On the formula “I am – It thinks – She feels – He wills”

I. Notes from around 1905

Anyone who strives for esoteric development must first of all realize that certain extremely simple sentences contain a hidden power that becomes effective when he allows these sentences to live in his soul. He does not grasp the truth if he tries to understand such sentences with his intellect alone. At first, they mean very little to them. They must allow their whole inner being to be filled with such a sentence for a certain period of time, surrendering themselves to it with all their soul forces. One such sentence is: “I am.”

This sentence indeed contains the whole secret of the present human existence. For only a being that has an external form like the present human being on earth can think, feel, and will such a sentence inwardly. In such a being, the form must have developed in such a way that all the forces active in the body are directed toward the form that becomes the arched forehead. This arched forehead and the “I am” belong together. In earlier stages of the development of the human form, there was a stage at which this form had not yet pushed forward to form such a forehead. At that time, the “I am” could not yet be thought, willed, or felt inwardly. Now, however, it would be completely wrong to believe that the form of the body described above produces the “I am.” This “I am” already existed before. It simply could not yet express itself in a corresponding form. Just as it now expresses itself in the physical form of the human being, it previously expressed itself in a soul world. And it is precisely this power of the “I am” that united itself in a period of the distant past with that human body that did not yet have its present forehead formation, and this power of the “I am” has raised the previous form to the present forehead. This is why, through a certain immersion in the “I am,” human beings can feel within themselves the power that has formed them into their present form. And this power is a higher power than the powers that are present in their ordinary lives today. For it is the soul's creative power that forms the physical out of the soul. - Therefore, the esoteric seeker must for a short time live completely in the “I am,” that is, he must think this “I am,” but at the same time also experience something within himself such as, “I am glad that I can participate in the world as an independent being.” And the human being must also experience something like, “I want my existence, I want to place myself in the whole context of the world.” When the human being compresses all this into a single inner act of consciousness and at the same time shifts his entire consciousness to the region of the forehead and the inner brain structures below it, he actually transports himself into a higher world from which his forehead formation has been brought about. He must not believe that he can conquer these higher worlds overnight. Rather, he must have the patience to repeat this immersion daily over a long period of time. If he has this patience, after a while he will notice how a thought dawns on him that is no longer a mere thought, but a living thought imbued with power. He will be able to say to himself, for example, “Just as this thought of mine is, so must the force that is in the plant germ and drives it up into the limbs of the plant body be alive within me.” And soon this thought will appear to him as if it were radiating light. In this inner radiance of light, the person feels happy and joyful. A feeling permeates him that can only be described as “joyful love for creative existence.” And a power is communicated to the will, as if the thought mentioned above were radiating warmth through it, making it energetic. Man can draw all this from the correct immersion in the “I am” described above. Gradually, people will recognize that intellectual, spiritual, and moral strength of the highest kind is born within them in this way, and that this brings them into an increasingly conscious relationship with a higher world.

A second such sentence is: “It thinks.” This “It thinks” represents, in a similar way to what has just been described for “I am,” the power through which the form of the human speech organs was formed from the higher worlds. When thinking was not yet expressed in a human body but still existed in a higher soul world, it caused the human form to develop, to which the organs of speech, which did not yet exist at that time, became attached. Therefore, when the esoteric seeker immerses himself completely in “It thinks” with his thinking, feeling, and will, as before, and concentrates his consciousness on the region of the larynx, he experiences the creative soul force that has manifested itself from the higher worlds in the creation of the speech organs. If he again has the patience described above, he will experience how rays emanate from the “It thinks,” which are like the starting point of a spiritual musical harmony and fill him with a feeling of holy piety and at the same time with a power that tells him: “What I want as a human being will gradually become wiser and wiser.” He will gain an inkling of that power which, as a divine spiritual power, pours through the universe and orders all things according to measure, number, and weight.

A third sentence is: “It feels.” The power of this sentence was also once—in an even earlier time—not yet in human beings, but in a higher soul world. From there it worked down and transformed the form that the human body had until then. Until then, the human body did not yet have hands that were different from feet. Today's hands and feet were then identically shaped organs of movement. That is why human beings did not yet walk upright. It was a great step forward in human development when the front organs of movement were transformed into organs of work. This enabled human beings to walk upright, which in turn enabled them to overcome lower nature by directing their gaze outwards towards the heavenly spiritual worlds. But this also made them capable of forming karma. For only the deeds of a being thus formed are under its own responsibility. To this end, spiritual beings transformed human beings when the “she feels” that had previously existed only in them flowed into the human body. When the esoteric seeker immerses himself in this “it feels” in a similar way as described above, he rises to the corresponding creative forces of the higher worlds. He must now concentrate his entire consciousness on his two arms and hands while saying “it feels.” An inner life of indescribable bliss will then flow out of the thought “She feels.” This feeling can be described as love in active existence. Through this, the human being gains an awareness of how creative love floods through the world space and, through its activity, introduces the life-giving breath into everything.

