Goethe and the Present

GA 68c — 28 November 1909, Leipzig

XXIX. The Essence of Egoism (Goethe's “Wilhelm Meister”)

We should never confuse things with words, especially with slogans. If we understand the enrichment of one's own self as egoism, we would have to place egoity in a category to which it belongs. [If we strive for the enrichment of our own self, we must first deal with human nature and here I come first to the ego, which can assert itself in various ways in the three human bodies.] I have often spoken to you about our four bodies. The ego within is just another name for the self. It permeates the three bodies with its substantiality, asserting itself in them with varying degrees of force.

With regard to the physical body, man does not have it at his discretion to rein this ego, which asserts itself more firmly within him than it should. It does not work. Why does it do that? Because at some point in his development, man has experienced an influence in the Lemurian period, the Luciferic influence. Man is permeated by the Luciferic entities. This asserts itself in all three realms of the body. [Later, man will succeed in acting on all three bodies; now he only succeeds in acting on his astral body, on his desires and passions.] You know that man is increasingly able to rework the bodies. Today he has this in his hands with the astral body. It is more difficult with the etheric body. And with the physical body [he has no influence at all], but that lies in the distant future. It will only become possible through the occult development of the breathing process, [in which he develops “Atma” within himself, which happens through a special breathing]. The part of the etheric body that we are reworking [develops “Budhi” within itself, and now that it can act on its astral body, it develops “Manas”. These influences are transformations of the different bodies. The influence that took place at that time through satanic entities is designated as “serpent,” and through this influence on man, the I of man was brought to stronger activity. If today the I asserts itself more strongly in the physical body than it would be without the satanic influence in the Lemurian time – serpent in Paradise – then man can do nothing. Lucifer brings the I to a more intense effect in the physical body. The first thing that came about as a result is death. Death is the direct consequence of a strengthened I. [And death will no longer come when the influence of the luciferic beings is overcome.]

What would have happened without Lucifer? We only need to describe what man would be like. He would grow old, but would begin to soften his muscles and bones through the powers of the soul, detach parts, gradually sweat out material parts. He would thus be able to attract other matter and rebuild the body. There would be a transformation that would take place consciously, a beneficial process. [He is not yet able to do that, and that is why death occurs, to dissolve the matter.] Death has occurred due to the densification of the bone system. [There would be no illness if the power of the ego were not working so strongly.] This inability to dissolve one's own matter, that is death. When the earth will have reached the end of its development, it will undergo a metamorphosis. It is different now because of the solidification by Lucifer. Through his influence, illness comes. Man has no influence on this at the moment. In the processes that should take place like dissolution and composition, and now do not take place that way, the cause of the illnesses predominates. The daytime thinking is a continuous dissolution of substances in the brain. [During the night, the dissolved parts are reassembled by the spiritual world.] The night is there to send forces from the spiritual world. [Somehow there must be balance in the breakdown and construction.] In the moment when not so much is built in at night as is dissolved during the day, the disease is there. The disease can only occur because there is an ego in the organism that is exerting itself too strongly.

Now, in the etheric body, how is the activity [through a too strongly acting ego]? It asserts itself through the possibility of error on the one hand and of lies on the other. Man is subject to error because the ego works too much in the etheric body, not in harmony with the outside world. Now, and the lie? When we lie, this thought form is formed as a real fact, and in the spiritual world there arises what we call an explosion in the physical world. If the I did not merge in the etheric body, the person would know that what is not in accordance with the truth, with reality, causes destruction, an explosion. We have to take this into our karma, destroying our life's journey until we have balanced it again. A liar destroys as much in his karma as bomb explosions in the physical world. Lies and errors are caused by the ego asserting itself too strongly in the etheric body.

