84. Free Will and Immortality
If we want to gain insights into free will and immortality, we can only do so by directing our soul to a realm that cannot be reached by the powers of knowledge of ordinary consciousness. For as soon as these powers of knowledge are at work, the soul can indeed perceive things other than itself, but not itself. It is entirely in the case of the eye, which can see other things but not itself. The eye can only be seen from the outside, by another eye, but not by itself. In the same way, the soul can only be seen from the outside. But in this case, the seer cannot be another person. For the seer does not see into the soul of another. One could more likely count on success if one could shape the vision of one's own soul in such a way that this vision could be compared to looking at one's own mirror image. Then you would have a picture of the soul before you. However, the insight into the fact that you have a mirror image in front of you would show that you are outside of the soul. Meditation brings you into this outside. And if you manage to experience things from the outside as well, you are transported into the spiritual world. Your own human nature is then itself the image of the world. Imaginative insight and inspiration enter, and the latter is recognized as the revelation of this spiritual world. But the sense of self is shattered. One realizes that this sense of self cannot exist at all without the bodily organization and the course of life. It is the sense of self that ordinary consciousness is aware of. This sense of self is, as it were, suspended in mid-air. But it is also dissolved in mid-air at the same time. One can only escape this untenable situation when intuitive knowledge is added to imaginative and inspired knowledge. Through the latter one recognizes that the human organization is only partly the carrier of the I enclosed in the organization and the course of life. One recognizes that on the one hand - the main side - the human being is in the process of degeneration, in a continuous dying of the organization. This enables the organization to become the basis for something that carries it, but in which it is uninvolved: for thinking. It is in this thinking that intuition recognizes the “I” of previous life courses. The dispersing “I” thus finds its footing. Its existence is restored through its independence from the course of life. At the same time, another insight dawns. The organization experiences overdevelopment in the extremities. Something is formed there that has nothing to do with the organic basis of the present “I”. The organization becomes the carrier of the “I”, which prepares itself as the shaper of the next organization and the next course of life. This “I” is desire. It longs for the next life. The whole human being reveals itself to the observing consciousness, and can attain freedom by bringing the eternal into the transitory. In his presence, the past reveals itself as soon as he rises above mere sensory perception in thought. And the future reveals itself in his actions. For the desire for the following course of life has no tendency in this that is directed towards the human being himself. It acts as an impulse on thought, which would not come to action without it.
In order to see all this, one must approach the processes of the world with knowledge. Ordinary knowledge is far removed from external existence. By becoming acquainted with a consciousness that is hidden in ordinary knowledge but can be revealed, man also comes closer to external processes. He connects with them. He recognizes the life of imagination as the hunger impulse of the head, which is constantly present in the waking state. It stems from the degeneration of the head organization. The seer also recognizes in the will the overdevelopment in the supersaturation of the organism in relation to the hunger feeling of the head.
In imagination, the soul-picture of hunger is present.
In volition, the soul-picture of satiety is present.
In thinking, the power of the supersensible causes a hunger by directing the nutrition of the organs to the organism.
In action, this outflow is discharged into the activity.
By thinking and acting, a wonderful process takes place in the world that is not revealed to ordinary consciousness. It can only be seen in pure spiritual perception. But people do not want to prepare themselves for this. One believes that one would enter the realm of fantasy. One does not want to cross the threshold to the supersensible world. A dark feeling prevents it. For one senses that things will arise for human knowledge that place much of it in its own power, which one likes to ascribe to an extra-human power.
Logic becomes the result of previous lives on earth and intermediate experiences. The general human sense of responsibility will have to be increased. Because actions give birth to a future personality. Thinking must gain in strength. Because it is not carried by the organization. Action weighs heavily on the soul, because it is full of promise for the future. One can no longer say, “After me, the deluge!” for the consciousness arises that one is participating in the creation of this deluge. Fear and timidity hinder higher knowledge. Mere natural science numbs. It reduces man to the level of a mere animal, because it does not dare to trace him back to something that lives only in him. And the attitude that flows from this numbs one to responsibility. For it allows man to be uninvolved in the future.
Man is in his organization through unconscious intuition; he is in the being that precedes his embodiment through unconscious inspiration; he is in the germinating formation in his organization for the future through unconscious imagination.
Imagination: merely having the image of reality: the conscious in action; therefore living in one's own essence. Inspiration: merely having the effect of reality: the conscious completely passive; therefore fleeting. Intuition: immersing oneself in reality with one's own essence.