination as that of Arjuna presented to us here. Even as an image it is so sublime and forceful that we are able to form some lofty conception of the creative spirit, which in Krishna is grafted onto the world. The highest impulse that can speak to the individual man speaks through Krishna to Arjuna. The highest to which the individual man can lift himself by raising to their full pitch all the powers that reside within his being—that is Krishna. The highest to which he can soar by training himself and working on himself with wisdom—that is Krishna.
When we think of the evolution of humanity all over the earth, and trace it through as we are able to do by means of what is given, for example, in our occult science; when in this sense we see the earth as the place where man has first been brought to the ego through many different stages following one another and developing from age to age; when we thus follow the course of evolution through the epochs of time; then we may say to ourselves that here then on earth these souls have been planted; the highest they can attain is to become free souls. Free—that is what men will become if they bring to full development all the forces latent within them as individual souls. In order to make this possible Krishna was active, indirectly and almost imperceptibly at first, then ever more definitely, and at last quite directly in the period we have been describing. In all of earthly evolution there is no Being who could give the individual human soul so much as Krishna.
I say expressly the individual soul because—and I say this deliberately—on earth there exists not only the individual human soul but also mankind. Consider this in connection with all I have tried to give about Krishna, because on earth there are all those concerns that do not belong to the individual alone. Imagine a person feeling the inner impulse to perfect himself as far as ever a human soul can. Such might be. Then, each person separately and by himself might go on developing indefinitely. But there is mankind. For this earthly planet there are matters that bring it into connection with the whole universe. With the Krishna Impulse coming into each individual soul, let us assume every soul would have developed in itself a higher impulse; not immediately, nor even up to the present time, but sometime in the future. So that from the age of self-consciousness onward the stream of mankind’s collective evolution would have split up. Individual souls would have progressed and unfolded to the highest point, but separately, dispersed, broken apart from each other. Their paths would have gone further and further apart as the Krishna Impulse worked in each one. Human existence would have been uplifted in the sense that souls individualized themselves and so lifted themselves out of the common current, developing their self-life to the utmost. In this way the ancient time would have shone into the future like many, many rays from a single star. Every one of these rays would have proclaimed the glory of Krishna far into future cosmic eras. This is the path on which mankind was traveling in the sixth or eighth centuries before the foundation of Christianity.
Then from the opposite side something else came in. The Krishna Impulse comes into man’s soul when from the depths of his own inner being he works, creates, and draws forth his powers more and more until he may rise into those realms where he may reach Krishna. But something came toward humanity from outside, which men could never have reached through the forces that lived within themselves; something bending down to each individual one. Thus the souls that were separating and isolating themselves encountered the same Being who came down out of the Cosmic Universe into the age of self-consciousness from outside. It came in such a way that it belonged to the whole of humanity, to all the earth. This other impulse came from the opposite side. It was the Christ.
Though put rather abstractly for the present, we see how a continually increasing individualization was prepared and brought about in mankind, and how then those souls who had the impulse to individualize themselves more and more were met by the Christ Impulse, leading them once more together into a common humanity. What I have tried to indicate has been a rather preliminary description of the two impulses from the Christ and Krishna. I have tried to show how closely the two impulses come together in the age of the mid-point of evolution, even though they come from diametrically opposite directions. We can make very great mistakes by confusing these two revelations. What I have developed today in a rather general way we will make more concrete in the succeeding lectures. But I would close today with a few words that may simply and clearly summarize what these two impulses are—truly the most important in human evolution.
If we look back to all that happened between the tenth century before Christ and the tenth century afterward, we may say that into the universe the Krishna Impulse flowed for every individual human soul, and into the earth the Christ Impulse came for all mankind.
Observe that for those who can think specifically, “all mankind” by no means signifies the same as the mere sum total of all individual human souls.
Sechster Vortrag
Es ist im Grunde genommen außerordentlich schwierig, innerhalb der abendländischen Kultur über eine solche Erscheinung zu sprechen, wie sie die Bhagavad Gita ist. Es ist aus dem Grunde schwierig, weil in unserer Gegenwart in weitesten Kreisen noch etwas herrscht, was ein grundgesundes Urteil auf diesem Gebiete außerordentlich erschwert. Es herrscht innerhalb der abendländischen Kultur die Sehnsucht, alles dasjenige, was an die menschliche Seele herandringt wie die Bhagavad Gita, aufzufassen im Sinne einer Lehre, einer Art Philosophie. Man geht gern an solche Schöpfungen des Menschengeistes vor allen Dingen vom ideellen, vielleicht sogar vom begriffsmäßigen Standpunkte heran.
Es wird damit etwas berührt, was in unserer heutigen Zeit überhaupt schwierig macht, die großen historischen Impulse in der Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit richtig zu beurteilen. Wie oft wird zum Beispiel heute darauf hingewiesen, daß man in den Evangelien als die Lehren des Christus etwa dies oder jenes finde, und dann wird gezeigt, daß diese Tiefen der Lehren des Christus Jesus sich auch schon früher finden da oder dort. Dann wird gesagt: Seht ihr, das ist doch dasselbe! — Es ist nicht einmal unrichtig, daß es dasselbe ist, denn man kann in unzähligen Fällen nachweisen, daß die Lehren der Evangelien sich in früheren menschlichen Geisteswerken finden; und man kann nicht sagen, daß, wenn jemand die Behauptung aufstellt, es finde sich diese oder jene Lehre da oder dort, er irgend etwas Unrichtiges behaupte.
Und dennoch: Obwohl das, was so gesagt wird, nicht unrichtig ist, ist es gegenüber einer wirklich eindringenden Betrachtung der menschlichen Evolution ein Unsinn. Und es wird sich das menschliche Geistesleben erst daran gewöhnen müssen, zu erkennen, daß etwas ganz richtig und doch ein Unsinn sein kann. Erst wenn man diesen Satz nicht mehr als einen Widerspruch ansehen wird, wird man gewisse Dinge unbefangen beurteilen können. Man wird es unbefangen beurteilen können, wenn jemand sagt, er sehe in der Bhagavad Gita in einer gewissen Beziehung eine der allergrößten Schöpfungen des menschlichen Geistes innerhalb der Erdenevolution, er sehe in der Bhagavad Gita in einer gewissen Beziehung eine Schöpfung des Menschengeistes, die später überhaupt nicht mehr überholt worden ist. Und wenn dieses jemand sagt und daneben sagt, trotzdem stelle dasjenige, was mit der christlichen Verkündigung, mit der Verkündigung des Christus-Impulses in die Welt getreten ist, etwas durchaus anderes dar, etwas, was von der Bhagavad Gita, wenn man ihre Schönheit, ihre Größe noch ins hundertfältige erhöht denken könnte, nicht erreicht werden könnte, so ist das kein Widerspruch. Wenn jemand auf der einen Seite das eine sagt und auf der anderen Seite dieses letztere, so kann das vom heutigen abstrakten Denken als Widerspruch empfunden werden, und dennoch ist es keineswegs ein Widerspruch.
Ja, man kann noch weiter gehen. Man kann einmal fragen: Wann ist das Größte ausgesprochen worden, was gelten kann als Impuls für das menschliche Selbst, für das menschliche Ich, um dieses menschliche Ich innerhalb der Menschheitsevolution in die Welt hineinzustellen? Was ist das Bedeutsamste an Kraft? Wann ist das Gewaltigste geschehen für dieses menschliche Ich? — Das ist damals geschehen, als Krishna zu Arjuna gesprochen hat, als die gewaltigsten, bedeutsamsten, einschneidendsten und feurigsten Worte an das Ohr Arjunas drangen, um das menschliche Ich, das Selbstbewußtsein zu beleben. Im ganzen Umfange der Welt kann nichts gefunden werden, was kraftvoller für das menschliche Ich an Anfeuerung war als dasjenige, was an lebendigster Kraft in den Worten des Krishna an Arjuna zu finden ist.
