The Three Sheaths and the Path to True Self

GA 266III — 13 July 1923, Stuttgart

Esoteric Lesson

Esoteric hour for the Youth Circle

[This text follows template B, unless otherwise noted.]

(Template E: Rudolf Steiner arrived a little earlier than expected, around 8 p.m., while we were waiting for him in the library on Landhausstraße. Due to acute disagreements and depressed by the news of the ‘resignation’ of our friend [name unknown], we had asked Rudolf Steiner for a meeting. While we were waiting, we had once again fallen into discussion about our difficulties. Then Rudolf Steiner entered unexpectedly. We were prepared to describe our difficulties to him and ask for his advice. Instead, after he and Mrs. Marie Steiner had taken their seats, he immediately began to speak to us on his own initiative, addressing us with the words:)

My dear sisters and brothers!

For a long time to come, the meditations will remain valid as the gift you have received for your inner work. Today, something is to be given that can help to deepen the mood during practice infinitely. (He described what we were to receive as a kind of “satellite to our daily exercises.” Then he began to explain:)

Meditation consists of words that one must first become accustomed to. But today, people sleep when they hear words. For example, we think the word “wake” comes from “grow,” when in fact it comes from “to be soft” — as it still does in the dialect of some regions today, where ‘waach’ means “soft.” What does someone today actually experience when they hear an expression such as, “Your words have softened my heart”?

(The gently insistent tone in which this sentence, and especially its last word, was spoken penetrated deeply into the minds of those who heard it.) (Source E: One must imagine how a seal is pressed into wax; that is how the speech pressed itself into my soul.)

One must develop a completely different relationship to words. Take, for example, the words “sleep” and “wake.” These words mean something completely different from what we usually understand by them. The sleeper and the waking person are in the same external environment, but the waking person is aware of this world, while the sleeper knows nothing about it. The same is true of the anthroposophist in relation to the non-anthroposophist: the anthroposophist knows of a world, the spiritual world in which the other also lives, but without knowing anything about it. This difference applies even more strongly to the meditator. That is why the meditator must become modest in the use of words.

(This last sentence could not fail to find a particularly serious

echo in our souls in the aftermath of the discussion that had just taken place among us.)

(Source E: The difference between the serious mood in which Rudolf Steiner spoke and the mood in which we ourselves had arrived was very great.)

Another such word is the word “I.” This word occupies a special position among all words in human language. At about the age of three, humans learn to use this word. However, this is an age at which no real self-consciousness yet exists. Therefore, one initially learns to speak this word only automatically. It is not until the age of 21 that the ego is born. However, what emerges at this point is still not the true ego, even throughout one's entire life. As an ordinary human being, one only encounters the true ego again after death. Thus, every human being uses the word “I” only provisionally until death. The meditator must become particularly aware of this provisional use of the word “I.” He must learn that he must first gradually find the way to the true self by learning to experience it through all three of his sheaths.

(Rudolf Steiner then began to discuss the three sheaths in turn, starting with the physical body.)

The physical body is subject to gravity, just like minerals. Opposed to this is the force of light. Both forces work against each other in the heart: heaviness pulls downwards, light pulls upwards. In order to connect properly with the experience of heaviness, take a crystal in your hand, but do not look at its transparency, that is, its lightness, but let its heaviness work on you. (The words “heaviness” and “lightness” had already been spoken in such a way that real heaviness and lightness could be experienced in them. Now Rudolf Steiner seemed to weigh a crystal in his hand so that its heaviness could be experienced in the movement of his hand. From this point on, his devotion to sound and gesture became ever stronger and more expressive.)

Just as with such an external body, one must also learn to experience one's own physical body. It must become completely the same to one whether one shovels a pile of sand from one side to the other (and immediately he performed the movement of shoveling with complete devotion) or whether one moves one's own body through space. In this way, the meditator must regain that experience which is quite natural to the Oriental, and which he describes with the words: “I carry my body through the door.”

However, the individual heavy things on earth do not have weight because the earth attracts each of them individually, but because they are all subject to the uniform weight of the earth. Our task is to consciously live into this heavy nature of the earth. The following saying serves to deepen this experience:

My own being is interwoven with the heaviness of the earth.

(Template E: Rudolf Steiner used increasingly emphatic vocal gestures when speaking. Thus, heaviness really prevailed in the individual words with which he characterized the heaviness of the earth. In stark contrast to this were the words with which he described the lightness of light:)

Only when one is completely immersed in the element of heaviness does one advance to the experience of lightness. In dreams of flying, this element penetrates human experience. Modern psychology interprets this dream completely wrongly, taking it to be a nightmare. For fear is connected with constriction. In dreams of flying, however, one dreams precisely of expansion, of lightness.

The power of lightness is linked to the sun. It is the power that causes water to rise from the earth and evaporate. This evaporated water then condenses again into clouds and returns to the earth as rain. But it is not correct to think that the power of lightness only lifts the water up to this sphere. In truth, the substance of water is carried much further. For it is completely dematerialized by lightness. When the clouds rise and disappear, the water ceases to be material. However, the power of the sun that causes this can be so strong that too much of the earth's water is etherized. Then too much foreign ether accumulates in the earth's environment. The accumulated ether then suddenly breaks back into the material sphere of the earth. We experience this as the phenomenon of lightning. In it, the ether substance glows, condensing into a watery form in the rain or even into a solid form in hail. In lightning, the sky tears apart and the accumulated ether breaks down. However, what happens suddenly and audibly in this way during a thunderstorm also happens constantly and rhythmically in a quiet manner: in evaporating water and in the gathering clouds.

