Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 5 June 1911, Copenhagen

41. The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity I

I shall be privileged to speak here in the next few days on a theosophical subject which I consider important: “The spiritual guidance of man and mankind”. And at the request of our friends, I may send a few words before these lectures at this hour, which will perhaps be like a kind of introduction or preface to the subject that lies within my task.

After all, one of the tasks of the Theosophist must be what can be called, in the most comprehensive sense, a “longing for true self-knowledge”. For anyone who has penetrated just a little into Theosophical life and Theosophical conviction feels that out of this self-knowledge must be born that comprehensive understanding of every human feeling and thinking, of every other being, and that such an understanding must be inseparable from our whole Theosophical movement. This is so easily misunderstood that within our German theosophical movement the sign which you know as the sign of the cross with the roses shines before us. It is easy to harbor misunderstandings about the spiritual, theosophical movement which, under this sign of the Rose Cross, wants to live into the spiritual life of our time, wants to live into human hearts and their feelings, wants to live into human will and its deeds. It is easy to come to a misunderstanding on this ground, because it is extraordinarily difficult for many, even well-meaning souls of the present day, to realize that this spiritual movement, which wants to work under this sign, is in fact inspired by all its principles, by all its feelings and sensibilities, to understand in the most tolerant way any human striving, any striving in relation to human conviction. It is true that this tolerance lies somewhat deep within the Rosicrucian movement, but it is part of this movement. Therefore, you will easily find this movement misunderstood on those sides that confuse tolerance with one-sided tolerance of one's own opinion, with tolerance of one's own principles and methods.

One imagines this tolerance to be so incredibly easy, but it is one of the most difficult things for a person to conquer in the highest sense of the word. For it is very easy to believe that anyone who says something different from what one says is an opponent, and it is very easy to confuse one's own opinion with that which should be generally held. Theosophical life, however, will flourish and be able to bear the right fruit for the spiritual life of the future if it is a comprehensive ground on which we meet, meet in intimate soul understanding not only with the one who believes what we ourselves believe, but also with the one who, under certain circumstances, is compelled by his own experiences, by his own path through life, perhaps even apparently to represent the opposite of what we ourselves represent. And if an old morality, which in a certain sense is approaching the twilight of its being, has easily understood how to practise love and tolerance between those who have the same thoughts and feelings as us, then theosophical life in its truth will radiate more and more into the hearts of people that much deeper tolerance, which will make it possible for us to find ourselves on the ground of mutual understanding, mutual human stimulation and human coexistence even where we do not agree from the outset in the thoughts and feelings we have to say about the world.

At the same time, this touches on a point that is important to touch on - important to touch on in view of our entire theosophical movement. For what is it that first confronts the person who turns to this theosophical movement? What is he prompted to confess first? Although this confession need not be a dogma in our midst, and although there may even be differences of opinion among us with regard to this basic confession, it may nevertheless be said: What is, in the most comprehensive sense, a general confession from the beginning, when anyone approaches Theosophy, is the confession of the idea of repeated earth lives and the passing over of causes from one earth life to another. Reincarnation and karma are convictions that impose themselves on us from the very beginning. But it is a long way from the first day when these truths become our conviction to the day when we place our whole life, our whole being, even to some extent, in the light of these ideas, these truths. A long time passes between the day when this conviction dawns on us and the day when it can become complete life in our soul.

For example, we are confronted with a person who may even insult us with scorn; but we may have long since absorbed the teachings of reincarnation and karma, so that we now say: Who spoke the hurtful, insulting word that entered our ears and trickled scorn into us? Who perhaps even [raised] their hand at that moment? - And we will then be able to say to ourselves: We did it ourselves! The hand is only apparently the hand of the other, for it is I myself who, through my past karma, have raised the hand of the other against myself.

This is only an indication of how long the path can be from the abstract, theoretical conviction of karma and reincarnation to the point where we understand how to place our whole life in the light of these thoughts, where we really feel the God in our breast in such a way that we not only feel him as our own higher self, which teaches us, so to speak, how man participates in the divine with a spark of his being, but where we also learn to feel this higher self in such a way that it permeates us with a sense of complete responsibility not only towards what we do, but also towards what we suffer - for the simple reason that what we suffer in one moment is only the necessary consequence of what we have done in another moment.

