Our Dead

GA 261 — 29 October 1916, Dornach

Eulogies for Joseph Ludwig and Jacques De Jaager

Today our souls are filled with a painful sense of loss. We mourn the death of two friends, both of whom were deeply connected to what is to be achieved here in the spirit of the progressive spiritual life of humanity. The sorrowful events of our time have taken our friend Ludwig from us a few days ago, and yesterday our dear friend de Jaager passed very quickly through the gates of death.

In both our friends, we have lost workers within our spiritual life for the physical plane, whose work is faithfully carved into the structure erected here on Dornach Hill, friends of our endeavors and friends of our hearts, who have worked with deep love on the work that is so dear to us all. And so, in them, we lose collaborators of our cause in the physical realm; but we also lose two people who have become dear to us through the years of their lives that have flowed into our lives. When we experience the death of close friends, it suddenly becomes clear to us, suddenly an awareness of what they were to the world, what they did in the world, while we, as long as they walk among us, take what is graciously given to us with their lives more for granted. We, from the point of view of spiritual coexistence, which may be interrupted by death but is never separated, look at death as the introduction to a part of life that is, of course, different from the other kind of life that takes place in the physical. Although we may always be karmically connected with those with whom we are brought together in our earthly existence, we must also remember that in each new earthly existence, new threads of existence are spun with the people with whom we are brought together; and we feel these new threads of existence. When they change so much from year to year, from month to month, from week to week, from day to day, then we take it more for granted. But when what has been taken for granted comes more sharply into consciousness through the vision of the gate of death, then we feel the difference that exists between the experience that runs from day to day and that experience which lies beyond death and which, precisely through the power that spiritual science gives us, we can make into a truly living experience, one that is, in the deepest sense, imbued with the seriousness of existence. We feel the difference between this life and the one to come so that what was fluid in earthly existence becomes, as it were, fixed, so that we look back through the span of time to something that has become a human being to us, whereas previously it became something new for us every day. And the sight of the gate of death remains harrowing from this point of view as well, because we must first find our bearings for that time of preparation, which we have to go through, and after which we will find again those who have approached us, so that we may continue the threads in spiritual life that have spun themselves here in earthly life. Spiritual science will thus be well suited to connecting us more vividly and intimately, because eternally, with those who approach us in life. It will certainly not be able to lead us to trivial consolation for the justified suffering we feel when we see the gate of death before us in such a situation. Because, my dear friends, the riddle of life is not solved with theories. Life's riddles can only be solved through life itself. And every death presents us with a riddle, a riddle of life, a test of life; a riddle that we must solve while we are alive, a test that we must pass while we are alive – a riddle that, by solving it, we make ourselves more worthy of the All-Life, a test by which we learn to prove all the bonds of love that we are blessed to to tie with other like-minded souls or souls that have been brought to us by their karma. And only in the face of death do we realize what a blessing it was from the wise guidance of the world's existence that we were brought together with this or that person, with whom karma lovingly brought us together. One would like to say how mysterious the two deaths we are now under the impression of are. One has occurred in the atmosphere that surrounds us today in such a painful way, surrounded by a roar that humanity will first have to understand, learn to understand, in order to realize what has taken place through the occurrence of this painful event. And again and again we have to feel what a riddle of life stands before us when we see that today young human lives are being claimed by humanity itself. Thus, I would say, stands that which touches us painfully in the background of the one death.

And how different the other death is! Peace surrounded the dear dead yesterday, when I could only meet him after he had already passed through the gate of death, peace that radiates from a person even when life has been cut short in this way by karma, when, as in this case, a warm and earnestly striving human life gives up its physical body, as I would like to say, in voluntary conclusion of the earthly existence that one has been given for this time by one's earthly karma. And so it is a double riddle of life that we are facing. Not because spiritual science made us powerless to interfere, as in every such case death is only a transformation of life, as in every such case death is also only a change in our friendship, but because the solution that spiritual science certainly gives us in a satisfying way in such a case, because this solution first wants to be experienced.