Allerdings müssen diese Worte nicht so genommen werden, wie man sie oftmals im Abendlande nimmt, wo man den größten und schönsten Worten eine Art bloßer abstrakter philosophischer Bedeutung gibt. Mit solcher Bedeutung trifft man das Wesentlichste der Bhagavad Gita überhaupt nicht. Daher haben abendländische Gelehrte diese Bhagavad Gita so furchtbar mißhandelt, malträtiert gerade in unserer Zeit. Hat man doch sogar einen Streit inszenieren können, ob in der Bhagavad Gita mehr die Sankhyaphilosophie oder irgendeine andere Ideenrichtung zur Geltung komme! Ja, es hat sich sogar ein sehr bedeutender Gelehrter gefunden, der in seiner Ausgabe der Bhagavad Gita gewisse Verse klein gedruckt hat, weil er der Ansicht ist, daß man diese geradezu herauskorrigieren müßte, da sie durch ein Versehen hineingekommen sein müßten. Er glaubt, daß nur das in die Bhagavad Gita gehöre, was entspricht der Sankhya- oder höchstens der Yogaphilosophie. Man darf aber sagen, daß von der Art, wie man heute von Philosophie spricht, überhaupt keine Philosophie in der Bhagavad Gita zu suchen ist. Man könnte höchstens sagen: Es haben sich im alten Indien aus gewissen Grundstimmungen der menschlichen Seele heraus philosophische Richtungen herausgebildet. Aber diese haben wahrlich mit der Bhagavad Gita jedenfalls nicht das zu tun, daß man sie als eine Interpretation, als einen Kommentar der Bhagavad Gita ansehen darf.
Man tut dem morgenländischen Geistesleben überhaupt unrecht, wenn man es zusammenbringt mit demjenigen, was das Abendland als Philosophie kennt. Denn in diesem Sinne, wie das Abendland die Philosophie hat, gab es im Morgenlande eine Philosophie gar nicht. In dieser Beziehung wird der Geist der Zeit, der jetzt eigentlich erst im Anfang steht — wir haben gestern schon von einem Verhältnis gesprochen, das sozusagen die Menschenseelen noch zu lernen haben -, der Geist der Zeit wird noch mißverstanden. Vor allen Dingen müssen wir festhalten können an jener Anschauung, die wenigstens aus dem gestrigen Vortrage zu gewinnen möglich war, welche uns gezeigt hat, wie die menschliche Seele unter gewissen Voraussetzungen ganz real, der Tatsache nach, gegenübertreten kann jener Wesenheit, die wir gestern von einer Seite aus zu charakterisieren versuchten als den Krishna. Weit wichtiger ist es, daß man weiß: Unter gewissen Voraussetzungen tritt die Arjunaseele demjenigen Geiste gegenüber, der vorbereitet hat das Zeitalter des Selbstbewußtseins. Es steht die Arjunaseele diesem Geiste gegenüber, der mit dieser gewaltigen Schöpferkraft in der Welt wirkt. — Das ist viel wichtiger als aller Streit, ob Sankhya- oder Vedenphilosophie in der Bhagavad Gita zu finden ist. Daß lebendige Wesenheiten sich uns gegenüberstellen, die reale Schilderung der Weltenverhältnisse und des Zeitkolorits, das ist dasjenige, worauf es ankommt. Und diese zu charakterisieren, haben wir versucht, indem wir auf der einen Seite uns zu zeigen bemühten, welchem Zeitalter ein solches Denken und Fühlen, wie es Arjuna besitzt, angehören kann; auf der anderen Seite, indem wir zu verstehen versuchten das Zeitalter des Selbstbewußtseins selber; und fernerhin auch indem wir zeigen konnten, welcher schöpferische vorbereitende Geist der Arjunaseele hat erscheinen können. Nun handelt es sich vor allen Dingen darum, daß wenn wir also in lebendiger Weise Wesen dem Wesen gegenüberstellen, wir mehr brauchen als eine bloß einseitige Charakteristik. Wir brauchen zunächst eine gewisse Allseitigkeit, damit wir diese Wesenheit noch genauer kennenlernen können. Diese Allseitigkeit wird sich uns durch die folgenden Betrachtungen bieten können.
Wenn wir mit unserer Seele wirklich in diejenigen Regionen heraufdringen, in denen man eine solche Gestalt wahrnehmen kann, wie sie der Krishna ist, dann muß diese unsere Seele so weit sein, daß sie zunächst wirkliche Wahrnehmungen, wirkliche Erlebnisse in übersinnlichen Welten haben kann. Scheinbar sage ich damit etwas ganz Selbstverständliches. Und doch angesichts dessen, was die Menschen meistens von den höheren Welten erwarten, ist die Sache durchaus nicht so selbstverständlich. Ich habe immer wieder darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß Mißverständnis über Mißverständnis dadurch entsteht, daß der Mensch mit einer ganzen Summe von Vorurteilen in die übersinnlichen Welten sich hinaufleben will: Er will zwar in das Übersinnliche geführt werden, aber zu etwas, was er von der Sinnenwelt her schon kennt. Er will Gestalten dort wahrnehmen, wenn auch nicht in derber Materie, so doch Gestalten, die ihm in einer Art Lichthülle entgegentreten; er findet, daß er Töne hören müsse, ähnlich den Tönen der physischen Welt. Er begreift gar nicht, daß er, wenn er so etwas erwartet, mit Vorurteilen in die übersinnlichen Welten hinaufsteigt: denn er will ja die übersinnliche Welt so haben, daß sie, wenn auch verfeinert, im Grunde doch so ist wie die Sinnenwelt. Licht und Farbe oder wenigstens Farbe und Helligkeit, daran ist der Mensch gewöhnt in der Sinnenwelt. So meint er, er komme eigentlich nur zu wirklichen Realitäten in den übersinnlichen Welten, wenn ihm die Wesenheiten der höheren Welt auch so entgegentreten. Nun sollte man das eigentlich gar nicht zu sagen brauchen, denn es sind doch die Wesen der übersinnlichen Welten nun einmal über alles Sinnliche erhaben, sie stellen sich nun einmal nicht in ihrer wahren Gestalt dar in sinnlichen Eigenschaften, denn sinnliche Eigenschaften setzen Auge, Ohr, Sinnesorgane überhaupt voraus. In den höheren Welten wird aber doch nicht mit Sinnesorganen wahrgenommen, sondern mit Seelenorganen. Aber dann kann etwas eintreten, das so ist, daß ich es eigentlich nur in einer sehr trivialen Weise, möchte ich sagen, interpretieren, auslegen kann. Nehmen wir einmal an, ich beschreibe Ihnen irgend etwas zunächst mit Worten, und dann habe ich noch das Bedürfnis, was ich Ihnen beschrieben habe, mit einigen Strichen auf die Tafel zu zeichnen. Dadurch versinnliche ich das, was ich mit Worten ausgesprochen habe. Niemandem wird es eiinfallen, die Zeichnung für die entsprechende Realität zu halten. Denn nehmen wir an, ich wollte Ihnen einen Berg beschreiben. Ich beschreibe Ihnen diesen Berg nun so, daß ich sage: Es ist merkwürdig, daß es irgendwo einen Berg gibt, der dreifach gipfelt in die Lüfte hinauf. — Sie können sich ja nun eine Vorstellung machen dadurch, daß ich Ihnen das bloß sage, aber ich kann dennoch das Bedürfnis fühlen, Ihnen dasjenige, was ich sagte, auf die Tafel sinnfällig oder schematisch zu zeichnen. Da wird es doch niemandem einfallen zu sagen: Da haben wir doch das, was er beschrieben hat, da. — Das habe ich doch nur versinnlicht. So ist es auch, wenn man dasjenige, was als übersinnliches Erlebnis erfahren wird, ausdrückt, indem man ihm Gestalt, Farbe gibt und es in Worte prägt, die aus der Sinnenwelt genommen sind. Nur macht man das nicht mit dem gewöhnlichen Intellekt, sondern es macht ein höheres Empfinden unserer Seele diese ganze Prozedur. Es lebt sich zum Beispiel unsere Seele in unsichtbare Welten ein, sagen wir in die unsichtbare Welt der KrishnaWesenheit. Dann fühlt sie das Bedürfnis, diese Krishna-Wesenheit vor sich hinzustellen. Was sie da vor sich hinstellt, ist aber gar nicht die Krishna-Wesenheit selber, sondern eine Zeichnung, eine übersinnliche Zeichnung. Imaginationen sind solche Zeichnungen, solche, man möchte sagen, übersinnliche Versinnlichungen. Und das Mißverständnis, das so häufig entsteht, ist, daß man dasjenige, was die höheren Seelenkräfte hinmalen, und was man auch mit Worten beschreiben kann, versinnlicht, wodurch es für das Wesen der Sache genommen wird. Das ist nicht das Wesen der Sache, sondern es muß durch dieses hindurch das Wesen der Sache zunächst erahnt und nach und nach erst erschaut werden.
