Shame and Fear: Lunar and Jupiter Consciousness

GA 266I — 16 January 1908, Munich

Esoteric Lesson

In our last esoteric lesson, we dealt with the great laws of spiritual life as they reveal themselves in the course of human evolution. We dealt with the great spiritual powers that guide everything that happens on the physical plane and that succeed one another in their activity. Today we will speak in a somewhat more intimate way about the laws of spiritual life as they unfold within the human being himself.

Those who are engaged in occult training are, in a certain sense, waiting, searching. They are waiting for a new world to reveal itself to them one day, beyond the one they have always perceived. They wait until one day they can say to themselves: I see a new world; between all the things I have been able to perceive in space, I see a multitude of spiritual beings that were previously hidden from me. To make this clear to you, you must once again call to mind the seven states of consciousness that human beings pass through in the course of their development. The first state of consciousness that human beings went through was a dull, dim level of consciousness in which they felt at one with the cosmos; we call this state Saturn existence. In Sun existence, the scope of consciousness decreased, but it became all the brighter. When humans then lived through the lunar existence, their consciousness was similar to what we experience as the last remnants in our dreams; it was a dull image consciousness. Here on Earth, we have the bright daytime consciousness, which will remain when humans rise again to image consciousness on Jupiter, so that we will then have a bright image consciousness there. Human beings will then continue to rise to two higher states, the inspired and intuitive states of consciousness. So our bright daytime consciousness stands in the middle between the dull image consciousness of the moon and the bright image consciousness of Jupiter. And what the esotericist waits for, that one day it will be revealed to him, is the Jupiter consciousness. It will come to each of you at some point, sooner for some, later for others, depending on your abilities and your degree of inner maturity.

However, the Jupiter consciousness is already present in its earliest stages in every human being. The future consciousness is already hinted at in a very delicate way, but human beings are not yet able to interpret it. This is precisely what esoteric life consists of to a large extent: the student learns to correctly interpret the subtle processes within themselves and in their environment. The old lunar consciousness has not yet completely disappeared, but is still present in its last vestiges. The two states in modern human beings, in which the old lunar consciousness is still present in one and the new Jupiter consciousness is already present in the other, are the sense of shame and the sense of fear. In the feeling of shame, where the blood is forced to the periphery of the body, a last remnant of the lunar consciousness still lives, and in the feeling of fear, where the blood flows to the heart to find a firm center there, the Jupiter consciousness announces itself. Thus, normal daytime consciousness swings in two directions.

When we feel ashamed of something and blush, we experience something reminiscent of the lunar existence. Imagine a lunar person. He could not yet say “I” to himself, but lived in a dull, twilight consciousness of images, completely embedded in astral forces and beings with which he felt at one and in harmony. Imagine, my sisters and brothers, that one day, a feeling suddenly dawned on such a moon person: I am an “I.” I am different from the others, I am an independent being, and all the other beings around me are looking at me. The whole moon-person would have been filled with an immense feeling of shame, and would have tried to disappear, to sink into the ground out of shame, if he had been able to feel such a premature sense of self. So too, my sisters and brothers, when a feeling of shame comes over us, we would like nothing better than to disappear, to sink into the ground, as it were, to dissolve our sense of self. Imagine how the old moon man was embedded in harmony with the forces and beings of his environment. When an enemy approached him, he did not think, but knew instinctively how to avoid it. He acted on a feeling which, if he had been conscious, he could have expressed something like this: I know that the laws of the world are not such that this wild animal will now tear me apart, but the harmony of the world is such that there must be means to protect me from my enemy.

The old moon man felt completely at one with the forces of the universe. And if a sense of self had awakened in him, it would have immediately disturbed this harmony. And indeed, when the sense of self began to permeate human beings on Earth, it brought them more and more into disharmony with their environment. The clairaudient hears the universe resounding in tremendous harmony, and when he compares this with the sounds that reach him from individual human beings, he finds that today there is a discord in all human beings, more in some than in others, but it is a discord nonetheless. And it is your task, in the course of your development, to dissolve this discord into harmony more and more. This discord arose through the ego, but it was wisely established by the spiritual powers that rule and guide the universe. If human beings had always remained in harmony, they would never have attained independence. The discord was introduced so that human beings could freely regain harmony through their own efforts. The self-conscious sense of self therefore had to develop at the expense of inner harmony. When the time comes for the Jupiter consciousness to dawn and human beings to come back into harmony with the forces of the cosmos, they will carry their self-aware sense of self over into the new state of consciousness, so that they will then be independent beings and yet in harmony with the universe.