Our friend Ludwig – what we could see of him through his life on earth, through the years he was with us, was truly able to show how a person from less than easy circumstances, who has faced many trials in life, can connect with the innermost nerve of our spiritual striving through a deep trait of his nature. Ludwig was a person whose innermost nature shaped all his thoughts and aspirations in such a way that, to a certain extent,

the idea of karma, the idea of human destiny conceived in the sense of karma, was always in the background. Without one being able to say that Louis was a fatalist, his soul was such that it always accepted with a certain peaceableness what fate brought it, and despite this connection to the powers of fate, he was always deeply interested in what life brought him. That was a fundamental trait in the character of the one who has now left us for the physical world: he accepted what life brought with a strong and steady attitude, but he was also able to give himself to the joys and exaltations of life with intense interest and understanding. I have just been given a “Abendlied” (evening song) that our friend Ludwig wrote, and we would like to remember him by reciting it.

I stand on the mountain summit,
I spread my arms.
The treetops are burning,
The sun goes home tired.
Its setting gilds the lands,
Its setting gilds the air.
The slanting rays' garment
Glows and glitters in the fragrance.
And all around it grows still, oh so still,
Yet so far and so near
The beings and things sing only one thing:
Gloria, Gloria!

And in such a deep understanding of feeling, our friend also absorbed everything that was to come out of the building and, so to speak, knew how to incorporate into his own destiny the destiny of our movement, insofar as it is embodied in the forms of our building, and he faithfully carved his diligence and love for our cause into these forms. The after-effect of this industry, the effect of this love, really radiated from his soul when he said goodbye to go to those places from which so many hopeful lives today do not return for this incarnation. Like a shadow of this intervention of fate in his life on earth, our friend Ludwig sensed what was about to happen to him in the subdued words of farewell at that time. Those who were close to him, who were able to get to know him, will hold his memory dear and precious. But also all those in whose midst he worked here, all those in whose midst he stood with his spiritual striving, united by like-minded spiritual work, will turn their thoughts to him faithfully and lovingly. For we are united with those who unite with us, namely also in faithful striving within our spiritual life, which we have chosen out of the contemplation of human karma.

And the way in which our friend Ludwig has joined the circle of loyal workers here is attested by the other poem of the two that were just handed to me, which he wrote as a farewell to his comrades in August/September 1914, that is, to those who were drawn to the same fields that he was later forced to go to, who had to leave, as he later had to, the workplace that had become dear to them. These are the words he gave these who went to war before him in his heart:

From the peace haven into the wide world,
which is engulfed in war all around,
So those who are joined here go,
There, there into the land. The heavy hour of parting strikes,
Parting draws near.
Each one feels in the bottom of his soul:
Stand fast at your post! Once more we look back
At forest and river and meadow,
Where we were united in the purest happiness
in the bosom of nature
So many hours united in faithfulness
Laughing, joking, thinking, weeping. The bonds of memory entwine
Around that which moves us,
Which, like a piece of fairyland
Everyone cherishes within. And when the world is writhing in pain
And when it steams in the blood
The great, difficult struggle
will ultimately bring us peace. The die is cast,
The iron clinks,
The battle cry rings out,
The bullet whizzes.
What must be will happen now
In those pure ether heights,
Where we shall meet again one day.

And in this spirit, which was in his soul, we want to be faithfully united with this dear friend who has now gone through the gateway of death.