Nun habe ich schon im zweiten Vortrage davon gesprochen, daß die Bhagavad Gita neben allen übrigen Eigenschaften auch noch diese hat, daß sie eine wunderbare, dramatische Komposition aufweist. Ich habe die dramatische Komposition der vier ersten Gesänge darzustellen versucht, aber diese dramatische Steigerung geht herauf, von Gesang zu Gesang, indem wir weiter kommen, weiter in die Gebiete des okkulten Anschauens hinein. Und es muß auch äußerlich ein gewisses gesundes Urteil über die künstlerische Komposition der Bhagavad Gita hervorrufen, wenn wir uns fragen: Ist vielleicht in der Bhagavad Gita auch ein Mittelpunkt vorhanden, ein Mittelpunkt der Steigerung? Die Bhagavad Gita hat achtzehn Gesänge, der neunte könnte also ein Mittelpunkt der Steigerung sein. Nun lesen wir im neunten Gesange, gerade also in der Mitte, die merkwürdigen Worte, die prägnant zum Ausdruck kommen: Und nun sage ich, nachdem ich dir alles mitgeteilt habe, nun sage ich hier das Geheimste für die menschliche Seele. - Fürwahr, in diesem Moment ein wunderbares Wort, das scheinbar abstrakt klingt, aber tief bedeutsam ist. Und dann das Geheimste: Verstehe! Ich bin in allen Wesen, sie aber sind nicht in mir. — Ja, so wie die Menschen einmal sind, so fragen die Menschen sehr häufig: Was sagt eine wahre Mystik, ein wahrer Okkultismus? — Die Menschen wollen absolute Wahrheiten haben, die gibt es aber nicht. Es gibt nur Wahrheiten, die aus irgendeiner Situation richtig sind, die unter irgendwelchen Umständen und Bedingungen wahr sind. Das müssen sie dann aber auch sein. Es kann nicht ein absolut richtiger Satz sein: Ich bin in allen Wesen, aber sie sind nicht in mir. — Aber es ist der Satz, der als die tiefste Krishna-Weisheit in dieser Situation, in der Krishna dem Arjuna damals gegenüberstand, gesagt wird, und er gilt - nicht abstrakt, sondern real gesprochen — von jenem Krishna, welcher der Schöpfer ist des menschlichen Innern, des menschlichen Selbstbewußtseins. Und in einer wunderbaren Steigerung werden wir bis in die Mitte der Bhagavad Gita geführt, an welcher Stelle diese Worte uns zuströmen. Im neunten Gesang werden sie zu Arjuna gesprochen, und im elften Gesang, bald danach, tritt noch etwas anderes ein.
Was können wir denn da erwarten, wenn wir die künstlerische Steigerung der Bhagavad Gita kennen und die okkulten Wahrheiten in ihr? Zunächst ist in Worten, die künstlerisch gesteigert sind, das Tiefste zu fühlen, das Tiefste zu ahnen. Arjuna ist von Krishna geführt worden bis zu einem bestimmten Punkt. Aber wenn man den neunten und zehnten Gesang nimmt, also gerade die Mitte der Bhagavad Gita, da bemerkt man etwas sehr Eigentümliches, nämlich eine gewisse Schwierigkeit, die Vorstellungen, die gegeben werden, sich wirklich vorzustellen, für die Seele aufzurufen. Versuchen Sie einmal, gerade diesen neunten oder zehnten Gesang auf Ihre Seele wirken zu lassen.
Wenn Sie von dem ersten Gesang herkommen, wird Ihre Seele gleichsam getragen von der fortwährenden künstlerischen Steigerung. Zunächst wird gesprochen von der Unsterblichkeit, dann wird Ihre Empfindung gesteigert durch die Vorstellungen, die durch Yoga erweckt werden, für den sich die Seele begeistert. Dann aber schwingt Ihre Seele gleichsam mit ihrem Fühlen in etwas, was ihr noch vertraut sein kann. Wir werden noch weiter geführt. Es wird in wunderbarer Steigerung hinzugenommen die Vorstellung von dem Erreger der Epoche des menschlichen Selbstbewußtseins. Da können wir entflammt werden für die Gestalt, die in die Menschheit das Selbstbewußtsein gebracht hat. Wir leben durchaus noch in konkreten, der Seele vertrauten Gefühlen und Empfindungen.
Dann geht die Steigerung noch weiter hinauf. Geschildert wird, wie die Seele immer freier und freier werden kann von dem äußeren Leiblichen, geschildert wird eine Anschauung, dem Inder sehr vertraut, daß die Seele sich in sich zurückziehen kann, die Taten wie ungeschehen lassen kann, die der Leib erlebt, daß die Seele in sich geschlossen werden kann und allmählich sich Yoga erwirbt, allmählich zu dem Einssein mit dem Brahman kommt. Da sehen wir in den folgenden Gesängen die Bestimmtheit der Empfindung, jenes Fühlen, das noch vom alltäglichen Leben Nahrung bekommen kann, allmählich schwinden.
Und in sozusagen schwindelnde Höhen unbestimmter Erlebnisse steigt die Seele hinauf, indem es gegen den neunten Gesang zu geht. Und wenn man jetzt dem neunten und zehnten Gesang gegenüber auskommen will mit Vorstellungen, die herangezogen sind am gewöhnlichen Leben, dann kommt man eben nicht aus. Es ist tatsächlich so, wenn man an den neunten, zehnten Gesang kommt, daß man fühlt: Da stehe ich wie auf einem Gipfel einer Menschheitsleistung, die aus dem Okkulten herausgeboren ist, wofür zu Hilfe genommen werden muß dasjenige, was die sich entwickelnde Seele selber erst leisten muß, wenn Verständnis da sein soll.
Es ist sehr merkwürdig, wie fein in dieser Beziehung die Bhagavad Gita komponiert ist. Wir können bis zum fünften, sechsten, siebenten Gesang kommen, wenn wir die Begriffe ausbilden, die wir schon im ersten Gesang empfangen. Im zweiten Gesang wird in der Menschenseele das Verständnis aufgerufen für das Ewige im Wechsel der Erscheinungen. Dann wird bald angereiht dasjenige, was in die Tiefen des Yoga sich verliert. Das trifft man vom dritten Gesang an. Dann aber mischt sich eine ganz neue Stimmung hinein in die Bhagavad Gita. Während wir in den ersten Gesängen immer verstandesmäßige Stimmung haben, etwas, das uns manchmal an die abendländischen philosophischen Stimmungen erinnert, setzt jetzt etwas ein, wozu, wenn wir es verstehen wollen, Andacht, Yogaverständnis gebraucht wird. Andächtige Stimmung brauchen wir. Wenn wir diese andächtige Stimmung immer mehr und mehr zum Erhabenen hinaufläutern, immer andächtiger und andächtiger in der Seele werden, dann trägt uns nicht mehr dasjenige, was in den ersten Gesängen Yoga wird — das bricht ab -, dann trägt uns eine ganz besondere Stimmung in den neunten, zehnten Gesang hinauf. Denn die Worte, die da an unser Ohr tönen, bleiben uns ein trockenes, leeres Schellengeläute, wenn wir ihnen mit dem Verstande nahen. Wärme geben sie, Wärme strahlen sie aus, wenn wir ihnen mit Andacht nahen. Derjenige, der die Bhagavad Gita verstehen will, der mag von Verstand und Vernunft seinen Ausgangspunkt nehmen und die ersten Gesänge verfolgen, aber aufleben muß im weiteren Verlauf in seinem Gemüt andächtige Stimmung, wenn er hinaufkommt bis zum neunten Gesang, wo wie ein wunderbarer Klang die Worte des erhabenen Krishna in seiner Seele wiederklingen. Wer an den neunten Gesang herantritt, der mag dann empfinden ein Gefühl der Andacht, wie wenn er sich die Schuhe ausziehen müsse, bevor er dieses Heiligtum betritt, denn er fühlt, er betritt heiligen Boden, auf dem er wandeln soll in andächtiger Stimmung. Und dann kommt der elfte Gesang. Was kann nun folgen, wenn wir sozusagen die Kulmination der andächtigen Stimmung erreicht haben? Was wird das nächste sein?
