To Mathilde Scholl in Cologne

Berlin, December 28, 1903

Dearest Fräulein Scholl.

Please find below the beginning of the interpretation of “Light on the Path”. This is intended to provide a way to meditate on the book. I will continue the interpretation for you as soon as possible.

I will send the diplomas at the latest tomorrow. I would like this letter to go out to you immediately. Give my warmest regards to your dear housemates [Künstlers]

Please accept our warmest regards,

Dr. Rudolf Steiner
Berlin W, Motzstrasse 17

"Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears. Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must fade. Before the voice can speak before the masters, it must unlearn its wounds. And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must wet its feet."

What the mind directed toward the finite (Kama Manas)¹ calls truth is only a subspecies of what the esotericist seeks as “the truth.” For intellectual truth refers to that which has become, that which is apparent. And the apparent is only a part of being. Every thing in our environment is at once a product, a creature (that is, something that has become, something apparent) and a seed (something unapparent, something becoming). And only when one considers a thing as both aspects (become and becoming) does one realize that it is a member of the One Life, the life that has time not outside itself but within itself. Thus, finite truth is also only something that has become; it must be enlivened by a becoming truth. The former is grasped, the latter is “observed.” All purely scientific truth belongs to the first kind. For those who seek such truth alone, “Light on the Path” is not written. It is written for those who seek the truth that is today a seed and will become the product of tomorrow; and who do not grasp what has become, but observe what is becoming. If anyone wants to understand the teachings of “Light on the Path,” they must produce them as their own and yet love them as something completely different, just as a mother produces her child as her own and loves it as something different.

The first four teachings are those which, when understood, open the gateway to esotericism. — What does man bring to the objects of his knowledge? Whoever examines himself will find that joy and pain are his response to the impressions of the sensory and supersensory world. It is so easy to believe that one has discarded pleasure and displeasure. But one must descend into the most hidden corners of one's soul and bring up one's pleasure and displeasure; for only when all such pleasure and all such displeasure are consumed by the bliss of the higher self is knowledge possible. One thinks that this will make one a cold and sober person. That is not the case. A piece of gold remains the same piece of gold—in weight and color—even if it is transformed into a piece of jewelry. In the same way, Kama² remains what it is—in content and intensity—even when it is spiritually transformed. The Kama force should not be eradicated, but incorporated into the content of the divine fire. Thus, the tenderness of the eye should not be discharged in tears, but should gild the impressions received. Dissolve every tear and give the sparkling brilliance it has to the ray that penetrates the eye. Wasted energy is your pleasure and your pain; wasted for knowledge. For the energy that flows out into this pleasure and this pain should flow into the object of knowledge.

“Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.”

Those who still detest criminals in the ordinary sense, and those who still worship saints in the ordinary sense, have not weaned their eyes from tears. Burn all your tears in the will to help. Do not weep over the poor; recognize their situation and help! Do not grumble about evil; understand it and transform it into good. Your tears only cloud the pure clarity of the light. The less sensitive you are, the more tender your feelings will be. Sound becomes clear to the ear when this clarity is not disturbed by the delight and sympathy that meet it as it enters the ear.

“Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must disappear.”

In other words, this means: Let the heartbeats of others echo within you and do not disturb them with the beating of your own heart. You should open your ears, not your nerve endings. For your nerve endings will tell you whether a sound is pleasant or not, but your open ears will tell you what the sound itself is like. When you go to the sick, let every fiber of his body speak to you and silence the impression he makes on you.

And to summarize the first two sentences: Reverse your will, let it become as powerful as possible, but do not let it flow into things as your own; instead, inquire into the nature of things and then give them your will; let yourself and your will flow out of things. Let the light of your eyes flow from every flower, from every star, but hold back yourself and your tears. Give your words to things that are silent, so that they may speak through you. For these silent things are not an invitation to your desire, but an invitation to your activity. It is not what they have become without you that is there for you, but what they are to become must be there through you.

And as long as you impose your desire on a single thing without this desire being born from the thing itself, you wound the thing. But as long as you wound anything, no master can hear you. For the master hears only those who need him. But no one needs a master who wants to impose himself on things. The lower self of man is like a sharp needle that wants to dig itself into everything. As long as it wants to do that, no master will want to hear its voice.

“Before the masters can speak, they must unlearn how to wound.”

As long as the sharp needles of “I want” still protrude from a person's words, their words are the messengers of their lower self. Once these needles have been removed and the voice has become soft and supple, so that it wraps itself like a veil around the secrets of all things, it weaves itself into a garment of spirit (Majavirupa), and the master's tender sound clothes itself in it. With every thought that man devotes in the true sense of the word to the inner truth of things, he weaves a thread into the garment in which the master who appears to him may clothe himself. He who makes himself a messenger to the world, an organ through which the depths of the world's mysteries speak, “pours the life of his soul into the world,” his heart's blood wets his feet so that they may carry him swiftly to where he is needed. And when the soul is where the lower self is not, when it is not where man stands enjoying himself, but where his active feet have carried him, then the master also appears there.

“And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must wet its feet.”

Those who remain within themselves cannot find the Master; those who want to find him must let the power of their soul—the blood of their heart—flow into their actions, into their active feet.

This is the first meaning of the four fundamental teachings. Those who live by this first teaching will be able to understand the second, and then the following ones. For these teachings are occult truths, and every occult truth has at least seven meanings. —