Death and Immortality in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 69d — 15 October 1913, Copenhagen

23. The Mysteries of Life

[Beginning missing] The soul must be separated from the body through a kind of mental-spiritual chemistry, like hydrogen and oxygen from water. This is the power of thought, which is difficult to detach from the physical body, through concentration on images. A person then finally becomes fully attentive, without an object for their attention. “It is easy, but the easy is difficult.” Then one lives in the power of thought, in that which forms the indefinite features, but creates the physicality of the human being. What one then experiences is that one comes before oneself. The spiritual researcher lives in the activity that forms the brain, although the brain is necessary for thinking. One feels as if one were circling the brain in currents, outside the brain, sneaking around one's brain. One dreams these things, fantasizes them, or else they are true. Then one experiences a feeling as if one were afraid. Then one is beside the brain. At first one feels shy because one learns what is at work there between birth and death. One looks at the destructive process of ordinary thinking, then one feels the brain as a burden. But one does not allow the ordinary destructive process to take place. Artificially, one achieves the same thing as in sleep. Then one experiences an inner resistance of the organs, of blood, respiration, glandular activity. This is achieved through emotional concentration. The feeling when the heart becomes warm, joyful, as if on mountains, in fields. Then we circle the body, are outside the body. Then one looks at one's body from the outside. It is a shocking moment, like a flash of lightning, the detachment from physicality, like death. Then one knows what the divine-spiritual core of being is. Then, thirdly, one also detaches the will from external activity, namely in the area of speech. It is an inner experience of speech activity, of the ability to form speech. Then one looks back on previous earth lives. That means grasping speech activity without coming to external speech. In this way one comes to recognize that one forges one's own pain so that the soul can move forward by overcoming pain. The question of fate becomes the question of perfection.

First, one looks behind the veil of death to learn something about the meaning of life; second, one looks behind fate. How can the spiritual-soul be found? How do we come to a contemplation of the spiritual-soul? The plant does not enlighten us about its nature when we look at it. But when we see it growing, it is different. The seed is the end of growth and the beginning of a new plant. The end and the beginning are brought together in the seed. We bring spiritual science to death; just as with the seed, we must bring together this end and the beginning when a human being enters life through birth. Spiritual research brings together the end of life with the beginning. When a person grows old, their hair turns gray, they get wrinkles, and so on, it is like life crowding together in the seed, but now invisible, in the spiritual-soul core of being. This passes through the gate of death and rejoins a new body at birth. The life we are now experiencing is the starting point for a subsequent life and the consequence of a previous one.

How can we view what goes from birth to death? We cannot talk about our youth through speculation or hypothesis, but rather by putting ourselves in that position. To do this, we must draw upon the powers of the soul. One can summon up consciousness about birth and death. This involves spiritual and soul experiments and attempts that human beings can make with the human soul itself. Every human being already has this ability in their soul, but it must be increased. [End missing]