Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 27 March 1910, Vienna

27. Easter Hope, Easter Expectation, the Easter Ideal

My dear ladies and gentlemen!

In our time we see in the outer world the festivals and celebrations we have been accustomed to from time immemorial, we see, so to speak, old memories continuing in these festivals and celebrations, and when we then ask: What do hearts feel today when they celebrate the festivals of the year? In particular, if we ask: What warmth of heart pervades souls when the annual festivals are celebrated in the present? - Then we shall generally find that hearts have grown very cold towards the customs and institutions and habits of such festivals, and we shall find in particular that a true and genuine understanding of such old habits has quite dwindled in our day. When spiritual science will again find its way into the souls and hearts of men, then these latter will again be able to participate fully in that which we call annual festivals.

These are already, my esteemed guests, festivals of remembrance; but they are powerful and inspiring festivals for the human heart, for the human soul, they are above all festivals of hope, festivals of expectation, festivals of the ideal. And those who know how to feel what is behind Easter, for example, in the right sense, can have in this feeling a celebration of expectation, a celebration of hope, a celebration of the ideal.

First of all, you have to know how to interpret the external signs from which the understanding of humanity wants to guide us, so to speak, as to what Easter can be for us. How did mankind celebrate Easter? How do many people celebrate Easter, even in our time, without fully understanding this “how”? We wait - this is how people celebrate Easter - for the time when the blanket of snow, the winter coat of the earth, gradually comes off; we wait for the time when the plant seed lies dormant in the earth; we hope through the months for the time when the renewed warming rays of the sun will call forth these plant seeds of the earth and when our earth will once again be covered with the green of spring instead of the snow of winter. Our hearts and souls are warmed, we feel the budding, sprouting nature, we carry hope and expectation in our souls for the coming summer. For the first traces of plant seeds sprouting from the earth tell us that we will have this earth around us for the next few months in the blossoms and autumnal blessings. And it is the time of the spring equinox [...], it is March 21, for which our soul waits as the day that lures out of our earth the sprouting, sprouting seeds that promise us so much for the summer and fall seasons. But even if we look up with gratitude to the warming and illuminating sun that lures the sleeping seed out of the earth, if we understand Easter, we do not yet celebrate our Easter with this spring solstice. We wait from this spring solstice, from the day of March 21, we wait until the full moon shines again in the sky. When the full moon shines brightly in the sky and we look up at it, we can feel the light of the sun looking down at us in a different form. It sends us - the full moon - the light of the sun back from the night; it sends it back to us in the same way as we see it today, my dear guests, when we look at the plants sprouting forth. The full moon sends us the light of the sun in such a way that we can see it in its attenuation directly as sunlight, but also through the night. And then we say to ourselves, looking up to the spring full moon after March 21: We must look away from the earth, out into the celestial space, to another proclamation of the sun. No matter how much we may admire the effects of the sun, the visible effects of the sun that the spring solstice promises us throughout the year: We as human beings must be able to look up from what is happening on our earth, we must be able to see a rising hope in higher spaces with the sunlight. And we feel a little when we look up to the full moon that shines through the spring night, we feel a little in our souls what we could pour into the words: Oh, it is beautiful what is sprouting from the sleeping seed of the earth! It will be beautiful what will surround the earth throughout the year as an ornament of blossoms and fruit! But the time will come in the year when what the spring sun has given us on the solstice day will die. Autumn will replace spring, winter will replace summer.

But we humans, we look up from this image of beauty, but of transient beauty, which in its transience presents itself before our eyes in such a short time, we look up from this parable of the transient into higher worlds; We carry within us the hope that the sun has something else to proclaim to us than that which can stand before our eyes in the image of the transience of the year, we look away from the earth to the son of the earth who once separated himself from the earth, who once belonged to the substance of the earth, who separated himself from it, who now orbits it. We look up to him and seek in the full moon after the spring solstice the son of the earth, who reflects the light of the sun back to us in order to be able to form an image of it outside the image of the transience of the earth, of that which can be a parable of the light of the sun for the eternal, for a hope that cannot be replaced by an autumn so close at hand. And when we have looked up with full understanding to the parable that looks out at us from the universe, to the full moon after the spring solstice, then we keep this contrast of the eternal and the transient in our hearts and wait until the next day that the human spirit has consecrated to the sunlight, and on the first Sunday after the spring full moon we celebrate Easter Sunday and vow to ourselves in our hearts that we have understood: O, we will, if we can see even a reflection of the sunlight in the spirit today, if we can see even a reflection of the spirit of the world today, we will never let the hope die in our hearts that something can emerge from ourselves, something can be awakened that is eternal in the face of all transience. So we look out from the earth into the heavenly realms in order to understand Easter Sunday.