Wenn der Mensch hinaufgestiegen ist bis zu dem Gipfel, auf den Krishna den Arjuna geführt hat, den man entweder nur im okkulten Schauen oder in ehrfürchtig andächtiger Stimmung erreichen kann, dann kann nun eintreten das heilige Gestaltenlose, das Übersinnliche. Das Übersinnliche kann in die Imagination ergossen werden. Dann kann die gesteigerte erhöhte Seelenkraft, die nicht mehr der Vernunft angehört, sondern der imaginativen Erkenntnis, die Bilder entwerfen desjenigen, was eigentlich gestaltenlos, bildlos in seiner Wesenheit ist. Und das geschieht in der Bhagavad Gita, nachdem wir hinaufgeführt sind bis zu jenem heiligen Boden, vor welchem wir die Schuhe ausziehen: das geschieht gleich im Anfange der zweiten Hälfte des heiligen Sanges, etwa im elften Gesang. Da wird, nachdem es entsprechend eingeleitet und vorbereitet ist, die Krishna-Weisheit, zu der Arjuna von Stufe zu Stufe hingeführt worden ist, in Imaginationen vor seine Seele gezaubert. Und die Größe der Darstellung in diesem morgenländischen Gedicht tritt uns eigentlich da ganz besonders entgegen, wo Krishna, nachdem in seine Nähe Arjuna gebracht worden ist, im Bilde, in der Imagination auftritt. Man darf wohl sagen: Erlebnisse solcher Art, Erlebnisse, die so von einer innersten Kraft der menschlichen Seele erlebt werden müssen, sind eigentlich in einer so bedeutsamen Schilderungsweise kaum sonst noch gegeben worden. Und für denjenigen, der empfinden kann, wird die Imagination, die nun Arjuna von Krishna beschreibt, immer tief und bedeutungsvoll sein. Das ist das Wunderbare in der Komposition der Bhagavad Gita, daß wir sozusagen durch Krishna wie durch ein inspirierendes Wesen hinaufgeführt werden bis zum zehnten Gesang, und daß da die Schauensseligkeit des Arjuna nun in Aktion tritt. Da wird Arjuna zum Beschreiber. Und er beschreibt seine Imagination so, daß man sich scheut, nachzubilden, was da gesagt ist.
«Die Götter schau ich all in deinem Leib, o Gott; so auch die Scharen aller Wesen: Brahman, den Herrn, auf seinem Lotussitz, die Rishis alle und die Himmelsschlangen. Mit vielen Armen, Leibern, Mündern, Augen seh’ ich dich allüberall, endlos gestaltet. Nicht Ende, nicht Mitte und auch Anfang nicht seh’ ich an dir, o Herr des Alls. Du, der du in allen Formen mir erscheinst, der du mir erscheinst mit Diadem, mit Keule und mit Schwert, ein Berg in Flammen, nach allen Seiten strahlend: so seh’ ich dich. Geblendet wird mein Schauen, wie strahlend Feuer in der Sonne Glanz und unermeßlich groß. Das Unvergängliche, das höchste zu Erkennende, das größte Gut, so erscheinst du mir, im weiten All. Des ewigen Rechtes ewiger Wächter, das bist du. Als ewiger Urgeist stehst du vor meiner Seele. Nicht Anfang, nicht Mitte, nicht Ende zeigst du mir. Unendlich bist du überall, unendlich an Kraft, unendlich an Raumesweiten. Wie der Mond, ja wie die Sonne selbst groß sind deine Augen, und aus deinem Munde strahlt es wie von Opferfeuer. Ich schaue dich an in deiner Glut, wie deine Glut das All erwärmt; was ich ahnen kann zwischen dem Erdboden und den Himmelsweiten, deine Kraft erfüllt dies alles mit dir allein. Und jede Himmelswelt, alle die drei Welten beben, wenn deine wundersame Schauergestalt sich ihrem Blicke zeigt. Ich schau’, wie ganze Scharen von Göttern zu dir treten, die dir lobsingen, und furchtsam steh’ ich da vor dir, die Hände faltend. Heil ruft vor dir aller Seher Schar und aller Seligen Schar. Sie preisen dich mit all ihrem Lobgesang. Es preisen dich die Adityas, Rudras, Vasus, Sadhyas, Vishvas, Ashvin, Maruts und Manen, Gandharvas, Yakshas, Siddhas, Asuras, und alle Seligen, die schauen empor zu dir voll Staunen: ein Leib, so riesenhaft, mit vielen Mündern, vielen Armen, vielen Beinen, vielen Füßen, vielen Leibern, vielen Rachen voller Zähne. Vor all dem erbebt die Welt und ich auch bebe. Den Himmelerschütternden, Strahligen, Vielarmigen, mit offenem Mund, mit großen Flammenaugen. Schau’ ich dich so, dann zittert meine Seele. Nicht finde ich Festigkeit, nicht Ruhe, o großer Krishna, der mir Vishnu selber ist. Ich schaue wie in dein dräuendes Inneres, ich schau’ es, wie es ist dem Feuer gleich, so wie es wirken wird, einst am Ende aller Zeiten. Ich schau? dich in einer Art, wie ich nicht wissen kann von irgend etwas. Oh, sei mir gnädig, Herr der Götter, der Welten wohnlich Haus.»
Das ist die Imagination, so wie Arjuna sie schaut, nachdem seine Seele eben bis zu jener Höhe hinaufgehoben worden ist, auf der eine Imagination von Krishna möglich ist. Und dann hören wir dasjenige, was Krishna ist, wiederum wie eine mächtige Inspiration an Arjuna heranklingen. Hören wir sie uns an. Sie ist wahrhaftig so, wie wenn sie nicht bloß an das seelisch-geistige Ohr des Arjuna klänge, sondern hinklänge über all die folgenden Zeiten des folgenden Weltenalters. Wir ahnen jetzt mehr an dieser Stelle, wir ahnen, was es eigentlich heißt: einem Zeitalter, einem Weltenalter wird ein neuer Impuls gegeben, und der Schöpfer dieses Impulses erscheint vor dem hellsehenden Auge des Arjuna. Wir empfinden mit Arjuna selber. Wir erinnern uns, daß Arjuna mitten im Kampfgewühl steht, wo Bruderblut mit Bruderblut kämpfen soll. Wir wissen, daß dasjenige, was Krishna zu geben hat, vor allem darauf beruht, daß diese Epoche des Hellsehens mit all dem Heiligen, das in ihr war, aufhörte, und daß eine neue Epoche beginnen sollte. Und wenn wir den Impuls bedenken der neuen Epoche, die mit dem Brudermord beginnen sollte, wenn wir in richtiger Weise den Impuls verstehen, der hineindrang in all die wankenden Begriffe und Einrichtungen der vorhergehenden Epoche, dann fassen wir dasjenige, was Krishna in Arjuna erklingen läßt, richtig auf.