The astral body is filled with what is called selfishness and egoism because the I goes beyond the measure of assertion. We must be clear about this when we study selfishness in the astral body. The astral body consists of a sentient body and a sentient soul. We must distinguish this exactly. The sentient body is of an astral nature, but built up from the outside during the lunar period. Now, in the sentient body, the substance of the sentient soul is secreted at a subconscious level. What the sentient body is, that is quite all right with humans. Therefore, they have the ability to properly perceive their environment. Schopenhauer [only retained the idea]: the world as an idea. [He said:] Without the eye there is no light. But it is also true that without light there is no eye. This is because physical light is completely flooded with astral light, and that is what the eye has developed [from the human being]. So it is the astral that brings out and then chisels out the astral in the human being.

[First, the astral senses are developed through the influx of astral substance.] This is how we come into harmony with the outside world. If we only had the sentient body, we would be soulless creatures, [we would see with the eye] but without joy; [the outside world would only be reflected in us]. But now we have the sentient soul in addition. In the sentient body, the 'I' will be able to be a little stronger than the correct measure would have been without the influence of Lucifer. [The influence of the Luciferic entities asserts itself in the sentient soul; it does not reach the sentient body.] This has an effect in the sentient soul. Then the discord arises. That is egoism. When the I constricts the forces of the sentient soul too strongly, then egoism arises. The sentient body also takes in beautiful impressions, but the sentient soul cannot rejoice in them. The world gives the colors. The sentient soul should pour itself into what the sentient body gives. He who finds the possibility of going out of himself so far as to embrace the world strengthens his ego. This egoism is healthy because it is rich in content. All beings should do this.

When the rose adorns itself, it also adorns the garden.

Schiller says:

Are you seeking the highest, the greatest? The plant can teach you. What it is without will, be you the willing one – that's it!

Angelus Silesius:

The rose has no why,
it blossoms because it blossoms;
it pays no attention to itself,
does not ask if it is seen.

The person who develops their own abilities as much as possible will serve their fellow human beings the most. Not leaving any of our inner powers undeveloped leads us to salvation. [But in the pursuit of developing our powers as much as possible,] there is a danger of falling into destructive selfishness, but without that, human beings could not develop any freedom. And so, for some, selfishness can lead to good fortune, while for others it can lead to disaster. Plants are prevented from growing beyond measure. When a blossom is at its most beautiful, it has brought forth its own essence. At the moment when there is a danger of its ego being emphasized, of its selfhood developing, the pollen arrives and the blossom must merge with the germ and die. This law also applies to a certain extent to human beings. When they create harmony between the sentient soul and the sentient body, they also experience that the moment they harden and do not pour themselves out into the world, they wither away. There are people who create harmony between what flows into the soul and what it experiences. They are then harmonious. This must be the aim of education. But people in whom the I is too active in the sentient soul, without balance in the outer life, where the inflow and outflow are not in harmony, these people become desolate. They cannot feel anything, not even in front of a work of art. This is the secret of what happens in egoism. People must find a way to become inflamed by the impressions of nature, [to learn to feel something when confronted with works of art]. The physician should put himself in the place of what the soul experiences; [an inner feeling must penetrate even into external movements, for example, when doing gymnastics]. He must be able to take joy in his surroundings; that is a spiritual person.

In other areas, we must establish this harmony, for example, in the knowledge of ourselves. We must find harmony in our knowledge of ourselves. “Know thyself” is often misunderstood. To reconcile our true self with knowledge of the world is self-knowledge, and it is part of the education of the human being to achieve that self-knowledge, which is selfless; to achieve justified selflessness so that the ego can pour itself out into the world again. Just don't brood! That hardens us. Self-knowledge is something that leads us to flourish. Otherwise we wither away as misfits, as pale envious people. If we seek the God only in us, we place ourselves in discord with the world. If we seek him in world knowledge, [we work outwardly], then there is a restorative equilibrium in our will impulses. This is an important law in relation to what we want. For nothing works as long as it remains within us, but only when it emerges from us. Then it works for our benefit when it [from outside] meets us in the mirror. These are the best conceivable deeds: to put out into the world what has been done. They are the invigorating ones. [A person can enrich his ego as long as the advancement of his own ego invigorates him.] The best deeds of the egoist, done for his own sake, do not further him. The moment egoism goes beyond a certain degree, it stifles the soul. Many are unsatisfied and desolate; many egoists live in withering. Egoism, overshooting its goal, turns against the egoist himself. When man crosses the boundary in the development of his ego, he becomes desolate. The egoist lives in withering. This would be more apparent if man did not live in an external society. We are interrelated, we human beings, and so the egoist does not bear the effects of his egoism alone; someone else must bear them too. For the egoist himself, this only expresses itself in karma.