It is meaningful and profound that Easter was instituted so that it should fall on the first Sunday after the full moon, which follows March 21, the spring solstice. And as long as humanity retains just a spark of understanding for what this Sunday is supposed to evoke in our hearts, it will hardly allow itself to be deprived of this setting of Easter Sunday, which is taken out of the mysteries of the universe and which, if we understand it, can always lead us away with our hope, with our expectation, with our ideal, from the temporal to the eternal.

And then, when we have acquired this feeling from the macrocosm, from the great world in its signs, then we probably look back at man himself, we look at this man, how his life proceeds, proceeds from day to day, repeating itself from day to day, so that man, however, progresses in this repetition, that he undergoes a development from the lower to the higher. If man now looks into this development of his own, if he looks at himself, so to speak, averting his gaze with the feeling he has fetched from the universe, then he can say to himself, spiritually understanding his existence: It repeats itself in my life day after day, as it repeats itself out there in the world year after year; every new morning brings me refreshment of my strength for my daily work, so that I can work from morning to evening; every evening brings me a kind of autumn. The fatigue of each evening forces me to return with my soul to regions of the universe, to sleepily process the forces that I have absorbed during the day's waking, during the day's work, in order to awaken them again in the morning from the indeterminate darkness of my soul. And our soul can say to itself: I experience an image of spring, summer, fall and winter within me every day, as it were. Just as the seed of the earth sleeps in the soil during the winter, just as it is greeted by the spring sun to wake up, just as it unfolds into blossom and fruit in the summer (and in the fall) and falls asleep again during the winter to awaken to new life, so it is basically from day to day with our soul, and we only live with understanding if we imagine this life of our soul from day to day like an image, so to speak, like a parable of the annual cycle of the plant. During our day-summer we acquire those forces which are to lead us further in the development of the world. We place these forces of the evening into our slumbering consciousness. Just as the sleeping seed rests in the earth throughout the winter, so our thoughts, our feelings, our impulses of will slumber in the subsoil of our soul during the time of sleep. And just as the seed is called forth to new life in spring by the sun that greets it, so every new morning, every daily spring of our soul is called forth by the sun to new creation, to new work. And our life repeats itself day after day.

But we know that there is a limit to this life, we know that this repetition belongs to the realm of transience, and we also know, if we have allowed a little spiritual science to work on us, that only then may we look up from the transience of the day to an eternal one, that awakens in us in the morning, that works during the day and slumbers at night, that we can only look up in our development to such an eternal being if we seek this eternal being behind the transient impressions, behind the transient work of the day. As human beings we look up from all that the day can bring us, what the day can bring us of joy, what the day can bring us of pain, what the day can bring us of knowledge, what the day can bring us of error, from all this we look up to something that is basically for many, many souls through long, long periods of development like an outcast son of the soul's life. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, like an outcast son of the soul's life! For there are long, long periods of development for the human soul, where it lives, enjoying the joys and sorrows of the day, taking in what the day brings. Content with what the day brings, this soul lives with the belief that it can only acquire insights and knowledge that are taken from this day. In many, many souls, even today, the present is still only the reason to look at what arises with the morning, what passes with the evening. A brief look at human life can teach us how, when we look at the world in this way, we still only have a picture of transience before us, just as we would have a picture of transience before us if we could only rejoice at the time of the spring solstice on March 21. We ourselves can direct our souls to the greatest joys, the greatest experiences, the highest enthusiasms, which will come to us from what arises in our souls through the course of the day.