In order to live into this element of lightness, it is helpful to place a cosmic image before the soul: for example, a dark, heavy mountain or a dark forest, with clouds hanging in front of it, rising toward the light and gradually dissolving and disappearing. The following saying serves to deepen our understanding of this element:

My own being is interwoven with the lightness of light.

The plant is caught between the earth and the sun. From below, gravity acts upon it, from above, light. This light streams down from the universe onto the earth, is absorbed by the earth and stored within it. At the same time as the light, warmth enters the earth. This inflow takes place during summer and fall. During winter, light and warmth rest in the earth. In spring, the light is released and pulsates elastically back to the universe. In doing so, it causes plants to grow. Today, humans do not know much about the warmth stored in the earth during winter. Only farmers use it, for example when they bring their potatoes into storage. - So the light flows elastically up - down, up - down.

(Again, this was accompanied by impressive gestures.)

The plant lives in this pulsation. This is why it can move vertically: it can grow and shrink. But it cannot move horizontally from its place. Animals and humans, on the other hand, are free to move horizontally. This liberation from the earth gives them breath. Breath enables them to move across the earth. In the same way, the atmosphere itself spreads horizontally, encompassing the entire earth. Only those beings that can breathe freely can also walk freely. When we consider this, every step becomes a mystery of walking. The following saying serves to deepen our understanding of this element:

My own being is interwoven with the power of breath.

(All three sheaths and the cosmic forces interwoven with them were now gone through a second time, shining even deeper into this connection and then leading it up to the comprehension of the I.)

If one wants to understand the nature of gravity as it works in the human body, one must look at embryonic development. During this stage, gravity has no effect on the human body. It floats in amniotic fluid. It is only through physical birth that the human being enters into gravity. The same is true of the body of the Earth. The nature of gravity also only became connected with it in the course of time [Template E: in the course of its development]. When one sinks spiritually into gravity, one is led back to the cosmic past of the earth and thus to the experience of that moment when the earth was born out of the divine Father forces. In this way, one is led to an encounter with these divine Father forces themselves. Hence the saying:

My own being is interwoven with the heaviness of the earth

to the experience of:

Ex Deo nascimur

Every time you fall asleep, you enter the world where the lightness of light reigns. [Source E: “If you learn to fall asleep consciously, you will also become aware of this.”] It is the same world that you enter through the gate of death. It is the realm in which Christ lives today. You reach it by dying out of the physical world. Hence the saying:

My own being is interwoven with the lightness of light

to the experience of:

In Christo morimur

Darkness and light, heaviness and lightness have opposite effects on plants. Both are connected by the element of air. This is most clearly experienced in the appearance of the morning and evening glow. But what the ordinary eye perceives in the east and west, the more refined spiritual eye also perceives in the north and south and all around in the horizontal plane in all directions. The element of air surrounds the entire earth. Thus, in this sphere, human beings also become members of the whole earth. The saying, “My own being is interwoven with the heaviness of the earth,” connects us with the physical world. The power of the etheric lives in the lightness of light. Through our breath, we connect with the astral, which gives us the free movement of our limbs and the strength of will. Inhaling is connected with being born, with awakening; exhaling with dying, with falling asleep. We breathe in living air and breathe out dead air. We form speech in the air we exhale. This is a spiritual act of will through which the dead air is revived. Therefore, deepening our understanding of the saying:

My own being is interwoven with the strength of my breath

to the experience of:

Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus

The human ego is surrounded by three shells. This ego itself is not selfish. Only the shells are selfish. Once the I is freed from its shells, it immediately wants to expand into the entire cosmos. But it is enclosed in its three shells. The Orientals have the image of the lotus flower for this enclosure. In this flower, too, the innermost core is surrounded by three circles of petals.

(As Rudolf Steiner spoke these words, he rested his elbows on the table and formed the shape of a flower bud with his hands in front of him. His gesture and voice were now particularly tender and devoted [source G: tenderness and intimacy]. Then he said:)

The Indian expressed this with the words:

Aoum mani padme aoum¹ My self is determined in the lotus flower

If you want to reach your true self, you must pass through all three shells. This results in three stages that lead to the self.

(The following was spoken with a ritual intonation. Each time, he let his arms fall heavily to the right and left, and then moved them back again to form the flower shape.)

One steps onto the first stage and experiences:

My own being is interwoven with the heaviness of the earth
Ex Deo nascimur

The first shell falls away.

One enters the second stage and experiences:

My own being is interwoven with the lightness of light
In Christo morimur The second veil falls.

You step onto the third step and experience:

My own being is interwoven with the strength of breath²
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus The third veil falls.

(Template C: Every time Rudolf Steiner mentioned the falling of the veils, he let his forearms and hands fall heavily onto the table. In the way he pronounced the word “fall,” he again audibly depicted the falling of the veil in question. He concluded the lesson by repeating the Indian mantra, which he said could be practiced either in its original form or in German translation.)

Aoum mani padme aoum [hum]

(It had grown dark in the meantime. In the last light, only the delicate white of Rudolf Steiner's face and hands were visible. After he had signaled that the lesson was over, the lights were turned on, and he stood up and took his leave of us, shaking hands with each of us and also with Mrs. Marie Steiner.)

(Note [by the recorder]: Rudolf Steiner said that the Sanskrit words could be meditated on in their original form or translated into one's own language.)

Explanation: In another context, he said that the syllable ‘Aoum’ originally sounded like this, as far as we can reproduce it today. A is the sound of amazement, O the sound of reverence and admiration, and U the sound of fear. All three together as one sound produce the sound of awe.

‘Mani’ is the vocal expression for the purest, innermost, essential, and thus in the mineral kingdom, pure crystal, especially rock crystal; in plants, especially the lotus, the innermost part of the flower, where the fragrance arises; in humans, the ego. ‘Padme’ means ‘in the lotus.’)