We have now seen that the new Jupiter consciousness is already announcing itself in the feeling of fear. But whenever a future state begins to appear before its time, it is premature and out of place. This will become clear to you with an example. If you force a flower that should bloom in August to bloom in a greenhouse in May, it will not be able to bloom in August when its actual flowering season arrives; its powers will be exhausted and it will no longer fit into the conditions it should then encounter. And even in May, as soon as it is taken out of the greenhouse, it will have to perish because it does not fit into the natural conditions of that season. It is exactly the same with the feeling of fear. It is out of place today and even more so in the future. What happens when we feel fear? The blood is pressed into the center of the human being, into the heart, to form a firm center there, to make the human being strong against the outside world. It is the innermost power of the ego that causes this. This power of the ego, which acts on the blood, must become ever more conscious and powerful, and on Jupiter, the human being will then consciously direct his blood to the center and be able to make himself strong. However, what is unnatural and harmful about this today is the feeling of fear associated with this blood flow. This must no longer be the case in the future; only the forces of the ego, without fear, must be at work there.

In the course of human development, the external world around us is becoming increasingly hostile. You must learn more and more to counter the pressing external world with your inner strength. But fear must disappear in the process. And especially for those undergoing esoteric training, it is necessary, absolutely necessary, that they free themselves from all feelings of fear and anxiety. Fear is only justified when it makes us aware that we need to become strong, but all unnatural feelings of fear that torment human beings must disappear completely. What would happen if people still had feelings of fear and dread when the Jupiter consciousness sets in? The outer world would appear much, much more hostile and terrifying to them than it does today. A person who does not rid themselves of fear here will fall from one terrifying horror into another there.

This state of affairs is already becoming increasingly apparent in the outer world. And it will become even clearer to human beings in the terrible time that will dawn under the rule of Oriphiel, of whom I spoke to you last time. By then, human beings must have learned to stand firm! Our present-day culture is itself creating the terrifying monsters that will threaten human beings on Jupiter. Look at the gigantic machines that human technology has constructed today with all its ingenuity! In them, man is creating the demons that will rage against him in the future. Everything that man builds today in the way of technical devices and machines will come to life in the future and oppose man in a terrible way. Everything that is created out of pure utilitarianism, out of individual or collective egoism, will be the enemy of man in the future. Today, we ask far too much about the usefulness of what we do. If we really want to promote development, we must not ask about usefulness, but rather whether something is beautiful and noble. We should not act solely out of a principle of utility, but out of pure joy in beauty. Everything that humans create today to satisfy their artistic needs, out of pure love of beauty, will also come to life in the future and contribute to the higher development of humanity. But it is terrible to see today how many thousands of people are encouraged from early childhood to know no other activity than that which serves material ends, cut off throughout their lives from everything beautiful and artistic. The most magnificent works of art should hang in the poorest elementary schools; this would bring infinite blessings to human development. Man builds his own future. One can get an idea of what it will be like on Jupiter, for example, when one realizes that today there is nothing absolutely good and nothing absolutely evil. Today, good and evil are mixed in every human being. The good must always tell himself that he has only a little more good in him than the evil, but that he is by no means good in himself. On Jupiter, however, good and evil will no longer be mixed, but people will divide into those who are entirely good and those who are entirely evil. And everything we cultivate today that is beautiful and noble serves to strengthen the good on Jupiter, and everything that is done solely from the point of view of egoism and utility strengthens the evil.

In order for humans to be fully equal to the evil forces of the future, they must gain control of the innermost power of their ego; they must be able to consciously regulate their blood so that it makes them strong against evil, but without any fear. He must then have control over the force that drives the blood inward. But he must not lose the other ability, that of allowing the blood to flow from the heart to the periphery. For the Jupiter state will in a certain sense also mean a return to the old lunar consciousness. Man will come back into harmony with the great laws of the world and feel at one with them. He will regain the ability to flow together with the spiritual world powers, but not unconsciously and dimly as on the moon. On Jupiter, he will always maintain his clear daytime consciousness and self-aware sense of self, yet live in harmony with the forces and laws of the world. The discord will then dissolve into harmony. And in order to be able to flow into the harmony of the universe in this way, he must consciously learn to let the innermost power of his ego radiate out from his heart. He must therefore be able to consciously centralize the inner forces of his blood when he encounters an enemy, and he must also be able to consciously radiate them out. Only then will he be able to cope with future circumstances.

Those who strive for inner development must begin today to gradually gain control of these forces. They do this by consciously learning to breathe in and out. When a person breathes in, the forces of the ego come into activity, connecting them with the forces of the cosmos, those forces that radiate outward from the heart. And when a person exhales and holds their breath, the forces of the ego that strive toward the center, toward the heart, become active and create a firm center there. In this way, if the student consciously performs his breathing exercises in this sense, he gradually learns to master the forces of his ego. However, no one should believe that they can undertake such exercises independently if they have not yet received instruction. Everyone will receive it at the right time. But even for those who do not yet do such exercises, it is never too early to become acquainted with the meaning of these exercises and to gain an understanding of them. They will then be all the more fruitful for them later on. In this way, my sisters and brothers, you will gain more and more understanding of the subtle processes within yourselves and in the world as a whole, and gradually grow into the future periods of human development.