And if we look at the greatest of men, what their powers of development could become from the course of the day, it only gives us a picture of transience. We humans will certainly be able to have hopes and expectations and ideals if we look up to what people have achieved, so to speak, who have climbed to a higher level of existence. Let us look at what such people have created for the development of the spiritual! Let us look, for example, at what - let us say - a Raphael, a Michelangelo, a Leonardo da Vinci or other greats of humanity have created with the means of transience! We will be able to say to ourselves: Countless souls have delighted and will delight in what these men have created with the powers they have drawn from the realm of transience. Oh, how many people delight in the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci! They look with gratitude at what these great personalities of humanity have given them! But the moment will come when our soul will say to itself: Much, much have these great personalities given us; but a time will come - surely a time will come - when all that which the personalities of Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci have conjured up in the realm of transience, when all that which descends from the walls (of the galleries) will delight human souls and uplift human souls, when all that will have crumbled to dust, when nothing will delight us any longer from the walls of the works of these personalities.

Then, when we look with a certain melancholy at the transitoriness of even those works which in ordinary life are so often called the immortal works, when we look with melancholy at the transitoriness of existence in this field, then we probably feel the compulsion to look at something else, then we feel the compulsion to look at the soul that was embodied in Raphael, at the soul that was embodied in Michelangelo, at the soul that was embodied in Leonardo da Vinci, and at the souls that were embodied in the other personalities down to the smallest human personality. And then we say to ourselves: That which these souls have conjured into the realm of personality: it will certainly pass away, will certainly be crushed to dust one day, but that which these personalities have created is not exhausted in what they have given to the earthly realm. What Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo conjured up on the canvas also sent a ray back into the souls of these people - and the souls of these people were more after they had created these works than they were before. The souls of these people had an elevated existence afterwards. And we probably look from what Raphael's soul sent out onto the canvas, we look from that, however much it delights us, to Raphael's soul itself, to what was poured into this soul from the realm of transience. And if we then look with understanding at what has been poured into Raphael himself from his paintings, then we can feel the expectation burgeoning in our souls that what has gone into this soul will not only endure, but will shine as something eternal compared to what it has been able to conjure up on the canvas. On the canvas is the transient, in Raphael's soul is the eternal, which outlasts the transient.

So let us rise from all that can be acquired in human life in the spring of day, in the summer of day, in the fall of day, in the morning, at noon, in the evening, what slumbers like plant form in the winter of day, at night, in the state of sleep, so let us rise to that which awakens in us the presentiment, awakens the hope and expectation that out of every day something awakens in our soul itself that leads beyond all that is temporal, beyond all that is transient. When we feel this in our souls, ladies and gentlemen, then we have accomplished something in relation to the human being that is similar to looking from the spring solstice to the shining first full moon through the spring night. First we have looked at that which men place before us in temporality, in transitoriness, but then the transitoriness of that which has been created in time has dawned upon us; but then we look at the infinite soul itself, at that which has so far eluded us, as the moon eludes us before it sends us the sunlight of its own accord: then we look at that in man which sends us an eternal, as the shining full moon sends us the light of the sun through the spring night. And there appears to us a reflection from the human soul of the eternal, of the spiritual sunlight.

When we therefore look at what this soul preserves from the temporal, then a reflection of the eternal, the spiritual, the spiritual sun itself appears to us. Something shines out of the darkness of human existence, as if from the spring night, which we may compare with the image of the full moon after the spring solstice. If we rejoice in the works of men in transience, then we can wait, wait until our soul says: Everything that we rejoice in belongs to transience. And if we then wait, wait, but now interpret the signs of the soul with understanding - with understanding, as we endeavored to interpret the signs of heavenly space with understanding - then we say to ourselves every time we look up from that which can be created by men in the realm of transience: Let us look at something in man which appears to us like an outcast son of human life - an outcast son of human life, because human consciousness does not usually direct its gaze towards him at first. As long as man can only dwell in the joy of the transient, is enraptured by the pain that becomes him from the transient, so long he is stunned, and he cannot look at the reflection of the eternal out of the human soul itself. That is why many people, who are completely devoted to what the day brings, deny this eternal in the human soul, that they do not see how the light is reflected from the outcast son of human life, from that which rests deeply hidden in the night of human life, which we can only reach if we find the opportunity to look at that which reflects the radiance of the eternal light out of the human soul. And then we are so far that, like the full moon of spring, we see this human soul itself and say: You are in this life in such a way that you are without light, as the moon is without light; you are dependent, as the moon is on sunlight, so you are dependent on that which can bring you radiance and luminosity and warming power from outside. But if you take in this warming and luminous power, then you can hope that a day will come for your soul that is different from all other days over which the sun rises and sets. A day must come for the soul when something awakens in your soul that tells you directly from your consciousness: there is something of a higher, eternal nature in every human soul! - A day must come on which the sun rises in such a way that you know in your soul: you carry within you something eternal that outlasts all transience.