And now feel such an attitude penetrating our soul like the warm, new spiritual lifeblood of a new culture. One can feel how new concepts of responsibility, new concepts of human love are emerging, which our souls must grasp through the theosophical life. Feel how it is not a phrase when it is said that the Theosophical movement has arisen in our time because humanity needs new moral impulses, new intellectual and spiritual impulses. And one feels that a new revelation in the spiritual field should not assert itself for humanity and flow into our hearts, into our convictions through the theosophical life, because of some arbitrariness, but that it should flow in because such a new spiritual revelation is necessary for those new moral impulses, for those new concepts of responsibility - indeed, of the destiny of man.

Then one can also immediately and vividly feel what a coherent meaning it has in the world when the same souls sitting in bodies that are gathered here today were often and frequently already embodied on this earthly soil in past times. We must ask ourselves about this meaning: Why again and again and again?

And this meaning comes to us by learning, through what Theosophy gives us, how every time we look out into the glories of the world through newly formed eyes in a new body, we recognize in it - in the sensory things - the divine revelations; or that we listen out through newly formed ears to what can reveal itself to us as divine in the world of sounds, and learn to recognize from this how we can and should experience something new every time in a new incarnation on the earthly sphere. Then one probably also feels that there must be people, so to speak, who are driven by their karma to prophesy in a certain respect what must gradually take hold of the whole of humanity as the meaning of an age.

From what can be grasped today in the ranks of the Theosophical Society and the Theosophical Movement through the revelations from the spiritual world, Theosophists should realize that it must flow into the whole of human culture, and that the souls who live into the world through the present bodies feel themselves driven to Theosophy because they feel the necessity of adding this new element to what has been conquered by men in the most varied epochs out of the spiritual world. We must, however, realize that in every epoch we must, so to speak, understand anew the whole meaning of the mystery of the world, that in every epoch we must face in a new way that which can flow down to us through the revelations from the spiritual worlds.

Our time is a very peculiar one. And although it is often easy to call any time a time of transition, what is otherwise often a phrase can nevertheless be said in the true sense of the word for our time. We are indeed living towards a time in which people will have to experience many new things in relation to the entire evolution of our earth. People will have to rethink many things. Yes, some of the new things are still understood today, one might say, in the old style and in the old sense. Many people who hear today what we can hear through our human progress find it impossible to really understand this new in a new way. People often lag behind the new revelations with their old concepts. Here is just one example to draw attention to.

It has been rightly emphasized again and again what a tremendous advance in human thought it means that for four centuries people have penetrated the physical structure of the universe. On the one hand, the great achievements and successes of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Giordano Bruno and so on have been rightly emphasized. But on the other hand, I would like to remind you of a word that has been spoken by very clever people and which goes something like this: Copernicus' thoughts have led us out into the world spatially, and it has been shown that it is as Giordano Bruno, for example, imagined it: how our earth is a small world body next to other countless world bodies in space. And on this earth, they say, the greatest drama should have taken place, which forms the center of evolution, of all development, and we should be allowed to place the story of Christ Jesus at the center of all evolution...! Such an important event for the whole world could not - so they say - be transplanted to the small earth planet, since we have come to know that this earth planet is only the small planet among countless planets of existence!

This is a thought that is certainly obvious, so obvious that it may be called extraordinarily clever and wise in our time, if one looks only at the intellect, but a thought that does not reckon with the depth of spiritual feeling that lies in the fact that from the starting point of Christianity the original reasons for this event on earth have not been transferred to a royal palace or to any splendor of the earth, but have been transferred to a stable to poor shepherds. Spiritual feeling was not even satisfied with transferring this matter to earth, but to a despised corner of the earth. This looks very strange when compared to the assertion that it is no longer appropriate “to have the greatest drama of world events played out in a provincial theater” - this expression has been used. But Christianity has a way of having this greatest drama of world events played out not only in a provincial theater, but somewhere else entirely.

We can see from this how difficult it is to follow things with the right, true feeling, and how much people will have to learn in order to see what the right thoughts and feelings of human development are. We are approaching turbulent times. This can be said for our present and for the near future. For it is true that some old things have been used up and new things are flowing in from the spiritual world into this human development. And not because they want to, but because the history of human development forces them to, those who know something of this human development speak of the fact that our whole spiritual life will change in the course of the next centuries, and that at the starting point of this change in our whole human spiritual life must stand the theosophical movement, which must understand itself correctly, must stand in all humility, but with a genuine understanding of what actually has to take place for humanity in the course of the next centuries. For as true as it is that people have only learned in the course of time to look at the world with their intellect as Copernicus and Giordano Bruno or Kepler or Galileo were able to do, as people have only learned in the course of our last centuries to interpret the world intellectually, and as earlier human souls came to their knowledge in a completely different way - it is just as true that the intellectual life in our time will be replaced for the human soul by a new, spiritual content. The human souls in the human bodies are already urging us to no longer look at the world merely intellectually. And if the materialistic currents of our time had not given us so much reason to push back the spiritual impulses, then such souls, which one can literally feel stormily longing for spiritual content, would be much more noticeable, the spiritual impulses in people would be much more noticeable, just waiting to look into the world space and into existence in an even different way than has been the case so far.