«Ich bin die Urzeit, die alle Welt vernichtet. Erschienen bin ich, Menschen fortzuraffen. Und ob du auch ihnen im Kampfe den Tod bringen wirst, auch ohne dich sind dem Tode verfallen all die Kämpfer, die dort in Reihen stehen. Erhebe dich furchtlos. Ruhm sollst du erwerben, den Feind besiegen. Frohlocke ob des winkenden Sieges und der Herrschaft. Nicht du wirst sie getötet haben, wenn sie hinfallen im Schlachtentod. Durch mich sind sie alle schon getötet, bevor du ihnen den Tod bringen kannst. Du sei nur Werkzeug, du sei nur Kämpfer mit der Hand! Den Drona, den Jayadratha, den Bhishma, den Karna und die anderen Kampfeshelden, die ich getötet, die tot schon sind, nun töte du sie, daß mein Wirken im Schein nach außen sich entlade. Wenn sie tot hinfallen in Maya, von mir getötet, töte du sie. Und das, was ich getan, wird scheinbar durch dich geschehen sein. Zittre nicht! Du vermagst nichts zu tun, was ich nicht schon getan. Kämpfe! Sie werden fallen durch dein Schwert, die ich getötet habe.»
Nicht um an die Menschheit heranzubringen diejenige Stimme, die sprechen soll vom Töten, werden diese Worte gesagt, sondern um an die Menschheit heranzubringen die Stimme, die davon spricht, daß es in der menschlichen Wesenheit ein Zentrum gibt, welches herauszukommen hat in jenem dem Krishna folgenden Zeitalter, und daß in dieses Zentrum hereindringen die Impulse, die zunächst für den Menschen die höchsten erreichbaren sind, daß es nichts gibt in der Menschheitsevolution, was nicht mit etwas zusammenhängt, mit dem das menschliche Ich auch zusammenhängt. So erst wird uns die Bhagavad Gita etwas, das uns unmittelbar hinaufhebt, erhebt zu dem Horizont der ganzen Menschheitsevolution. Und es hat derjenige, der diese wechselnden Stimmungen aus der Bhagavad Gita auf sich wirken läßt, viel mehr als derjenige, der etwa schulmeisterliche Lehren über Sankhya oder Yoga sich von der Bhagavad Gita erteilen lassen will. Wenn man zu gehen vermag bis zum neunten, zehnten Gesang, wenn man eine Ahnung bekommt von den schwindelnden Höhen, zu denen der Yoga führt, dann wird man beginnen, den Sinn und Geist einer solchen Imagination zu fassen, wie sie in jener gewaltigen Schauung des Arjuna uns entgegentritt, die schon als Versinnlichung so groß und gewaltig ist, daß wir eine hinlänglich hohe, ahnende Erkenntnis gewinnen können von der Macht und Erhabenheit des Schöpfergeistes, der mit Krishna in die Welt eingegriffen hat. Was zum einzelnen Menschen als Höchstes sprechen kann, das spricht in Krishna zu Arjuna. Und wozu sich der einzelne Mensch aufschwingen kann, wenn er die Kräfte, die in seinem Inneren vorhanden sind, zu einem Höchsten erhebt, dem Höchsten, wozu sich die einzelne Menschenseele erziehen kann, wenn sie im besten Sinne an sich arbeitet: das ist der Krishna.
Wenn wir die Menschheitsevolution über die Erde hin denkend verfolgen, zeigt sich uns klar aus der allgemeinen Evolutionsweltanschauung, etwa wie sie in der «Geheimwissenschaft» versucht wurde, daß in diesem Sinne die Erde überhaupt der Schauplatz ist, auf welchem der Mensch zum Ich gebracht worden ist, indem alle möglichen Stadien von Epoche zu Epoche sich gestalteten, aufeinanderfolgten. Wenn man so die Evolution verfolgt von Zeitalter zu Zeitalter, dann sagt man sich: Da sind sie nun hinverpflanzt worden auf die Erde, diese Menschenseelen: das Höchste, was sie erringen sollen, das ist, freie Seelen zu werden. Freie Seelen werden die Menschen, wenn sie alle Kräfte, die nur in der Menschenseele als einzelne Seele erreicht werden können, zur Entfaltung bringen. Aber damit sie das können, wirkte der Krishna zuerst andeutend, dann immer mehr und mehr, und dann direkt in derjenigen Epoche der Menschheitsevolution, die der Selbstbewußtseinsepoche vorangegangen ist.
Innerhalb der Erdenevolution gibt es kein einziges Wesen, das der einzelnen Menschenseele soviel geben konnte wie der Krishna. Aber eben der einzelnen menschlichen Seele. Jetzt sage ich in aller Gelassenheit ein Wort, in aller Gelassenheit, wenn ich es gegenübersetze all der Schilderung, die ich vom Krishna zu geben versuchte: Außer der einzelnen Menschenseele gibt es auf der Erde die Menschheit. Auf der Erde gibt es außer der einzelnen Menschenseele auch eben alle diejenigen Angelegenheiten, die nicht einer einzelnen Menschenseele angehören. Man kann sich vorstellen, daß eine Menschenseele in sich den Impuls fühlt: Ich will so weit kommen mit meiner Vervollkommnung, als eine Menschenseele nur kommen kann. — Dieses Streben könnte bestehen. Dann würde sich die einzelne Menschenseele, eine jede in ihrer Isoliertheit, zunächst undefinierbar weit entwickeln. Aber es gibt eine Menschheit. Es gibt Angelegenheiten für den Erdenplaneten, durch welche dieser Erdenplanet zusammenhängt mit der gesamten Welt. Nehmen wir an, es wäre an die einzelne Menschenseele herangekommen der Krishna-Impuls. Was wäre also geschehen? Es wäre ja nicht dazumal, vielleicht auch nicht bis heute, aber im Laufe der Erdenevolution geschehen, daß jede einzelne Seele in sich einen höheren Impuls entwickelt hätte, so daß der Strom der Menschheitsevolution, der gemeinsamen Entwickelung sich geteilt hätte vom Zeitalter des Selbstbewußtseins an. Es wäre geschehen, daß die einzelnen menschlichen Seelen vorgerückt wären zu höchster Entfaltung, aber auch in Trennung, Zerstiebung. Die Wege der Menschenseelen wären immer weiter und weiter auseinandergegangen, indem in jeder einzelnen der Krishna-Impuls lebendig gewirkt hätte. Jene Erhöhung des Menschendaseins wäre geschehen, daß aus dem gemeinsamen Strome sich die einzelnen Seelen herausindividualisiert hätten, die Selbstheit zu höchster Entfaltung gebracht hätten. Man möchte sagen: Wie ein einzelner Stern hätte in vielen, vielen Strahlen hineingeleuchtet in die Zukunft die alte Zeit. Die alte Zeit hätte viele Einzelstrahlen hineingesendet in die neue Zeit, und jeder dieser Strahlen hätte die Herrlichkeit des Krishna herausposaunt in das Zukunftsweltenzeitalter. Auf diesem Wege war die Menschheit in den sechs bis acht Jahrhunderten, die der Begründung des Christentums vorangegangen sind. Da kam von der entgegengesetzten Seite etwas anderes heran.
Woher ist der Krishna-Impuls gekommen? Der Krishna-Impuls kommt in die Menschenseele, wenn diese von innen heraus immer tiefer aus ihrer eigenen Wesenheit schafft und schöpft, wenn sie immer mehr herausschöpft, um heraufsteigen zu können in diejenigen Regionen, wo der Krishna erreicht wird. Dann kam aber etwas, was von außen an die Menschheit herankam, was die Menschen niemals aus sich selber hätten erreichen können, was von der anderen Seite entgegenkam, zu jeder einzelnen sich neigend. So trafen die sich vereinzelnden Seelen auf eine gemeinsame Wesenheit, die von außen, aus dem Universum, aus dem Kosmos entgegenkam dem Zeitalter des Selbstbewußtseins als etwas, was jetzt nicht so herankam, daß man es durch die Einzelarbeit erreichen kann, was so herankam, daß es der gesamten Menschheit angehörte, der gesamten Erde. Von der entgegengesetzten Seite ist das andere herangekommen: der Christus-Impuls.
