Our Dead

GA 261 — 25 October 1920, Basel

Address at the Cremation of Harald Lille

Dear mourners! Our dear friend Harald Lille has left us young. He has covered a part of his life with us in common work, common endeavor, common striving. We got to know him, and in him we got to know what can work so that our thoughts and feelings follow his soul as it now ascends into spiritual worlds.

Since your soul left your body, dear friend Lille, all the moments in which I was able to get to know you have once again come to my mind. The memories brought me the image of your character, which now presents itself to us, the mourners, here in this moment, as we look up to your soul that has fled into the spiritual world and say goodbye to you on the physical plane. And this image presented to the soul is to give your image to this our mourning community:

The hand of fate, superhuman in its sway,
Taught you the art of measuring, forming
And the power of technology to master. But this was only the shell of your being.
Deep within, a mighty yearning pointed
Towards the path of spiritual solar heat. And this longing pointed you from the north
to our Goetheanum,
where the power of technology unites with the workings of the spirit. And there you found the warmth of soul
that you wanted to give to your heart
as the content of being you were striving for. Now carry into the spiritual heights
what you have found
through the power of the soul: divine powers.

A good many years ago now, our dear friend Lille came to our spiritual scientific community to pursue a common goal, to work together and, above all, to live together. He was educated in the technical sciences of our technical art. He brought this into our community from the outside world. But within him was something given from eternal worlds. An intimate urge for warmth of soul, for such warmth of soul that wants to be illuminated by the light of the spirit, in which man's true being must breathe, to which man's true being belongs. And how, one might say, naturally these two poles of our friend's life came together, where he could work in both directions, where he could put his technical skills at the service of a great cause together with us, but where these technical skills only serve the greater good in the external world to the extent that this cause is to be permeated by everything that the true human soul must strive for as its innermost spiritual being.

Our friend's inner being was attuned to this warmth of soul. His always kind and friendly face, his intimate and radiant eyes, spoke of the longing for this warmth of soul, which wanted to be illuminated by the light of spiritual knowledge, and to work in the service of the spiritual development of humanity. He felt a deep need to do work in the service of humanity, work that he could imbue with the consciousness of belonging to the spirit of humanity in its truth. And so he worked among us, always working diligently in the knowledge that, like every smallest part that can be worked by us, he wants to place himself in the service of the whole human movement.

Then fate took him back to his Nordic homeland, and in this Nordic homeland, to which he basically already carried the germ of the disease that developed to such an extent that our friend left this physical world, in this homeland, where he then had to stay for some time, he experienced the whole chaotic surge of our present time, he experienced all that rises up from the troubled social life and vigorously demands new forms in the development of humanity. There he became more and more mature, inclined to unite what he had drawn from spiritual insights with what he must have experienced through pain from the revolutionary movements he had gone through in his homeland.

And so he came back to us, with the germs of disease in his body, but with a soul that was striving towards the place of work that he had found within our community. From the way our friend Lille came to us at that time, it could be seen that what we were able to put into human striving and human development was the center of his entire soul's longing. He was again radiant with inner spiritual sunshine when he arrived at our Goethe Building. But the germ of a serious illness was already living in him. His soul was always courageous and striving towards the light. But his superhuman destiny had determined that this clock of life would run out early. And so he was also seized by the disease that had seized many at that time. You could see how, when he was lying in the care of our dear member, Mrs. Wirz, he was struggling on the one hand with the thing that had befallen his body. As always, he aspired to lofty heights, aspired to the content of spiritual knowledge, aspired to the warmth of the sun of the soul, his truly loving, noble inner self.

Then he would seek recreation in the mountains. And one may think, my dear mourners, that it was precisely during this search for recreation that the longing to return to the Goetheanum repeatedly passed through his soul. What he had experienced at this place, what he had experienced, that carried him, that was what really brought about in our friend - we may say it to you, dear friend, here so close to your ascent into the spiritual worlds - that mood that ultimately made him find no difference between the world he had to go through and in which he had only a short time to live, and the world he was to enter to work in as spirit and soul. The strength of his conviction, the depth of his insight, they really were visibly working spiritually in our friend's dear soul. It was what always confronted one, even in the face of painful defeat, when one looked at this countenance that could see the light to the very end.

