Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 4 March 1911, Hanover

39. Original Sin. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Invigorating Power of Childhood

When we begin in Theosophy to acquaint ourselves with the nature of man and his various parts, we are only making a beginning, and it would be a fatal error if the belief were to spread that with the knowledge of the elementary teachings of Theosophy one already knows all that one needs to know from the spiritual world for the future and the progress of mankind. One must first know the elementary things, but one must also know that Theosophy must become life-practice; this, however, cannot be conveyed by abstract ideas and concepts, but only by going deeper into the way in which these truths of the essence of man are connected and how the various members interact and affect each other. This results in the following:

This interaction of the members changes in the different cultural epochs; in ancient Egyptian life the members would have interacted quite differently than they do today; man has changed since that time; therefore we must say something different today than was said to the disciple then. Furthermore, we must realize that this not only applies to the different bodily components in the individual cultural epochs, but it also changes throughout an individual's life during the different age groups.

You know that the consciousness of the child differs from the later consciousness [if only] because the child expresses the difference in its consciousness by not saying “I” to itself. There are philologists who want to blur this, but man must get out of the habit of believing in such modern wisdom. You can read other fantastic things in books like this, for example that thinking is learned first and then speaking, when it is actually the other way round, people learn to think through language. Let's now turn our attention to the other side of the child's consciousness. Up to a certain age, a person is in a particular state of consciousness, which is characterized by the fact that the thread of memory breaks at this particular point. Before that, consciousness was present, but it did not include the “I”. This behaves quite differently before this point than it does later. In the early years, the “I” is like an external aura; the more this external ego aura is drawn into the child's body, the more the child perceives itself as an “I”.

The brain is still imperfect when the human being comes into existence; the ego perfects the organism. You could say that we are not yet so clever that we can work on the brain, but this is guided by the wisdom of completely different forces. The childish ego can work so wisely because it is connected with the spiritual world as long as it remains in an outer aura; it is involved in what we have come to know as the higher worlds. It is true in the deepest sense what was said earlier that the wisest person can learn a great deal from the child; whose soul acts like a telephone connection to the spiritual world, this childlike aura; the deeds of the spiritual hierarchies weave into it. As soon as a person falls prey to the illusion that his ego is enclosed in this body, the connection with the spiritual world is seemingly severed. As long as the ego has a connection with the creative powers of the world, it is productive; later on, it becomes hostile to the creative power, it suppresses the spiritually vitalizing forces, kills them. In the childlike ego everything is alive and active. There are two kinds of activity in human life, one kind still has an invigorating effect on these first forces that formed our brain, but another part has a more deadening, forcing effect on them than would otherwise be necessary.

We distinguish in life between actions based on idealistic sentiments (the feelings of compassion alone ensure that we do things that lie above the horizon of egoism) and those that are based solely on instinct. These two kinds of [actions] are found in every human being at our level of culture. However, we can strive to spiritualize even the most subordinate actions, for example: man gets to know the plant as a spiritual being and no longer devours it like an animal, but sees in it a connection with the solar being; he will then feel how a spiritual being lives in every material process.

What is it that strikes us most about idealistic actions? The action is always quite small compared to the ideal. There is no need to say, as Tolstoy did, “The ideal can be recognized by the fact that it cannot be realized in life”, but it is clear to us that our thoughts, feelings and sensations are more comprehensive than our actions; the action is only a small circle, the ideal a large one.

In the case of actions based on mere instinct, it is the other way around; the thought is small, the actions comprehensive. If the actions are greater than the idea, they are destructive of that which animates the spirit; they are in fact that which brings death to man. Conversely, where the idea is greater, it has a vitalizing effect on the ego.

We need to seek this power. In ancient times [ideals] flowed down from higher worlds. In today's materialistic age, the ideals that people used to have of their own accord, without any action on their part, are disappearing more and more. If humanity does not try to revive them of its own accord, they will dry up. The development goes over the ideals like a firebrand. Through Theosophy, man learns how he can consciously enter the spiritual world again. These two currents will meet in the future. Only a small group has the urge to approach Theosophy, but the majority is antipathetic to the point of contempt.

There is no way to save idealism for the future if people forget what the religions and old worldviews have given them. The mission of Theosophy is thus marked. It is an empty phrase that the ideals would not be lost even without Theosophy.

There is a certain attraction between the first childhood and the urge towards the ideal. In human nature, then, there is at work what may be called the animating forces of the world; but for only three years of our life we have within us that which the bearer of the ego-consciousness will only attain when the actual ego has already lost its power.

Let us remember: the physical body is formed in the first seven years; later growth occurs on the basis of the forms that have been formed in the first seven years. In the next seven years until sexual maturity, the etheric body develops a free activity. During sexual maturity up to the twentieth year the astral body becomes free, then the sensory soul; what we call the intellectual or emotional soul is not developed until the 28th year; by then we have already to a certain extent killed off the actual ego. It might therefore seem to us that it would be better if one could not develop one's physical powers so freely before the age of 28, but rather if the powers on both sides could act on each other completely unweakened. If Lucifer and Ahriman had not appeared, man would stand quite differently in the world; man would allow his brain to mature; he would then still have the ability to turn this brain into an instrument of human life with full consciousness.