A fourth sentence is: “He wills.” It was the power of this sentence that, in the distant past, first separated the human body from its surroundings as an independent entity. Before this power acted upon it from higher spiritual worlds, the human body was not yet enclosed on all sides by an outer skin, but the material currents flowed into it and out of it from all sides. It had no independent life, but lived entirely the life of its surroundings. Of course, these surroundings were then quite different from the present earthly surroundings. When the esoteric seeker now immerses himself again with all his thinking, feeling, and willing in the “He will,” and in doing so concentrates his consciousness on the entire outer surface of the skin, he gradually places himself in the high creative forces of the “He will.” These are the forces of the supersensible world through which the things of the senses are given their form and shape. If they have sufficient perseverance, in the inner experience of this thought they will feel something like being lifted above all sensual-physical existence and looking down upon the field of sensual creation in order to work upon it in accordance with the divine thoughts gained in the spiritual world. The power that emanates from the thought is that of blissful transport into pure spirituality and the gain of consciousness that one can bring to this sensory world from higher regions what it needs.

While immersing themselves in these powerful thoughts, esotericists will at the same time have to focus their attention on their breathing process and, for a short time, transform it from an unconscious activity into a consciously regulated function. For while the described influence of the forces from higher worlds on the human form brought about the indicated transformation, the same forces within this form brought about the present respiratory system, which is necessary for a being with such independence of the body, such hands that work under their own responsibility, and such speech organs that translate the inner experience of the soul into outwardly audible sound. By directing attention to the breathing process, the ascent into the higher creative regions of the world is promoted.

When the esoteric seeker gradually learns to consciously experience what is always dormant within him in the higher world forces, what he did not know before, then what he is supposed to have already acquired through study becomes alive, intuitively clear to him. He should have familiarized himself with the fact that human beings have undergone various stages of transformation throughout the entire evolution of the earth before the present state of the earth came into being. These stages of transformation are called the Saturn state, the Sun state, and the Moon state. Now the esoteric student must also familiarize himself with the fact that in later epochs certain earlier states repeat themselves in a certain way. Thus, during the development of the earth, the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states repeated themselves, in such a way that the Saturn repetition corresponds to the creation of the “I will” in the outer human shell. The Sun repetition corresponds to the creation of the “she feels” in the arms and hands, and the Moon repetition corresponds to the creation of the “it thinks” in the speech organs. One can see how human beings abandon their view of the body as a merely created being in the sensory world and live their way into the view of the higher worlds, where the forces that create human beings are at work. And so the mere concepts that human beings have formed of such things as Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon become living perceptions and experiences. And so it must be if we are to find more and more of the way from the exoteric to the esoteric. Of course, what is given here as an exercise must be regarded only as a beginning. But first we must work through what is given here with all our energy, then we will reach the point where we can receive further exercises through which even higher forces, slumbering within the human being, will be awakened. It is important to sense the spiritual facts contained in the words “I am,” “It thinks,” “She feels,” “He wills,” and to feel their connection with the limbs of the body, which is a structure that has emerged from the spiritual world.

For information, it must be added that in the above power words, the three forms

IT-SHE-HE

are well established in the nature of the higher worlds.

“It” is the power word for world thinking, that is, those beings in the higher world to whom creative thinking is as characteristic as sensory perception is to the human beings below them.

“Sie” is the power word for the world soul, which has a feeling that flows out from it, while human feeling flows in through external stimulation. This feeling of the world soul is the creative love of the world, through which things come into existence.

“He” is the power word for the world will, the world spirit, whose will acts out of itself, while the human will is determined to act by the external world. This “he” is the creative primal force of the world.

II. Note sheet

Interpretation

Originally, humans were not yet separated from their environment—

With separation came separateness; this separateness is the effect of the God willing within them: He wills

With the upright posture of humans and the use of their arms, personal karma arises. Feeling becomes action through the hands: They feel

With the larynx, which is only capable of articulation in an upright being, comes language, the expression of thought; this thinking itself creates an expression in language: it thinks.

At the latest, with the forebrain, the

“I” consciousness appears: I am.

III. Note sheet

I am:

with concentration on the forehead: becoming aware of what the human being actually is now.

It thinks:

with concentration on the larynx: Becoming aware of what human beings had to become in order to reveal their inner being (spirit) to the outside world (speech).

She feels:

with concentration on both arms: Becoming aware of what human beings had to become in order to bring their inner being into interaction with the outer world. (Straightening up, grasping).

He wills:

with concentration on the body's boundaries: To become aware of what human beings had to become in order to reflect (perceive) the external world within themselves. (Perceiving, opening up to the outside world).