Supplements to Member Lectures
GA 246 — 23 April 1913, Essen
58. The Connection between Life in the Spiritual World and Life in the Earthly World. On the Relationship between the Living and the Dead
Many souls today sleep over without any looking up into the spiritual world, without any prayer-like connecting with the spiritual world. Let us imagine a sleeping city, the souls that have gone out of the bodies. In these souls lives on all the spiritual things they have absorbed from their daily life. And if someone takes nothing with them, then nothing of a spiritual nature can live on in the soul during the time that passes between falling asleep and waking up. But that which is experienced here in the waking state and that which is absorbed through elevation to the spiritual in prayer, in meditation into the sleeping state, is exactly the same for dead people in another sense as the seed fields are for living people. If nothing grows in the seed fields, then the people here starve to death. What people take with them into sleep are seeds that live in the fields where the dead souls dwell. What the souls take with them in terms of spiritual thoughts, in terms of immersion in the soul-spiritual world, in terms of gathering in the spirit, that is what the dead live on, that is what they feed on, that is what they consume. And just as famine arises here on earth when no fruit thrives, so a kind of famine arises in the human cycle where souls live materialistically and take nothing over into the sleeping state. This is the connection between life in the spiritual world and life on earth.
Now you can say: There could be a great death over there! - That cannot happen. The dead souls can experience hunger, the agony of starvation, but the dead cannot die. And here we come to an important chapter, an important question. You see, death is something that is only known here in the physical world. Death is something that only exists in the physical world and does not exist at all in the supersensible world.
I would like to draw your attention to something. If you go through all the sciences here, you will find that they lay down the most diverse laws. One ideal - but an ideal that one must say would be fantastic if it could be achieved - is for science to recognize life directly. Chemical and physical laws will always be researched, but researching life will be an ideal. It will never be grasped with physical laws, for it flows into the physical world from the higher worlds.
And so, my dear friends, just as life is something unknown here, so death is something unknown in the higher worlds. Therefore, it is a nonsensical thought that death can occur in the higher world. Suffering and pain have a meaning in the supersensible world, but not death. All the beings that we know as the beings of the higher hierarchies do not know death.
The angels veil their faces from the mystery of the incarnation. They know nothing of it. They can only know of it through the communication of beings who enter the physical plan; but they cannot know it directly. So it is with all beings of the higher hierarchies. Only one being had to know death, the Christ. This is the great, the infinite meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha, that a being had to recognize death through a heavy, incomprehensible suffering.
If you think this thought through properly, meditate on it, only then can you understand the mystery of Golgotha and the Christ as the only being who came to know death.
So what happens to the beings who have to starve over there for the reason given? It happens to them that they feel all connection with the earth disappearing from them. They live in a world in which they have to say to themselves: The earth is something that is now withdrawn from us, something that no longer enters into our existence. And for disembodied people this means a terrible torment, a great pain. This means that these souls begin to long for death. But because death cannot occur, they suffer endless agony through starvation under the longing for death.
So we see how Theosophy acts as a seed for the dead, as that which nourishes the life of the dead, which imbues them with nourishment in the right way. Only when one knows such things does one acquire the right attitude towards Theosophy, how it is not a theory but an elixir of life, how it bridges the gap between the living and the dead. We must know that through Theosophy our soul can form a living connecting bridge to the dead. And because this is so, we must now at this time work on the Theosophical work again and again in the individual branches by recognizing what the living can do for the dead who have gone before him. Above all, he can do something for the dead person by reading to him ideas, concepts, mental images that relate to the supersensible world. In Theosophy there is a language which the living can understand at the same time as the dead. And not only those who have dealt with Theosophy in life can participate in this benefit, but also those who did not want to know anything about Theosophy here. Those who were already Theosophists here will find it a very special benefit when we read to them.
One often hears the objection: The dead must have perceptions of the supersensible world; they are inside; they cannot take anything from what we read to them about the supersensible world!
Yes, my dear friends, the earth is not just a vale of tears, but the earth is something that has a real effect. The dead can look at the supersensible world; they cannot form concepts and ideas from merely looking at it. There are animals on earth; they can also look, but they cannot form concepts like humans. If the earth had never come into being, the human soul would live in higher worlds, but it would never come to concepts about the higher worlds. For this, people must have passed through life on earth in order to form concepts and ideas. So that a soul which passes through death without concepts and ideas from the spiritual world and now lives in the higher worlds, in the time it lives through there, [experiences nothing of concepts and ideas] which we are able to penetrate here in Theosophy. It would have to descend to earth.