And so we celebrate Easter Day every year - Easter Day as a reminder to our souls, as a celebration of expectation, as a celebration of hope, as a celebration of the ideal. We celebrate it in such a way that on this day we remind ourselves: Yes, it will be! Day after day passes for you, day after day in such a way that the sun rises and sets over them and that in your undeveloped consciousness you only see the transient and know nothing yet of the immediate looking up to the eternal; but a day will come that is different from all days. In the fullness of the days that will follow there will be Easter Day for your soul! But your soul's Easter Day will be when you no longer merely look in hope to the eternal, to the imperishable within yourself, but when you become aware of this eternal, imperishable within you. And that we never forget that our highest, our most beautiful, our wisest in the world should be this expectation of an Easter day of the soul, this hope for an Easter day of the soul, this ideal of the resurrected eternal man in the transient and temporal man, that we never forget this, we should renew the memory of this hope, of this expectation, of this ideal every year when we are given cause to look up from the image of the temporal to the image of the eternal, the permanent, when nature tells us: The temporal allows the slumbering seed to ripen from its womb; it is called to a temporal blossoming and temporal fruit-bearing; but when then, in contrast to the joy of spring, melancholy enters us, telling us: destruction, decay will spread over everything that emerges from the earth, when we then say: But in the parables of the earth, in the facts of the earth, there does not rest that which man can strive for as the highest. The day that says: In our present time not only that which we need for our life lives; we wait, after the spring solstice day has poured into our soul an image of delight in transience, we wait for the night of the full moon, we wait until the reflection of the sunlight appears to us out of the darkness and gloom, (the sun), which lasts with its light against all transience, which will rise for all years, which is a lasting thing against the transience of the years. And then we remember that at first we have no image for this - (for what) the sun can tell us about the eternal, about the permanent - no image in the outer world, but that we gain an image for this eternal that pulsates and weaves through space when we look up from the earthly of the spring-summer solstice day, if we take up in our souls the looking out into the universe and wait until the day that the human spirit itself has consecrated to the sun, and on that day renew in us the memory that the hope, the expectation, the ideal of the eternal must rest in us. Then we understand - if we fill our soul with this full feeling, with this full sensation - then we understand such monumental words as the great Zarathustra, for example, spoke to those who could understand him.

The Zarathustra, the Zoroaster, he spoke to his community of a sun that does not appear in outer space, of which the sun in outer space is only an image and parable; he spoke of a sun that should shine as a spiritual sun to all human souls in a future that we expect, that we hope for, that we have in mind as an ideal, and he pointed to this spiritual sun to his believing community with the beautiful words: "I will speak! Now come and listen to me, you who are far away, you who are longing for it from near! I will speak of what is highest in the world; what He has revealed to me, the great Ahura Mazdao - that is the spirit of the sun - and what alone can bring people that day when the eternal in their souls conquers all that is temporal." - If we thus divert our feelings from nature to the spiritual, if we warm ourselves up and say to ourselves: Nature is all around us, we look towards it, and we do not merely look towards it, we are called as human beings to draw from it its secrets, which it reveals to us when we look up from the temporal into the eternal, we are called to look up into the eternal, to awaken the eternal in ourselves: Then we have committed Easter in our hearts.