And driven by this longing for the central spiritual place with which he had so connected his own soul, he came when our college courses were opened at the Goetheanum a short time ago. He was able to take part in the first eight days of these college courses. He attended them as a seriously ill person, heading towards death, but with a soul that was fully involved in all the knowledge that was to be acquired as a new human asset, like someone who felt called to work in this world or in another on the impulses that were to be given. And when I was allowed to see our friend again in his last days, it seemed to me as if, as a result of his striving in courage and for the light, I might say that the words of thought had finally become more and more deeply rooted in him. Even if that which of me here belongs to the physical world, may disintegrate, I am connected with the spiritual striving that I have acquired here, I belong to it in such a way that my power should be devoted to it also in other worlds, which I may enter. For him, this connection with the spiritual, which he had chosen and which had created a longing in him, was at the center of all his soul experiences, one may well say, until the last hour. He was no longer able to participate in the last part of our vacation course. But he was in the neighboring hospital, and with all the instincts of his soul he participated in it. And so he awaited the last day of his life on earth, not unlike the first day of his spiritual life, which he lived courageously and striving for the spiritual light. His thoughts lived in the stream of thought that filled his soul: courageously towards the light! — This thought permeated his soul in the last days.

And we look at this soul. It was so healthy as a soul, despite the sick body with which fate had clothed it, that it was a matter of course in its life that it stepped out of the portals of the universe to this earthly mission, and that it felt within itself all that is proper to all human souls when they inwardly behold their true being, that she felt that man on this earth has a mission to fulfill, given to him by the gods of the universe, from which she, after all, is born in her true being. A noble vision of this divine permeation of everything, that is what always filled him, even when our friend Lille was engaged in practical life. A vision of God in the most beautiful sense of the word, that is what made him say to himself: This soul of mine is born of the divine.

And he sought spiritual knowledge because he wanted to live here and die here within this physical earth in the power of Christ, and he felt that he needed spiritual knowledge that would shine through his soul with true light in order to find his way to the life and death in Christ. And so he connected himself through our spiritual science with a genuine, true Christ consciousness. As he felt born of the Divine, so he felt alive and so he lived towards death in genuine, true, living Christ consciousness. He felt the Christ living in his soul through spiritual knowledge.

And from the power of this Christ that permeated him, the man received the assurance that No matter what worlds the human soul must live through, through how many deaths it must pass, how often darkness must fall into its light, out of all lives, out of all deaths, out of all darkness, the human spirit, destined for eternity, must rise again and again. Being raised in the Holy Spirit arose for him from his consciousness of God, from his experience of Christ through spiritual knowledge.

So we look at the soul of our friend, my dear mourners, as she now departs from us. We will no longer be able to look into your eyes, dear friend, which always look so kindly. We will not see your features here in the physical world again, they are so filled with the longing for the spiritual. But we will keep them in our hearts, these features gazing longingly out of the spiritual eye. We will unite our thoughts with your soul that also strives in the spiritual. Dear friend, you have united yourself with us, we will remain united with you, even if we can only reach in our hearts what you yourself, after you have left us physically, carry in your soul as your aspiration. We have grown fond of you. There are many among us who feel this at this very moment. They have grown fond of you, fond of you in a spiritual-soul bond that cannot be broken. You are among us. At this moment, we think of your distant relatives in the far north who cannot be here, who are thinking of you at this moment. We direct our feelings so that our thoughts can say to your loved ones in the far north: You do not leave the physical world here without being surrounded by loving hearts, by loving hearts that are aware that they must replace for you even in this moment the loving togetherness with those in your homeland whom you left to go to a spiritual place of striving.

And so you, the relatives of our dear friend Lille in his distant homeland, may feel how we stand here in faithful love as his soul leaves his physical body, and you, who love him, who gave him to us, be aware that he has found loving souls here, that he does not rush out of this physical world without love.

The superhuman rule of fate
Taught you the art of measuring, shaping
And the power of technology. This remained only the shell of your being.
Deep inside, a mighty yearning
Pointed to the path to spiritual solar warmth. And this longing pointed you from the north
to our Goetheanum,
where the power of technology unites with the workings of the spirit. And there you found the warmth of soul
that you wanted to give to your heart
as the content of being you were striving for. Now, into the heights of the spirit
Take what you have found
Through the power of the soul: divine powers.

We have found You in life. You have united Your powers with ours in earthly life. Here we stand to empathize with Your soul, to prepare ourselves to unite our thoughts with Your thoughts, which You carry into the work of the eternities. We deeply feel what is to shine before our soul once more, for the last time, as the beginning and end of Your image:

The superhuman rule of fate
Educated you in the art of measuring, forming
And in the power of technology. Now, in the heights of the spirit
Take what you have found
Through the power of the soul: God's powers.

In life, we were united with you. In spirit, we want to remain united with you forever in the sense of what you have won as your realization-conviction. From the Divine, the human soul is born. In the Christ, the human soul must die if it truly wants to live. In the Holy Spirit it must be resurrected and will always be resurrected. That was your conviction, that you carried through death. This will shine for you as the light of the spirit, since you are now to enter the other paths.

Yours, dear friend, forever!