“Wilhelm Meister” deals with the problem of the egoist. What does Wilhelm Meister want? Nothing other than to make his individuality as rich and perfect as possible. That is why he leaves his profession for the profession in which he expects the greatest freedom, so that everything can have an effect on him from the outside. Goethe shows where Wilhelm Meister's error has led him. He knew that there is a spiritual law. Goethe himself called humanity the great individual and so on. He said: Wilhelm Meister is a pretty poor fellow. But there is a guiding force in man that always leads him to do the right thing. That is the great law of karma, which does not allow us to do foolish things without making us do sensible things in the next life. It has been severely criticized that Goethe allows the secret guidance to be noticed. No one can see more in another person than he or she is. Thus, modern biographers depict Goethe as a philistine – [Engel is a grotesque, outrageous interpreter of Goethe]. In 1780, Goethe became a member of the Masonic Lodge “Duchess Amalie” – a symbol of spiritual leadership.

The best explanation of “Hamlet” is in “Wilhelm Meister”. In the “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul”, Susanne von Klettenberg reveals herself – almost word for word – as a reflection of her development. During her illness Makarie brooded as much as possible within herself, but her inner nature sought the outer world again within her own inner being, found contact with divine beings in her own nature, and enjoyed this pre-mystical life. She attained a high level. Her healthy nature pushed beyond this and came to the question [through an important event]: Is God only within? Then her gaze turned to Palestine, to Christianity. Christ became man, went through everything to the point of death. When she thoroughly understood this, she said: 'In every flower, the deity reveals itself from within to the world.' Now she lives with the event of Golgotha. Susanne von Klettenberg gave Goethe a significant push for his inner development. He never stopped.

The “apprenticeship years” were completed under Schiller's criticism. The “travel years” were created under peculiar circumstances. It turned out that the typesetter printed faster than Goethe could write; and in the beginning, he helped out with things he had written earlier: St. Joseph, Man of 50, Melusine and others. In the end, he could not keep up, so he gave it to Eckermann to revise. This is how the “Wanderjahre” came about. But it should be considered that everything Goethe wrote is full of the highest wisdom [and it is a concise excerpt of his own development]. Each one signifies a stage in his own development, a stage in Goethe's development. Thus life flows like a composition, if only it is taken up in the right way and can have an effect on individuality. Much has emerged from Goethe's development. Take the “Pedagogical Province”: the boys have three gestures. [Signs of] insight into the effect of the symbols. [There are three religious levels.] The best of the three religious categories: [a gesture upwards, downwards, towards one's own kind symbolizes real reverence for the highest, for those below us, and for our own kind.] Upwards, Goethe calls the first direction of reverence, the second to one's own kind, then reverence downwards. What is below us has also come from God. Then we have reverence for religion because the divine has descended. As the student immerses himself in what the gesture shows, the gesture should draw itself into his soul. The boys are dressed differently. Why? To develop their individuality, they should choose the colors themselves.

The conclusion shows how the self expands to embrace the whole world in Makarie, who looks inwardly at the laws of the stars – she has an astronomer at her side – and takes her measurements from the solar system. Selfless knowledge that is absorbed into the world – where Goethe subtly describes the entire intuitive life of such clairvoyant beings. At the end of “Wilhelm Meister”, the occult view of the world is described in Makarie, because Goethe wants to describe the unfolding of the self.

Thus, in 'Wilhelm Meister', Goethe shows the self rising from stage to stage, becoming richer and richer as the self grows into the world problem. In order for the human being not to lead to death, the shell must tear. The work is true and genuine.