But what Lucifer and Ahriman have brought about must be corrected again. At the end of their development on earth, people must be so far advanced that they are able to consciously develop the kind of high idealism that used to live unconsciously in them through the divine ego. Gradually, of course, man will develop this idealism; he will not be able to do so all at once. This ideal, which is to be attained by man at the end of his development on earth, had to be placed before mankind once. Man can tolerate the childlike ego for three years, which is why the body abandoned by the Jesus ego could only tolerate the new ego of the Christ born into it. A body therefore had to be placed there by the provident wise world forces that was just like the body that can receive a childlike ego, and it had to be lowered into the human body around the thirtieth year, at the time when the human ego has the least contact with the spiritual world, when it has pretty much completely killed off these spiritual forces; and at the same time at the time when the whole of humanity was most cut off from the spiritual world, and that is precisely the middle of humanity's development.

And this ideal has been placed before men: it is the Christ-Jesus. You have grasped this ideal, so that you understand that John's baptism in the Jordan represents the coming out of the ego of Jesus and the coming in of the Christ ego. In a similar way, man can establish the connection between the two worlds in the course of his later incarnations. Only in the age when the Christ appeared was the intellectual soul so developed in humanity that it had completely freed itself from the higher forces. Now we must know how to immerse ourselves with our full consciousness in all the living forces that we unconsciously have in our childhood years. (“If you do not become like little children”). What flows into us unconsciously in our childhood years must later happen in us consciously.

The animal grows into the position it occupies in life through its innate equilibrium; this is not the case with humans; they must first acquire the upright gait, and this is a work of the ego, which first crystallizes the equilibrium. The animal is not capable of acquiring knowledge; what is called truth does not live in the animal. But in the first three years of its life, the ego gives man “the way, the truth and the life”. The unconscious ego brings this about. So what must man say when this is accomplished for his spirit? “I” am the way, the truth and the life; and if you do not become fully conscious in spirit as you are unconscious in the first three years of your life, you cannot enter the kingdoms of heaven. - If we think of the childlike ego as spiritualized, it must work through all subsequent incarnations, and it is the Christ ego.

Thus the path for the following incarnations is marked out for man through what happened in the center of earthly development. This must become the innermost human experience.

What happens in every human being in relation to the first forces? We kill the forces of three-year-old childhood. If people had not received a sufficiently large fund of wisdom and spiritual power, they would have already dried up in the systematic killing off.

Only the one individuality that had not entered into the general course of development could make the sacrifice on Golgotha. Who killed the Christ Jesus on Golgotha? The people! - All of them! By taking on the nature that human nature is. This is the deepest Christian awareness, to know that man is guilty of the mystery of Golgotha and that this event had to happen because of human nature. People killed the Christ! We all did it! This has had an effect that cannot be removed! But the realization will lead to taking the Christ into the human soul, so that the Christ goes over to Jupiter with the people he has saved. Either one part of mankind will reign, which has the awareness of this original guilt, or the other part, which will not acknowledge this guilt.

Reading the Gospels does not only make you a Christian, it makes you feel: you have killed Christ, you must prepare a place for him. You can become a Christian by getting to know the nature of man. Then you can recognize that Christ has already been there, through the unmistakable means that man becomes capable of spiritualizing his own thoughts again.

Thoughts have become completely uncreative. Just now, when everything has dried up from the fertilizing wisdom of the higher worlds. In the first half of the nineteenth century there were still personalities who had an inkling of the connection with the spiritual world. Immanuel Hermann Fichte brought up all the evidence he could find for the spiritual origin of man. At one point, however, he also had an inkling of human original sin. He did not go so far as to say that all people have killed the Christ, but he did say that people live in darkness. He said: The time must come when humanity must be directed to the spiritual world in a completely different way.

We ask ourselves in dismay: Are we called to fulfill this premonition? If we develop the right humility, we can overcome this feeling of dismay. We realize that the Christ had to come once in order for humanity to have the impulse; but it was only possible once; not several Christs have passed or will pass over the earth, that is not true! Try hanging the scales at two points! It must be supported at one point, in the middle, otherwise it will not weigh. So every occultist says: The Christ had to come once, in the middle of the earth's development! People will become more and more aware of the significance of this Christ impulse. They will first repeat the Damascus event in their hearts and then also outwardly. This will be the return of Christ, which is not a return in the physical body [...]. Thus, through Theosophy, one of the sayings against which those who say that Theosophy is something unchristian because it contradicts the Gospels are constantly sinning comes true.

The Christ continually sends us his new Gospels, for he says: “I still have much to say to you, but you cannot bear it now.” The Gospels, which are not in the four, will flow in more and more; the proclamation will never end in order to give people precisely what they could not yet bear at that time; for the Christ has it to say to mankind, and he will say it to them. Blessed is she when she receives it!