There a soul can help from the earth by reading to the dead, because it can be understood by the dead. And if the souls themselves have not absorbed anything of Theosophy here on earth, we must not believe that they would have to reject Theosophy after death. On the contrary, many a person who has always resisted the approach of Theosophy, and who became angry with it for this very reason and did not want to know anything about Theosophy, can now long to hear about Theosophy. For it is not only the things that surround us that are caught up in maya. It may be a maya that a person indulges in themselves when they are angry with Theosophy; there is often something quite different going on in the depths of the soul than on the surface. While someone is working himself into anger in the daytime consciousness, there may be a great longing within him. It is quite futile to try to teach this person Theosophy; in the soul he is perhaps a better Theosophist than another. But after death the maya ceases. Then that which is in the depths of the soul emerges. Here the soul has scolded, but over there the longing comes out. It may be that we read aloud in vain, but we have to risk it. ...
We are more and more in contact with the dead if we devote ourselves to a theosophical attitude in the right sense. We must be deeply imbued with the understanding of the need for Theosophy to penetrate the present human cycle. From the other side, too, we will increasingly gain the insight that the more we occupy ourselves with Theosophy, the more the dead will have an effect on the living.
[For example, you have to pay attention to this fact when bringing up children who have lost their father at a very early age. You can often feel the influence of the father from the spiritual worlds. I once had to bring up children whose father had died at an early age. I tried to bring them up using my own method, but lo and behold, it didn't work, it didn't want to work at all. It was only when I came up with the idea of taking the father's influence from the spiritual world into account that it worked excellently ...]
What is theoretically thought out about incarnations is generally quite wrong. It might seem strange that Raphael is the same as the gnarled character of John the Baptist. How did it happen that this, so to speak, gnarled individuality, which had to prepare the Mystery of Golgotha in such a shattering way and with such force, then emerged in the soft, supple, serene Raphael? The following then emerges. Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, died when Raphael was eleven years old. He was a painter. He was not a great painter as far as external painting was concerned, but he had great ideas in his head, which he just couldn't put on canvas because he had no technique. He was also a poet. There was a lot in his imagination, but he didn't have the physical ability. So he passed through the gates of death at an early age. And now his powers worked into his son as a painter. In Raphael's hands and in his imagination, that which could work from the father into the physical world continued to have an effect. You could say that the old Giovanni Santi was a painter without hands in the supersensible world. For he gave precisely that in a marvelous karmic context which, together with the individuality of the Baptist, could now be expressed in Raphael. Thus the interaction of the supersensible world with the physical world had to occur in order to bring about this connection. We see how the influences of the so-called dead work in from over there on those who have remained behind here. ...
Earth life also has an important mission for something else. When we have passed through the gate of death, we must meet these souls so that we are not lonely, so that we can know about other souls. We can be together with other souls over there, but know nothing about them. Here we have to establish a relationship with the souls in order to know each other over there. Souls can pass through each other in the spiritual world and know nothing about each other. That is why it is also important [over there] that we are read to by people [from here] whom we have known here. Through the relationships that are established here, we create the relationships for over there. So we establish societies and friendships on a spiritual basis in order to create connections that extend beyond death. So it is not out of mere preference, but out of necessity, which extends beyond death, that we try to bring into a kind of social form what we want to let flow into us as spiritual life. And so we see how, by establishing relationships with other souls here on earth, man does not have to remain a hermit in relation to humanity in the world between death and a new birth, but that he can also be a social being there. We can only understand the other souls after death if we try to look into the other souls. That is why we make it our business not to be closed off from souls that are spiritually further away, to look into the soul life of souls that are further away from us. We study religions because we cannot know anything about a soul whose beliefs are distant to us. So we forge a close bond with the souls that are closer to us, that are close to us. But we can get out and get close to the people whose life of faith we are dealing with here. We have to learn to understand the shearer in order to experience that he cannot help but bring what he knows to other people so that what is necessary in the world can happen [and the earthly mission can be fulfilled].
However, only those souls who have absorbed spiritual things here can have a complete awareness of their influence in the physical world. And here I would like to emphasize a fact that is very significant, even if it is difficult to understand, because we have to get to know these things more and more precisely.
Take a soul that has not taken care of the supersensible world here. This soul can work into the physical world with its intentions. But what this soul may lack is that it can, so to speak - if the souls that have remained behind know how to live in the spiritual - it can see; but this soul, which has not cultivated a spiritual life within itself, lacks an awareness [of the fact] that its intentions enter [the physical world].