Preferred spirits, who are granted what is called “grace”, often already see before their spirit - centuries in advance - what can then become the general vision of humanity. I have often pointed out how something that was once experienced by a man filled with grace, Paul, in the event before Damascus as the whole impulse of the Christ event, experienced at that time as an individual, will gradually become a common good of the human soul. Just as Paul knew through a spiritual revelation who the Christ is, what the Christ has done, so will people experience such knowledge, such vision again. But now the time is just before us, just in the near future, when a number of people will experience something like a renewal of the Pauline Christ-event. This is something that belongs to the evolution of our earth: the spiritual eye that was opened to Paul before Damascus, that looks into the spiritual worlds and fetches from there the truth that Paul had never believed beyond what he had been told in Jerusalem about the Christ-Jesus event - many people will have this spiritual vision. That this event will occur is a historical necessity. This is what has actually been called the “return of Christ in the 20th century”.

The Christ as an individuality will be recognized as he has revealed himself more and more approximately to the physical plan from that moment when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush as in a reflection, as he himself announces in the Gospel of John, until the moment when he lived the three-year life on the physical plan: He will be recognized by these his deeds as the focus of earth evolution.

There is only one center of gravity in a system. You can only support a balance at one point if you want the weights on the left and right balance beam to point correctly, and as soon as you support the balance beam several times, you would sin against the spatial laws of gravity. You only need one point, one center of gravity for a system. That is why the occultists of all times, ancient and modern, recognize this turning of earth evolution to the one point, to the Mystery of Golgotha, and the ascent of human evolution again from this point, where the centre of gravity of earth evolution is spoken of in the true sense. It is true that it is extremely difficult to recognize the correct meaning of this Christ-event, the Mystery of Golgotha, for the whole spiritual guidance of humanity. For this means that everything we bring with us in the way of feelings and judgments from one or the other world creed must remain silent within us. We must be as alien and objective to the Christian methods of education that have prevailed in the West for many centuries as we are to other religious methods of education in the world if we want to get to know in the true sense what the spiritual focus of earthly evolution is. Therefore, we will experience that for the next decades those who become the most intensive proclaimers of the spiritual focus of human development in the Occident will actually be regarded as “bad Christians”, who will perhaps be denied the title of being Christian by the dominant religions of the Occident. The very idea that Christ could only be embodied in a human body once, temporarily, for three years, is incredibly difficult to grasp.

Those who have familiarized themselves more closely with what the Rosicrucian initiation has to say about these things know how complicated the outer body of that Jesus of Nazareth had to be in order that he could take into himself that mighty individuality which is the Christ-individuality. We know that not one person had to be born, but that two people had to be born. The Gospel of Matthew tells us about one, the Gospel of Luke about the other. We know that the individuality that was embodied in the body of the boy Jesus, of whom the Gospel of Matthew tells us, had previously achieved great things for itself in its evolution, and that this individuality left this body at the age of twelve in order to take on another earthly body until the age of thirty and to further itself with other abilities in this other body. We know that in this way everything that had previously been experienced in humanity that was great and mighty - and above all humble - had to work together in the personality that is called Jesus of Nazareth, in order to have all this in a body that would be able to receive that which in the true sense may be called the Christ.

A deep understanding will be necessary to understand the uniqueness of the Christ, of what the occultists mean when they say: Just as there can only be one center of gravity of a system in mechanics, so there can only be one event of Golgotha!

A time that stands before such tremendous spiritual events, as could now only be characterized in a very suggestive way, is particularly suitable to make us reflect on ourselves. And among the many tasks that the true Theosophist has within the Theosophical Movement today, this is certainly one: To reflect in one's own soul, in one's own heart, in order to realize a little that it is only with trepidation that one wishes to follow the path that leads to grasping this unique idea that occultism of all times tells us about in an unequivocal way.