Such things, my esteemed audience, will awaken again to a certain understanding in the human soul when spiritual science will illuminate that which ordinary science, the ordinary cognition of the day has brought to mankind in such rich measure. Certainly, today we look back on a wealth of human knowledge, on a wealth of human insight, on the rich successes which mankind has achieved in the course of time with regard to all that the day can bring; but man, if he reflects a little on himself, will say to himself in the face of all that external knowledge, external insight, intellect and external culture have brought mankind, he will say to himself: All these are only the goods of transience, all this is only something temporary. But there lives, there lives through humanity itself an outcast son, a son who is especially very outcast today; there lives in the human soul something of which many people today say: Oh, here come individual dreamers, individual fantasists, who tell us all kinds of secrets of the spiritual worlds; but they do not exist at all. We want to live in what our glorious, external, material culture has created over the centuries.

There are probably also others who are quite significantly devoted to this material culture and who cannot even see that there is such a thing as something eternal slumbering in the human soul. There we see people who spend their days only looking at what this day can give them; there we may also see those who look with scorn and derision at what is just now entering our time as a message from the eternal in the form of spiritual science or theosophy. But those who have acquired only a little of the feeling of the wisdom and truth content of this spiritual science or theosophy will look upon all those who, with external knowledge, with external culture, either speak of the eternal without suspecting it or else pour scorn and derision upon it. Those who have felt the truth and wisdom of the new proclamation will also be able to feel how in this new proclamation something is set into the night of our present purely external material culture.

O, we can also celebrate a kind of spring in time. We can look into our time in such a way that, if we have a little feeling for the spiritual, we can say to ourselves: out there is a glorious material culture, a culture that is proud of itself and of which people are proud; out there is an external science that is proud of its successes with regard to what it can grasp with physical organs and understand with physical understanding. But then we look into our own soul with our understanding of the spiritual and wait to see what this view gives us, walking in the soul. This view gives us, walking in the soul, that which spreads out from darkness and blackness; for we know that transience is the lot of all that man attains with his outer knowledge, with his outer culture. We know that. And then we look into something like a night in relation to this outer culture; but then perhaps we may also, when we look into the night, awaken in ourselves a feeling, a sense of what spiritual science or Theosophy is supposed to be for us today in our spiritually impoverished present. What is it like for us then? Then it is that we say to ourselves: Certainly, we look with full appreciation at all that the human spirit and human soul have created for the day, we look at the high works of outer culture and the higher works of outer science and can rejoice in them, just as we can rejoice in the awakening seed that leaves the earth to blossom and bear fruit. We are not dull to what external art and science offer us; we readily accept it all. We should not be alienated from the world; as Theosophists we should not forget that for us, too, the “World March 21” is the spring solstice, which wants to let our soul rejoice in all that people have created in outer life. We have understanding for everything that outer culture offers, for everything that outer science offers, just as we have understanding for the spring plants that sprout up. But this understanding is like that which we feel on a spring solstice day when we realize at the same time: Transience is poured out on the spring plants. So transience is poured out on that which is external culture and science.

But then we wait, wait until our soul has the longing and the inclination for that which shines out of the night, out of that which above all is perceived as night by those who have an understanding for the eternal and imperishable, which shines out of this night: There shines - out of this night - if we wait with the right understanding, nevertheless that which we feel like a reflection of a spiritual light. We can have these sensations if we are fully aware of our human dignity. For what sentient human soul would not have that day when it says to itself: Yes, I can rejoice in all that outer culture and science have brought, can be satisfied in a certain way with what outer culture and science have brought. But then, when I look at the higher needs of my soul, then despite this culture, despite telegraphs and despite the hopes of balloons and despite everything else that the newer researchers can tell me, then despite all this the outer world becomes dark and gloomy to me.