Our dear friend de Jaager has been called away from an artistic life in the most eminent sense. When we look at this death that has occurred so quickly, we will, however, above all, insofar as we can say that we have before our soul de Jaager's earthly life, bathed in true beauty, we will be able to experience a feeling of deep peace even in this painful hour. De Jaager was an artist with every fibre of his soul, but an artist who gave birth to all art authentically from a deeply pious perception and fulfilment of life. When you stood in front of de Jaager's sensitive creations, so full of thoughts and feelings in the most beautiful sense, you could feel how this soul searched for an appropriate embodiment of what it sensed, as if in a vision, on the fields where her soul's gaze was directed, and where souls encounter the effects, ripples and undulations of the great riddles of existence, encountering those souls who feel the urge to pour what they see in artistic form, to pour it into forms, into artistic experience. And when, as in de Jaager's work, the soul's will creates a connecting link between the spiritual, which it senses, beholds, and the physical, which the physical eye can see and on which physical life is focused, then this artistically shaped vision is imbued with a very special magic when we see it in connection with such shy, beautiful and profound reverence for life, for the very life that appears so deeply mysterious to the spiritual scientist, but whose secrets we want to solve with our earthly existence. An artistic nature that treated all life with reverence, that was respectful of all existence, and whose reverence for life and respect for existence was expressed so beautifully in everything she created, in every thought she harbored, in every impulse with which she wanted to imbue her art. We looked, my dear friends, into the wise face, permeated with feeling-thoughts and thought-feelings, looking vividly into the world, and we will never be able to fade from our souls how gently devout and yet deeply reverent that eye looked into the riddles of existence. And we must always remember how earnestly and sincerely worthy this hand always wanted to be to shape what the contemplative eye saw and sensed of the riddles and secrets of life.

Oh, my dear friends, when we see such a life, which is so prematurely cut short, and to which one would like to attach so many, many hopes for life, hopes for the general world, hopes for our own spiritual striving, when we see that hanging before the gate of death, then, then spiritual science encourages us to look for the positive and not for the negative. The idea of karma, the idea of fate illuminated by karma, is particularly meaningful to us in the face of such a life. All that lived in de Jaager's art, what lived in his artistic sensibility, it is good to try to lovingly engage with it, hardly to be separated from two elements that perhaps seem to be connected by tragedy in this case, by the tragedy of life, but which we nevertheless want to look at with the same reverence and the same reverence for life with which de Jaager looked at life. When the power that can arise from a whole human life, perhaps from a long human life and its fulfillment, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a what otherwise a long life gives; if, in other words, the strength that we gain from a full life on earth combines, through its seriousness, through its diversity, with what must flow from the warmth, from the idealism, from the vision of the first half of life, and so what would otherwise permeate the two halves of life is used by pouring the strength of one half of life over both. What can live in a person in this way lived in Jaager's life, who in the thirty-third year of this incarnation passed through the gate of death. And it lives in his art. We look to him as to a person who took that which otherwise permeates a whole life into the first half of life. And we see this as the meaningful, as the particularly meaningful, as the extraordinarily thought-filled outpouring of his artistic endeavors. And we also saw this in the loving, faithful devotion with which he carved his skill into the forms of our building; he felt connected to our work, to our ideals, through the power of his own work, the power of his own ideals. It is precisely through such feelings that we will truly give life to the thought that must now, from this hour on, replace the other thought that was so dear to us: to be allowed to have this soul in our circle to fulfill the hopes and longings that we have for our movement. A tenderness had been poured out upon de Jaager's existence precisely because of what I described as the tragic in this life. And this tenderness was felt by those who were close to this dear friend. And this tenderness will live on in the loving, faithful memories that we want to preserve for our friend. His spiritual work will become one with our work, with our efforts and aspirations. We want to be inseparable from his will and often think how we must be compensated for what he would have achieved by standing physically beside us and working with us, what we see as flowing down to us from spiritual heights as long as we ourselves are determined by karma to work, strive and create on this physical plane.

And so let us be faithful companions to those who were particularly close to these two deceased. Among us, my dear friends, is our dear member Mrs. de Jaager, who is standing at the gate of death of the one with whom she was able to hope to spend a long, long time on this physical plane. Let us unite our thoughts and feelings with those of our dear member Mrs. de Jaager, and in this hour let us imbibe everything what can arise in our soul in terms of loyal, warm, loving feelings for the two who have passed through the gate of death, what can arise in us at the thought, which may also arise in us, of how they will be received by those who have gone before us from our ranks into the spiritual world. Let us think of ourselves together with these souls in a truly spiritual sense. But let us also allow the power of this thinking to become the power of true love, which can connect us with such dear friends who were connected with us in life, beyond the portal of death, beyond whom we think of being connected with in eternal time periods, we continue what has been initiated through that which brought us together here in earthly life. Let us carry the love that has united us here with those whom we will no longer see physically, but whom we want to take into our thoughts all the more vividly, so that our thoughts flow to them and connect us with them unceasingly.