So sehen wir zunächst in einer mehr abstrakten Form, wie vorbereitet ist in der Menschheit eine Individualisierung, die immer mehr in die Individualisierung hineingehen sollte, und wie entgegenkam den sich individuell machen wollenden Seelen der Christus-Impuls, der diese Seelen wieder zusammenführte zu einer Gesamtmenschheit. Dasjenige, was ich heute ausführen wollte, war zunächst etwas wie eine abstrakte Bestimmung, eine abstrakte Charakteristik der beiden Impulse, des Krishna- und des Christus-Impulses. Ich versuchte zu zeigen, wie diese zwei Impulse in dem Zeitalter der mittleren Menschheitsentwickelung nahe aneinanderliegen, wie sie aber von entgegengesetzten Seiten herkommen. Man kann daher etwas sehr Unrichtiges sagen, wenn man die beiden Offenbarungswelten, die Krishna-Welt auf der einen Seite, die Christus-Welt auf der anderen, miteinander verwechselt. Dasjenige, was ich auseinandergesetzt habe in einer mehr abstrakten Form, wollen wir zu mehr konkreter Form in den nächsten Vorträgen führen. Die heutige Betrachtung aber möchte ich mit einem einfachen Worte schließen, welches einfach und schlicht geben soll den Extrakt desjenigen, was eigentlich die für die Menschheitsevolution wichtigsten Impulse sind. Wenn wir den Blick wenden zu dem, was zwischen dem 10. Jahrhundert vor dem Christus-Impuls und dem 10. Jahrhundert nach demselben geschehen ist, so können wir das wie in einem Extrakt in die Worte drängen: Es erfloß der Welt der Krishna-Impuls für jede einzelne Menschenseele, und es erfloß der Erde der Christus-Impuls für die ganze Menschheit. — Hierbei ist zu beachten, daß die ganze Menschheit für denjenigen, der konkret denken kann, nicht etwa die Summe von allen einzelnen Menschenseelen ist.
Sixth Lecture
It is fundamentally extremely difficult to discuss a phenomenon such as the Bhagavad Gita within Western culture. This is difficult because, in our present day, something still prevails in the widest circles that makes it extremely difficult to form a fundamentally sound judgment in this area. Within Western culture, there is a longing to understand everything that touches the human soul, such as the Bhagavad Gita, in terms of a doctrine, a kind of philosophy. People like to approach such creations of the human spirit primarily from an idealistic, perhaps even conceptual point of view.
This touches on something that makes it difficult in our time to correctly assess the great historical impulses in the history of human development. How often, for example, is it pointed out today that one finds this or that in the Gospels as the teachings of Christ, and then it is shown that these depths of the teachings of Christ Jesus can also be found here and there in earlier times. Then it is said: See, it's the same thing! — It is not even incorrect that it is the same thing, for one can prove in countless cases that the teachings of the Gospels are to be found in earlier human spiritual works; and one cannot say that if someone asserts that this or that teaching is to be found here or there, he is asserting something incorrect.
And yet, although what is said is not incorrect, it is nonsense when viewed from a truly penetrating perspective of human evolution. And the human mind will first have to become accustomed to recognizing that something can be completely correct and yet nonsense. Only when this statement is no longer seen as a contradiction will it be possible to judge certain things impartially. One will be able to judge impartially when someone says that they see in the Bhagavad Gita, in a certain sense, one of the greatest creations of the human spirit within the evolution of the earth, that they see in the Bhagavad Gita, in a certain sense, a creation of the human spirit that has never been surpassed. And if this person says this and also says that what came into the world with the Christian proclamation, with the proclamation of the Christ impulse, is something completely different, something that could not be achieved by the Bhagavad Gita, even if its beauty and greatness were multiplied a hundredfold, this is not a contradiction. If someone says one thing on the one hand and the other on the other, this may be perceived as a contradiction by today's abstract thinking, and yet it is by no means a contradiction.
Yes, one can go even further. One can ask: When was the greatest thing ever said that can be considered an impulse for the human self, for the human ego, to place this human ego within the evolution of humanity in the world? What is the most significant thing about power? When did the most powerful thing happen for this human self? — It happened when Krishna spoke to Arjuna, when the most powerful, significant, incisive, and fiery words reached Arjuna's ears to enliven the human self, the self-consciousness. Nothing can be found in the whole world that was more powerful in encouraging the human ego than the most vivid power found in Krishna's words to Arjuna.
However, these words should not be taken as they are often taken in the West, where the greatest and most beautiful words are given a kind of mere abstract philosophical meaning. Such a meaning completely misses the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. That is why Western scholars have so terribly mistreated and maltreated the Bhagavad Gita, especially in our time. They have even staged a dispute as to whether the Bhagavad Gita gives more weight to Sankhya philosophy or to some other school of thought! Yes, a very eminent scholar has even printed certain verses in small print in his edition of the Bhagavad Gita because he believes that they should be corrected, as they must have been included by mistake. He believes that only what corresponds to Sankhya philosophy, or at most to yoga philosophy, belongs in the Bhagavad Gita. However, it must be said that, in the way we speak of philosophy today, there is no philosophy to be found in the Bhagavad Gita at all. At most, one could say that philosophical schools of thought developed in ancient India out of certain fundamental moods of the human soul. But these have nothing to do with the Bhagavad Gita, at least not in the sense that they can be regarded as an interpretation or commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.
It is completely wrong to equate Eastern spiritual life with what the West knows as philosophy. For in the sense in which the West has philosophy, there was no philosophy at all in the East. In this respect, the spirit of the times, which is now only just beginning — yesterday we spoke of a relationship that human souls still have to learn, so to speak — the spirit of the times is still misunderstood. Above all, we must be able to hold fast to the view that was at least possible to gain from yesterday's lecture, which showed us how, under certain conditions, the human soul can, in reality, face that being which we tried yesterday to characterize from one side as Krishna. It is far more important to know that under certain conditions the soul of Arjuna confronts the spirit that prepared the age of self-consciousness. The soul of Arjuna stands before this spirit, which is at work in the world with its tremendous creative power. This is much more important than any dispute about whether Sankhya or Vedic philosophy can be found in the Bhagavad Gita. What matters is that living beings confront us, the real description of world conditions and the spirit of the times. We have attempted to characterize this by showing, on the one hand, to which age such thinking and feeling as Arjuna possesses can belong; on the other hand, by trying to understand the age of self-consciousness itself; and furthermore, by showing what creative preparatory spirit could have appeared in the soul of Arjuna. Now, when we contrast beings with each other in a living way, we need more than just a one-sided characterization. We first need a certain universality so that we can get to know these beings more precisely. This universality will be offered to us by the following considerations.
