---
ga: 246
title: "The Beatitudes"
date: 1910-02-13
location: Frankfurt
words: 1499
---
# Supplements to Member Lectures

## GA 246 — 13 February 1910, Frankfurt

### 24. The Beatitudes

The longing for spiritual deepening, for occupation with the spiritual foundations of existence, drives man to Theosophy. Man must not believe that he can now, without further ado, discard his very specific way of imagining, feeling and thinking and renounce that which has been imprinted in the soul from previous experiences. It is difficult to really take the right attitude to what we come to know as concepts, as ideas, as spiritual laws. The theosophical laws must not remain mere teachings - it is important that, after one has become acquainted with these ideas and teachings, one can also acquire the right feelings and emotions towards these ideas. When we have grasped the truth about something, we do not yet have everything we should owe to this truth. It depends on how we relate to a truth, how we allow ourselves to be permeated in our souls by the truth in question, whether we are able to take some knowledge as important or unimportant in the right way.

Today's external scientific worldview places all value on the development of people from subordinate levels of existence. We need not contradict this at all, but we can still say to the representatives of the scientific worldview: There are other things that you do not see, that seem unimportant to you, but which are nevertheless as true as your presuppositions. - Let us take, for example, the fact that man, as he is, is the only being that is able, through his whole structure, to turn his face away from the earth into the celestial space, that he is built to walk upright and to look out into the universe with his face. Let's look at the monkey, the monkey can't do it. And if you read all the tirades of science about the correspondence of the bone and muscle system, the brain in humans and apes, you can say: Quite right, not the slightest objection to it. But the important thing is that you feel it in your heart: The most important thing is that man has managed to be an upright being in his structure.

Around the animal is also that which spreads out around the human being. The fact that both have an astral body, [that both] are built in a very specific way, enables man and animal not only to be touched by what is externally in their surroundings, but also to feel pleasure and pain, sympathy and antipathy. This is how man approaches the animal, everything, and feels what the astral body makes us feel.

Now comes something else. The animal stops at this feeling, it looks at what lives in the plant world, for example: How does it nourish me? How does it satisfy my desires, what does it do in my astral body?

But man is built in such a way that he can turn his face away from the earth and all its realms freely out into heavenly space. Thus he becomes a completely different being when he looks back again at what is spread out in the realms of nature; thus that which he can initially sense outside freely in heavenly space becomes an imprint again.

He would never be able to feel the intuition “There is a spirituality of God” if he could not turn his face away from the earth.

During the waking hours of the day we are unable to sense anything of the mysteries of the universe in our earthly surroundings. The sun is too brilliant, it does not allow us to see into the more intimate secrets.

But then, when the sun is not shining, we see something else in celestial space, then we see with our physical senses that which can trigger great tremendous shivers in our souls: the wonderful starry sky. Then we get the idea that we cannot unravel the secrets of nature with these physical senses, that the organs with which we look up at the starry sky are not actually the ones that can convey the great secrets to us.

The idea that we must develop the powers of our soul in such a way that they are not merely sufficient for the day and its needs, but that they open up the secrets of the invisible world to us, cannot arise in the animal. This intuition is due to the truth that man has a face that looks out into the universe.

In the distant past, man developed from a state that could be called clairvoyance compared to the present state of the soul. The consciousness was a primitive, twilight, dreamlike one. Man was apart from his ego with his consciousness.

3101 before the emergence of Christianity, clairvoyance disappeared. Man was closed off from the spiritual-divine worlds and was supposed to develop his ego; as a result, egoism became so strong that man was unable to ascend to God. So God had to descend to him and take on human form. The Christ event, the Christ impulse, alone made it possible to unite the ego with the divine-spiritual worlds. In the past, the kingdoms of heaven were so far away and could only be reached when man was beside himself. Now the kingdoms of heaven have come near, which is why the state and mood of the soul must be completely changed.

> Only those who are poor, beggars towards the spirit, are filled with gods.

Now they find the bond to the divine-spiritual kingdom through the ego. The human nature has nine members: physical body, etheric body, astral body, mind soul, sensory soul, consciousness soul (I), manas, buddhi, atma. When man had deep suffering, all he had to do was to be removed from the world, to be magnetized by the cosmos, and he was imbued with spiritual-divine powers in his etheric body. This palliative is now over; now man must find consolation in himself through the Christ-impulse. Now it is said:

> Blessed - or God-filled - are those who bear sorrow, for they shall be comforted within themselves.

The astral body, which is the carrier of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, must not remain as man has it from the beginning, but man must develop it in such a way that he becomes master of passions and impulses, that he brings what surges wildly into balance in the astral body. Now it is said:

> Blessed are the meek - more correctly: the equanimous.

Now man, when he receives the Christ-impulse, must find the strength within himself, when the courage in him becomes uneven, uneven, uneven.

> Blessed are the equanimous, for they work with their ego on their astral body.

The ego has developed on earth, therefore it is said:

> They will possess the earth,

more correctly: “fulfill the mission of the earth realm.”

In the sentient soul the outer impressions are internalized when the human being begins to purify himself; then he no longer only craves for what is in the physical environment, but he receives a spiritual thirst and hunger, which is now satisfied by the Christ impulse. Therefore:

> Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

The ego manifests itself in the intellectual or emotional soul. Only when this ego has developed does the person become mature enough to accept the other person as an equal ego. Therefore:

> Blessed are those who feel love with the other, for they will also experience love from the other.

In the soul of consciousness, the human being can develop his ego in such a way that the divine substance shines in, that the drop of divine-spiritual substance can truly appear in him, which weaves and animates the

world weaves and trembles through:

> God-filled are those who are pure of heart, for they will behold the Godhead.

Manas, Buddhi and Atma are the higher members of the human nature; only in them will the states be present which represent the two beatitudes:

> Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs are the kingdoms of heaven.
> Blessed are those who spread harmony and peace on earth, for they will be called sons of the Godhead.

The times do not stand still, with the end of the nineteenth century (1899) the Kali Yuga (the Dark Ages) has come to an end. We are thus approaching an age, indeed we are already in it, in which the old clairvoyant abilities are developing again, above all the abilities of seeing the etheric. And since for the initiates the Christ was visible in his etheric body in the area of the earth's atmosphere [only after the event of Golgotha], people who have the newly awakened higher spiritual abilities will experience the event of Damascus and see the Christ coming again in spirit - not in the flesh (around the year 1930-40).