Such times, in which brilliant lights of wisdom and warm gifts of love are to be radiated over mankind, must be those which always bring us something of the truth of the sentence: Where there is much light, there are strong, black shadows. - The strong, black shadows that come with the gifts that have just been mentioned are the possibilities of error. With great gifts of wisdom, which are to flow into human evolution, it is necessarily connected that the human heart can very easily be exposed to error at such times. Let us therefore not believe that the erring human soul will be more infallible than in other times in the times that are to come and of which we must understand that more than in any other time the human soul will be exposed to error and mistakes. This is what the occultists of all times have prophesied as if from a gray twilight. It is true that in the days of enlightenment, which we could only hint at with the words we have just spoken of, the slightest possibility of error, even the greatest aberration, can take hold. It is all the more necessary to look clearly at this possibility of error, to be clear about the fact that because we are to expect great things, error must therefore be all the easier for the weak human heart.

When we consider the spiritual guidance of mankind for the times to come, we must therefore receive the teaching from this thought of the possibility of error - from what the occultists of all times have predicted with a clear warning hand for the times to come, feeling as Theosophists: To practise that supreme, that single tolerance which has been spoken of at the beginning of my words today, and to wean ourselves from everything which on the one hand belongs to a blind authority - for this blind authority can be a strong tempter, can stimulate precisely error - but on the other hand we must keep our hearts open and warm to everything that can flick down upon men from the spiritual worlds in a way never before learned by mankind.

Therefore, a good Theosophist within the Theosophical movement will above all be the one who knows: If we want to be caretakers within our movement of the light that is to flow into the evolution of humanity, then we must become understanding towards all the errors that can creep into human evolution at the same time as this light. Let us also feel all responsibility towards this and have the wide heart we need within the theosophical movement in order to understand that there has not yet been a movement on our earth in which such a wide loving heart could be nurtured. Let us learn to understand that it is still better for us to be fought by those who believe that their opinion alone is the only one that can make us happy than to fight these others ourselves. - It is a long way from one to the other. But those who embrace the theosophical movement in spirit will know how to live with something that has rightly gone through all times as a core saying, as a motto for all spirituality, will know how to live in such a way that, even if they are sometimes overcome by despair at the thought: "Now it is so that there is strong light, but also a great possibility of error. How are you, a weak person, supposed to find your way through it? How can you decide what comes from the truth and what comes from error? - When such a thought arises in your breast, you can feel strengthened and invigorated by the old thought that has gone through all times as a motto: The truth will be that which will always give the highest impulses in the development of mankind, and the truth stands even higher for me than I myself could stand. If I stand by the truth in this way and am wrong here in this incarnation, the truth will have the power to draw me to itself in the next incarnation. If I am honestly wrong in this incarnation, this error will balance itself out in the next, and it is better to be honestly wrong - than to dishonestly listen to dogmas!

And the motto will shine before us: If it is truth that we profess, it is not through us, not through our will. It is not through our efforts - but through the divine power of truth itself that this truth will prevail. But if what we are urged to do by any means in this incarnation is not the truth, if it is error, if we are too weak to be drawn to the truth - then may what we profess only perish! Let us say it to ourselves calmly, for then it has not the power to live, shall not have the power to live.

And as Theosophists we must find the possibility to still have confidence in the truth - which we may not even know yet - even if we might have to surrender to the thought that what we ourselves acknowledge as truth out of the most honest conviction is perhaps only an error.

If we honestly strive for truth - and we will have it if we honestly strive for it - then truth will be the victorious impulse in the world. And if what we already have is a path of truth, then it is not through what we can put forward for this truth that it will triumph in us, but through the victorious power of truth itself. But if it is error, then we also have the power to say: May this error perish!

If we know how to make this our motto, then we will find the right point of view, the true perspective, that we can say to ourselves: We can gain what we need within a spiritual movement under all circumstances: Trust! For if this trust first gives us error, then error will certainly perish and we will have the strength to experience its downfall. If it is the truth that gives us this trust, then this truth will triumph, no matter how much those who are its opponents may fight against it! This feeling can live in every Theosophist's soul. And if we are to be the mediators of what flows down to us from the spiritual world, what awakens such feelings in the human heart, which give security and strength for life, then within human hearts and souls - starting from our movement - the mission of the new spiritual revelation, which has come, is coming, will come more and more in humanity with what we call “Theosophy” - and will carry human souls more and more into a more spiritual future!