If we really ascend with our soul to those regions where one can perceive a figure such as Krishna, then our soul must be so advanced that it can first have real perceptions, real experiences in supersensible worlds. Apparently, I am saying something quite self-evident. And yet, in view of what people usually expect from the higher worlds, the matter is by no means so self-evident. I have repeatedly pointed out that misunderstanding arises from the fact that human beings want to ascend into the supersensible worlds with a whole set of prejudices: they want to be led into the supersensible, but to something they already know from the sensory world. They want to perceive forms there, if not in gross matter, then at least forms that appear to them in a kind of light envelope; they think they must hear sounds similar to those of the physical world. He does not understand at all that when he expects such things, he is ascending into the supersensible worlds with prejudices: for he wants the supersensible world to be such that, even if refined, it is basically the same as the world of the senses. Light and color, or at least color and brightness, are what humans are accustomed to in the sensory world. So he thinks that he can only encounter real realities in the supersensible worlds if the beings of the higher world also appear to him in this way. Now, one should not really need to say this, for the beings of the supersensible worlds are, after all, above all that is sensible; they do not present themselves in their true form in sensible qualities, for sensible qualities presuppose the eye, the ear, and the sense organs in general. In the higher worlds, however, perception does not take place through the sense organs, but through the soul organs. But then something can happen that I can only interpret or explain in a very trivial way, I would say. Let us assume that I describe something to you first with words, and then I feel the need to draw what I have described to you on the board with a few strokes. In doing so, I make what I have expressed in words more tangible. No one would think of taking the drawing as the corresponding reality. For let us suppose that I wanted to describe a mountain to you. I describe this mountain to you by saying: It is strange that there is a mountain somewhere that rises three times into the air. — You can now form an idea of this by my simply telling you, but I may still feel the need to draw what I have said on the board in a meaningful or schematic way. No one would think to say, “There we have what he described.” I have merely made it intelligible. The same is true when one expresses what is experienced as a supersensible experience by giving it form and color and expressing it in words taken from the world of the senses. Only this is not done with the ordinary intellect, but rather with a higher sensibility of our soul that carries out this entire process. For example, our soul lives itself into invisible worlds, let us say into the invisible world of the Krishna being. Then it feels the need to place this Krishna being before itself. But what it places before itself is not the Krishna being itself, but a drawing, a supersensible drawing. Imagination is such a drawing, one might say, a supersensible sensualization. And the misunderstanding that so often arises is that one sensualizes what the higher soul forces paint and what can also be described in words, thereby taking it for the essence of the matter. That is not the essence of the matter, but rather the essence of the matter must first be sensed through this and only gradually be seen.
Now, in the second lecture, I already mentioned that the Bhagavad Gita, in addition to all its other qualities, also has the quality of being a wonderful, dramatic composition. I have tried to describe the dramatic composition of the first four songs, but this dramatic intensification increases from song to song as we proceed further into the realms of occult perception. And it must also give rise to a certain healthy judgment about the artistic composition of the Bhagavad Gita when we ask ourselves: Is there perhaps also a center in the Bhagavad Gita, a center of intensification? The Bhagavad Gita has eighteen songs, so the ninth could be a center of intensification. Now, in the ninth canto, right in the middle, we read the remarkable words that are expressed so concisely: And now, having told you everything, I will tell you the most secret thing for the human soul. Truly, at this moment, a wonderful word that sounds abstract but is deeply meaningful. And then the most secret thing: Understand! I am in all beings, but they are not in me. — Yes, just as human beings are, they very often ask: What does true mysticism, true occultism say? — People want absolute truths, but these do not exist. There are only truths that are correct in a particular situation, that are true under certain circumstances and conditions. But then they must also be true. It cannot be an absolutely correct statement: I am in all beings, but they are not in me. — But it is the statement that is said as the deepest Krishna wisdom in this situation, in which Krishna stood before Arjuna at that time, and it is valid — not abstractly, but realistically speaking — from that Krishna who is the creator of the human inner being, of human self-consciousness. And in a wonderful crescendo, we are led to the middle of the Bhagavad Gita, where these words flow to us. In the ninth canto, they are spoken to Arjuna, and in the eleventh canto, soon after, something else occurs.
What can we expect when we know the artistic intensification of the Bhagavad Gita and the occult truths it contains? First of all, in artistically intensified words, we can feel the deepest, we can sense the deepest. Arjuna has been guided by Krishna to a certain point. But if you take the ninth and tenth cantos, that is, the very middle of the Bhagavad Gita, you notice something very peculiar, namely a certain difficulty in really imagining the ideas that are presented, in calling them up for the soul. Try letting this ninth or tenth canto work on your soul.
If you come from the first canto, your soul is carried, as it were, by the continuous artistic intensification. First, immortality is discussed, then your feelings are heightened by the ideas awakened by yoga, which inspire the soul. But then your soul vibrates, as it were, with its feelings in something that may still be familiar to it. We are led even further. In a wonderful crescendo, the idea of the catalyst of the era of human self-awareness is added. Here we can become inflamed with passion for the figure who brought self-awareness to humanity. We still live entirely in concrete feelings and sensations familiar to the soul.
Then the crescendo continues even further. It describes how the soul can become freer and freer from the outer physical body, describing a view very familiar to Indians that the soul can withdraw into itself, can undo the deeds experienced by the body, that the soul can become closed in on itself and gradually acquire yoga, gradually coming to oneness with Brahman. In the following chants, we see the certainty of sensation, that feeling which can still be nourished by everyday life, gradually disappearing.
And the soul rises to dizzying heights of indeterminate experiences, so to speak, as it approaches the ninth canto. And if one now wants to deal with the ninth and tenth cantos with ideas drawn from ordinary life, one simply cannot do so. When one reaches the ninth and tenth songs, one actually feels that one is standing on the summit of a human achievement born out of the occult, for which one must draw upon what the developing soul itself must first accomplish if understanding is to be gained.
It is very remarkable how delicately the Bhagavad Gita is composed in this respect. We can get as far as the fifth, sixth, seventh cantos if we develop the concepts we have already received in the first canto. In the second canto, the human soul is called upon to understand the eternal in the changing appearances. Then, soon after, what is lost in the depths of yoga is brought to the fore. This is found from the third canto onwards. But then a completely new mood enters the Bhagavad Gita. While in the first cantos we always have an intellectual mood, something that sometimes reminds us of Western philosophical moods, something now sets in that requires devotion and an understanding of yoga if we want to understand it. We need a devotional mood. If we purify this devotional mood more and more toward the sublime, becoming ever more devotional in our souls, then we are no longer carried by what became yoga in the first cantos—that breaks off—but we are carried upward into the ninth and tenth cantos by a very special mood. For the words that sound to our ears remain a dry, empty ringing if we approach them with our intellect. They give warmth, they radiate warmth when we approach them with devotion. Those who want to understand the Bhagavad Gita may start from their intellect and reason and follow the first songs, but as they progress, a devotional mood must arise in their minds when they reach the ninth song, where the words of the sublime Krishna resound in their souls like a wonderful sound. Those who approach the ninth canto may then feel a sense of reverence, as if they must take off their shoes before entering this sanctuary, for they feel that they are entering holy ground, where they must walk in a reverent mood. And then comes the eleventh canto. What can follow when we have reached, so to speak, the culmination of the reverent mood? What will be next?
When man has climbed up to the summit to which Krishna has led Arjuna, which can only be reached either through occult vision or in a reverent, devout mood, then the sacred formless, the supersensible, can now enter. The supersensible can be poured into the imagination. Then the heightened soul power, which no longer belongs to reason but to imaginative knowledge, can create images of that which is actually formless and imageless in its essence. And this happens in the Bhagavad Gita, after we have been led up to that sacred ground before which we take off our shoes: this happens right at the beginning of the second half of the sacred song, in the eleventh canto. There, after being appropriately introduced and prepared, the wisdom of Krishna, to which Arjuna has been led step by step, is conjured up in images before his soul. And the greatness of the presentation in this oriental poem strikes us particularly where Krishna, after Arjuna has been brought close to him, appears in images, in the imagination. It is fair to say that experiences of this kind, experiences that must be experienced in this way by the innermost power of the human soul, have hardly ever been given in such a meaningful way. And for those who are able to feel, the imagination that Krishna now describes to Arjuna will always be profound and meaningful. That is the wonderful thing about the composition of the Bhagavad Gita, that we are led up, as it were, by Krishna, like by an inspiring being, to the tenth canto, and that there the bliss of Arjuna now comes into action. There Arjuna becomes the describer. And he describes his imagination in such a way that one is afraid to reproduce what is said there.