I want to wait. But I do not wait in vain, I do not need to wait and work in the present in vain: Something presents itself in the present that is the proclamation of a spiritual world. And something shines out to me like the spiritual light itself from this message about a spiritual world. I feel spiritual science like the full moonlight, which is the reflection of the sun, through the spring night. I retain this impression in my soul. And when I retain this impression in my soul, then that which I call spiritual science is transformed into a feeling, into a sensation, into a hope, into an expectation, into an ideal. And then from spiritual science, as it shows itself as a reflection of spiritual life in the night of the present consciousness, then that which is to follow out of the human soul on the spring full moon after the spring solstice will develop for me from it, then the Easter day of my life will develop from it, then from this spiritual science or Theosophy itself Easter hope, Easter expectation, Easter ideal will develop for me. Then I know: there is an outer world; transience has been poured over it. There is still a proclamation that speaks to people today as if through the darkness of night. But I begin to feel what this proclamation is. I begin to feel that it is the reflection of spiritual life, of the spiritual sun itself, which will one day spread eternally shining and warming over all humanity.

So the correctly understood Easter celebration reminds a person who has entered spiritual science of his own feelings. And it can be his renewal of Easter when we pledge ourselves on this Easter day of the year: We want to place ourselves in the outer world in such a way that the outer reality with all its beauty is a spring solstice day for us, that the spiritual proclamation is something that is a reflection of spiritual life into the darkness of life and that we ignite in the soul the hope, the expectation, the ideal of this spiritual sun itself.

But then also, my esteemed audience, if we feel Theosophy or spiritual science as something that can ignite its Easter in our soul, then we feel in agreement with all those who have drawn such Easter hopes out of the best parts of their spiritual experience. We want to hear a few words from a German poet, from which something resounds like a call that is fueled by such Easter hope, by such Easter expectation, by such an Easter ideal of humanity. The best have always felt that the sun rises and sets above the clouds of the outer world, but that the earth lives with humanity towards a spiritual life in which will be preserved that which in our soul itself works its way up from the darkness of the night of the soul to the light of the spiritual day as something imperishable, as something eternal. Then, if we feel this way, then we may also see in spiritual science or Theosophy (something) like Easter mood; Easter mood, which can realize for us through this spiritual science that which a great son of humanity spoke to this humanity thousands of years ago in the Orient over there: Zarathustra or Zoroaster spoke of the light of the sun, the spiritual sun, which must come to men if they turn earnestly to him.

So we may also say today of that which shines for us in spiritual science as if in a reflection: It will appear to humanity, the eternal of the human soul will [arise] for it. Yes, indeed! Spiritual science speaks to us in the same way as the great Zarathustra once spoke to mankind, proclaiming, spiritual science speaks to us in this way: I want to announce to you, you who have come from afar, you who have come from near, of that which is the highest in the world that He can reveal to us, the God of the world, the Spirit of the world, who appears as the Eternal in true wisdom and what the human souls should hear, feel and want if they want to unite their deepest soul with the progressing Eternal and do not want the best of their soul to unite solely with that which is consecrated to transience.

So the Easter mood itself spreads to us as an atmosphere through all spiritual wisdom, through spiritual science. Easter is a celebration of spiritual science, a celebration of the human soul that wants to experience what spiritual science can give us as a light of wisdom and thus as a reflection of the spirit itself, what can become the ideal of a life in which man is aware that he is standing in his eternal, in his imperishable. In terms of spiritual science, we therefore perceive Easter as a festival in which people can assert what has come down to them from old traditions, from old memories, with their own sensations and feelings and impulses of will.

And there is a possibility, ladies and gentlemen, that on Easter Sunday we can once again step out into the world and feel how the Easter festival is set in time. Yes, there is also an awakening of the human soul, just as there is an awakening of nature in spring. But such an awakening is initially overshadowed by transience. If we look up from the transient to the reflection of the eternal, then the eternal itself shines into our lives, then we become partakers of such a life that can absorb us in our deepest inner being in such a way that we walk with consciousness: In our development we not only belong to the day over which the sun rises and sets, we belong to this sun in the spirit itself, which rises and sets and thus proves to be the permanent, the imperishable in the temporal. We experience the spring festival, the spring solstice festival, as a preparation for Easter, so that we do not become alienated from the world in the right sense (but?) feel related to all that is germinating and living in the realm of transience. We wait from the spring solstice to Easter so that, in addition to the feast of temporal joy, we have a feast that pours eternal joy into our souls.