But it lacks it only as a living knowledge. There is a certain difference, is there not, between living in direct intercourse with your fellow men and being prevented from living in direct intercourse, and yet their intentions would pass over to you invisibly, and you would see everything as in a mirror. The dead person who has gone into the spiritual world without spiritual knowledge sends his intentions; but the consciousness is like a mirage. And that is a much lesser satisfaction than immediate knowledge: Now you have this intention, you send it down. But this immediate knowledge of the connection with the living can only be had by those who have already taken up a spiritual life here - or who are taught spiritual ideas by being read to after death. This reading aloud can replace knowledge. And this will gradually develop, that man will also gain an awareness here on earth of the influence of the dead, that therefore not only one-sidedly is worked up into the region of the supersensible through what people do here, but the deeper people settle into the supersensible world, the more they will also gradually rise to have an awareness of what comes from over there.
However, today we are only at the beginning of theosophical development. Therefore, little is yet noticed of what is being said now. But we will notice it more and more. There will be moments when we will be able to notice quite clearly how the dead are working back. Not every moment of our lives is favorable for this, but those who can penetrate themselves with Theosophy will have such moments. Man actually experiences very little of what surrounds him. He only experiences what happens in his surroundings from hour to hour. But that is the least of what is really there or could be there for us.
Example of a man who takes a walk a few minutes later than he is used to and thereby escapes death. The dead have intervened in his life.
In such a case, we realize how much is not happening around us that could happen in our lives. How do you know what would have happened in your life if you had, say, taken a walk three minutes earlier than you did? Certainly, there are karmic necessities; but there are a thousand possibilities that do not become action. What actually happens arises from the ground of many possibilities. It is precisely in those moments when something could have happened that did not, because we missed the opportunity, so to speak, that there is always a favorable moment for the spiritual world to shine in. Let's take an example: you miss a train because you are late. You should accept something like this with composure, because karma can work in it. A person should gradually acquire serenity. If he does so, he will feel something occurring like a dreamlike thought at moments when he could have been hit by a misfortune but missed it. This will express something that a dead person tells him and which can be an important message from over there.
In order to be able to experience a direct communication from the spiritual world, a certain soul education is required. Theosophy will give people this soul education. It can go so far that we experience, for example, through someone who has died before us, that they are constantly looking after us. If the person in question has died very young, for example, he has saved certain powers that he could have used in this life. These powers remain with him and, if the circumstances are favorable, he can send them into earthly existence. The dead person may have grown fond of us and want to send us powers. We also use these powers, but we do not know it in our living consciousness. Then the worst comes to the worst: We miss a misfortune, perhaps by not catching a train or something similar. Then, like a vivid dream image, the imagination of the person who has become dear to us and sends us his powers appears. We then have an idea of the person; and this person shows himself to us, taking care of us. We will know how to interpret such a soul.
Think how the love that souls have for each other can deepen when you know that you are not torn away from the one you leave behind; you can have an effect on him. And this effect will gradually be such that a bridge can be built. If the souls who feel close to the dead think themselves through in this way, and their love is strengthened by the possibility of further active love, then love from soul to soul will experience a kindling through that which Theosophy is able to give the souls, which can really be something great compared to the love that can be mustered today. The souls can only be brought together in the first place when one knows: Dead or alive, one belongs to one world!
To bring people to the realization that life over there or here is only a change of form, that is part of the tremendously important mission of Theosophy in our present human cycle. And only then do we understand this mission when we look at it in such a way that we really tear down the dividing wall through Theosophy, which seems to be becoming such a threatening one today, due to the fact that a materialistic attitude is spreading more and more on earth itself....
The soul is no less busy in the life between death and a new birth than here. The activities over there are indeed different from those here, but they are prepared here in earthly life. ...
Forces from the powers of the higher worlds always flow into the physical causes. [If man has been unscrupulous, then he will have to go through something shattering. Then he becomes the slave, the servant of those entities that must bring sickness and early death into the physical world.
There are people who develop enthusiasm, develop love and zeal in work; who like to do what they have to do according to their abilities, according to their karma. There are many professions where people really can't work with enthusiasm, and that will come up more and more. Therefore, the necessity arises that the souls who dutifully pursue their profession can nevertheless have something into which they can enter with enthusiasm. Through Theosophy a person can have something to do with love and enthusiasm, which develops forces in our soul. In this way we can become servants of the forces of the higher hierarchies over there, which pour freshness, growth and health into life on earth.
All these connections open our view beyond death, so to speak, and permeate our soul with the awareness that it belongs to the macrocosm and that the soul lives by living here on earth, not only living for physical existence, but that important forces develop here which will live out in a full meaning between death and a new birth. And we are given the opportunity to organize our lives in such a way that we are not impediments to the flourishing development of humanity and the world, but that we develop more and more forces that contribute to this flourishing development. - We can see this as the mission of Theosophy.