"I see all the gods in your body, O God; and also the multitudes of all beings: Brahman, the Lord, on his lotus seat, all the rishis and the heavenly serpents. With many arms, bodies, mouths, eyes, I see you everywhere, endlessly formed. I see no end, no middle, and no beginning in you, O Lord of all. You who appear to me in all forms, who appear to me with a diadem, with a club and with a sword, a mountain in flames, shining on all sides: thus I see you. My gaze is dazzled, like the radiance of fire in the sun, immeasurably great. The imperishable, the highest to be known, the greatest good, thus you appear to me in the vast universe. You are the eternal guardian of eternal justice. As the eternal primordial spirit, you stand before my soul. You show me no beginning, no middle, no end. You are infinite everywhere, infinite in power, infinite in space. Like the moon, yes, like the sun itself, your eyes are great, and from your mouth shines forth as from a sacrificial fire. I look at you in your glow, how your glow warms the universe; what I can sense between the earth and the heavens, your power fills all this with you alone. And every heavenly world, all three worlds tremble when your wondrous, awe-inspiring form appears before their eyes. I see how whole hosts of gods come to you, singing your praises, and I stand before you in fear, folding my hands. All the seers and all the blessed ones call out to you. They praise you with all their songs of praise. The Adityas, Rudras, Vasus, Sadhyas, Vishvas, Ashvin, Maruts, and Manes, Gandharvas, Yakshas, Siddhas, Asuras, and all the blessed ones praise you, looking up at you in amazement: one body, so gigantic, with many mouths, many arms, many legs, many feet, many bodies, many throats full of teeth. Before all this, the world trembles, and I also tremble. The sky-shaking, radiant, multi-armed, with open mouth, with great flaming eyes. When I look at you like this, my soul trembles. I find no stability, no peace, O great Krishna, who is Vishnu himself to me. I look as if into your threatening interior, I see it as it is, like fire, as it will be at the end of time. I see you in a way that I cannot know from anything else. Oh, be merciful to me, Lord of the gods, dwelling place of the worlds.
This is the imagination as Arjuna sees it after his soul has been lifted up to that height where an imagination of Krishna is possible. And then we hear what Krishna is, again sounding like a powerful inspiration to Arjuna. Let us listen to it. It is truly as if it were not merely sounding in Arjuna's soul-spiritual ear, but ringing out over all the times to come in the following world age. We now sense more at this point, we sense what it actually means: a new impulse is given to an age, to a world age, and the creator of this impulse appears before Arjuna's clairvoyant eye. We feel with Arjuna himself. We remember that Arjuna stands in the midst of battle, where brother is to fight brother. We know that what Krishna has to give is based above all on the fact that this epoch of clairvoyance, with all that was holy in it, was coming to an end and that a new epoch was to begin. And when we consider the impulse of the new epoch that was to begin with fratricide, when we understand correctly the impulse that penetrated all the faltering concepts and institutions of the previous epoch, then we grasp correctly what Krishna makes Arjuna say.
“I am the primeval time that destroys the whole world. I have appeared to carry away human beings. And even if you bring death to them in battle, even without you, all the warriors standing there in rows are doomed to die. Rise up fearlessly. You shall gain glory and defeat the enemy. Rejoice in the victory that beckons and in your dominion. It is not you who will have killed them when they fall in battle. Through me, they are all already dead before you can bring them death. You are only a tool, you are only a fighter with your hands! Drona, Jayadratha, Bhishma, Karna, and the other heroes of battle whom I have killed, who are already dead, now kill them, that my work may be revealed to the outside world. When they fall dead in Maya, killed by me, kill them. And what I have done will appear to have been done by you. Do not tremble! You can do nothing that I have not already done. Fight! They will fall by your sword, those whom I have killed."
These words are not spoken to bring to humanity the voice that speaks of killing, but to bring to humanity the voice that speaks of the fact that there is a center in human nature which must emerge in the age following Krishna, and that the impulses which are initially the highest attainable for human beings penetrate into this center, that there is nothing in human evolution that is not connected with something to which the human ego is also connected. Only then does the Bhagavad Gita become something that lifts us up immediately, elevates us to the horizon of the entire human evolution. And those who allow these changing moods of the Bhagavad Gita to work on them have much more than those who want to learn schoolmasterly teachings about Sankhya or yoga from the Bhagavad Gita. If one is able to go as far as the ninth or tenth canto, if one gets a glimpse of the dizzying heights to which yoga leads, then one will begin to to grasp the meaning and spirit of such an imagination as it confronts us in that powerful vision of Arjuna, which is already so great and powerful as a sensual experience that we can gain a sufficiently high, intuitive insight into the power and sublimity of the creative spirit that intervened in the world with Krishna. What can speak to the individual human being as the highest speaks in Krishna to Arjuna. And what the individual human being can rise to when he elevates the forces that are present within him to the highest, the highest to which the individual human soul can educate itself when it works on itself in the best sense: that is Krishna.
If we follow the evolution of humanity on Earth in our thoughts, it becomes clear to us from the general evolutionary worldview, as attempted in The Secret Science, that in this sense the Earth is the stage on which human beings have been brought to the ego, through the formation and succession of all possible stages from epoch to epoch. If we follow evolution in this way from age to age, we say to ourselves: Here they are, transplanted onto the earth, these human souls: the highest thing they can achieve is to become free souls. Human beings become free souls when they develop all the powers that can be attained in the human soul as an individual soul. But in order for them to do this, Krishna first worked in a suggestive way, then more and more, and then directly in the epoch of human evolution that preceded the epoch of self-consciousness.
Within the evolution of the earth, there is not a single being who could give as much to the individual human soul as Krishna. But precisely to the individual human soul. Now I say with complete serenity, with complete serenity when I contrast it with all the descriptions I have tried to give of Krishna: apart from the individual human soul, there is humanity on earth. Apart from the individual human soul, there are also all those matters on earth that do not belong to a single human soul. One can imagine that a human soul feels the impulse within itself: I want to attain the highest perfection that a human soul can attain. — This striving could exist. Then the individual human soul, each in its isolation, would initially develop indefinably far. But there is a humanity. There are matters for the Earth planet through which this Earth planet is connected with the entire world. Let us assume that the Krishna impulse had reached the individual human soul. What would have happened then? It would not have happened at that time, perhaps not even today, but in the course of Earth's evolution, each individual soul would have developed a higher impulse within itself, so that the stream of human evolution, the common development, would have divided from the age of self-consciousness onwards. It would have happened that the individual human souls would have advanced to the highest development, but also in separation and fragmentation. The paths of the human souls would have diverged further and further apart as the Krishna impulse worked alive in each individual. That elevation of human existence would have taken place in which the individual souls would have individualized themselves out of the common stream and brought their selfhood to its highest development. One might say: Like a single star, the old time would have shone into the future in many, many rays. The old time would have sent many individual rays into the new time, and each of these rays would have trumpeted the glory of Krishna into the future world age. This was the path of humanity in the six to eight centuries that preceded the founding of Christianity. Then something else came from the opposite side.
Where did the Krishna impulse come from? The Krishna impulse comes into the human soul when it creates and draws ever more deeply from its own being, when it draws more and more out of itself in order to ascend to those regions where Krishna is attained. But then something came from outside humanity, something that human beings could never have achieved on their own, something that came from the other side, bending toward each individual. Thus, the souls that were becoming isolated encountered a common essence that came from outside, from the universe, from the cosmos, toward the age of self-consciousness as something that did not come in such a way that it could be achieved through individual work, but came in such a way that it belonged to all of humanity, to the entire earth. From the opposite side, the other came: the Christ impulse.
Thus, we see first in a more abstract form how individualization is prepared in humanity, which should increasingly move toward individualization, and how the Christ impulse, which brought these souls back together into a unified humanity, came toward the souls that wanted to become individual. What I wanted to explain today was initially something like an abstract definition, an abstract characteristic of the two impulses, the Krishna impulse and the Christ impulse. I tried to show how these two impulses are close to each other in the middle age of human development, but how they come from opposite sides. It is therefore very wrong to confuse the two worlds of revelation, the Krishna world on the one hand and the Christ world on the other. What I have set out in a more abstract form, we will bring to a more concrete form in the next lectures. But I would like to conclude today's reflection with a few simple words that are meant to give a simple and straightforward summary of what are actually the most important impulses for human evolution. If we turn our gaze to what happened between the 10th century before the Christ impulse and the 10th century after it, we can summarize it in the following words: The Krishna impulse flowed into the world for each individual human soul, and the Christ impulse flowed into the earth for the whole of humanity. — It should be noted here that, for those who can think concretely, the whole of humanity is not simply the sum of all individual human souls.