Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II

GA 90b — 19 June 1905, Berlin

XI. The Sermon on the Mount

Those who know how to interpret the signs of the times also know that we are heading towards great events in the near future. At such a time, it is necessary to go beyond the point of view of the lower mind. Thought and idea should shine. From such a point of view, let us now look at an important chapter of the Bible – the Sermon on the Mount.

Without knowing the Sermon on the Mount, one cannot understand Christianity either. It is no coincidence that the Sermon on the Mount is at the beginning of the Gospel. But it, too, like so much else, has not only been misunderstood, but not known at all. This ignorance of such an important chapter stems from the fact that neither scholars nor the Church have even a hint of an intellectual grasp of the deeper Christian truths. If we want to understand something like the Sermon on the Mount, we have to be aware that today's homely, philistine view does not correspond to true Christianity at all. Such an understanding, as could not have been held by a Christian, but probably by the champion of the so-called French state morality - l' XI. The Sermon on the Mount Those who know how to interpret the signs of the times also know that we are heading towards great events in the near future. At such a time, it is necessary to go beyond the point of view of the lower mind. Thought and idea should shine. From such a point of view, let us now look at an important chapter of the Bible – the Sermon on the Mount. Without knowing the Sermon on the Mount, one cannot understand Christianity either. It is no coincidence that the Sermon on the Mount is at the beginning of the Gospel. But it, too, like so much else, has not only been misunderstood, but not known at all. This ignorance of such an important chapter stems from the fact that neither scholars nor the Church have even a hint of an intellectual grasp of the deeper Christian truths. If we want to understand something like the Sermon on the Mount, we have to be aware that today's homely, philistine view does not correspond to true Christianity at all. Such an understanding, as could not have been held by a Christian, but probably by the champion of the so-called French state morality - l'&tat c'est moi - would never have had the power that Christianity had - such power, which has been effective in such a way through the centuries, never has mundane sources, but has spiritual-occult sources. And we want to expose these in relation to the Sermon on the Mount. This lack of understanding of the Bible and the Sermon on the Mount stems from the fact that we do not actually have a proper translation of the Bible, and that the most elementary conditions are not met. People may say that the letter is dead, but the spirit gives life. In doing so, everyone takes some pride in the fact that they could interpret something like the Sermon on the Mount from a “fantastic” imagination; but a lot of arbitrariness can be found in it. You first have to know the letter; you have to know what is written there so that you do not value your own banality of spirit more than the dead letter. Only when one has understood the letter can one dare to explain the spirit. Therefore, today it will be a matter of first understanding the letter, and then interpreting this letter in the right spirit. It is not necessary to tell of the theological view of the Sermon on the Mount. Everyone knows it from the usual sermons. We would not get very far if we wanted to record just a few of these sermons. Besides this theological view, there is also a liberal view that arises from a philistine ethic and moral teaching. You can find such a view in the book “Was lehrte Jesus?” by Wolfgang Kirchbach. This author, who has the merit of having translated something more correctly than is done in the Lutheran Bible, is so partial to the high-altitude view of his view and so unintelligent towards any occult spiritual deepening that errors upon errors can be accumulated if one were to abandon oneself to the study of this liberal view of the Bible. One must know the elementary concepts that make a book like the Bible understandable if one wants to delve deeper into the matter. The Bible is an entirely occult work. When I discuss with you in the near future the depths to be found in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, you will become even more aware of what a profound book we have before us in the Bible. It is quite improper for those today who have picked up a few terms from the so-called liberal world view – even if they are theologians – to tell us all sorts of things about sentences like those in the Sermon on the Mount. These people do not even consider that they are taking something quite homely and familiar and, with their presuppositions, are approaching these exalted truths. They know that the first sentence of the Sermon on the Mount is usually translated: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Any deeper, more meaningful understanding must be struck by the arguments that are usually associated with these sentences of the Sermon on the Mount: a “general reward” would be the understanding for those who are spiritually poor. And if we allow the sentences to approach us as if it could be a matter of receiving a reward for spiritual poverty, for mercy, and so on, if we believe that the founder of the Christian religion wanted to say, “Be merciful and you will be blessed for your reward,” then he would have to praise all haggling for reward. But that is an ethical truism, and does not require an ethical teaching like that of the Sermon on the Mount. Teachings like those of the Sermon on the Mount, given by an initiate himself, make one an initiate. Right at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, it is sufficiently indicated that we are dealing with an occult instruction. In most occult writings, the expression occurs: “The Master led his disciples up the mountain.” This means nothing other than talking about the most intimate matters, about truths that are beyond the everyday. It is not a sermon to the people that is being preached here. If you read carefully, you can see even in Luther's translation that this is not a sermon for the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he went up into the mountains. The original text reads: He went away from the people, away from the people, and there he then taught the deeper teachings, which only the initiates, those more deeply united with him, could understand. You can follow the “leading up the mountain” in all mystery writings. It means: to retreat to where one can discuss the most intimate truths of the soul. Now, let us assume that Christ spoke profound truths in the most intimate way, not for the masses, but for the hearts of the initiates, in order to give their words strength so that they could go before the masses and their words could once again penetrate deeply into the hearts of others. Let us take this point of view quite without fanaticism, quite objectively, on the basis of the teaching that we have heard in the whole series of lectures in recent times. First of all, I have to repeat something that those who have heard my lectures on the astral world and on four-dimensional space already know to some extent. But let us once again let these important truths pass before our mind's eye. We spoke of entering a higher world in which the causes of the effects are present, which we can perceive with our senses. Our own higher self also lies in this world. The lower self belongs to the world of the senses, to the everyday. This sentence explains to us what we have to accomplish within our immediate work, but also within our age, our people and so on. In what Christianity calls the spiritual world, the “heaven”, we can also see what Theosophy calls the spiritual world. Our higher self also rests in this realm of heaven. We must get to know this higher self, we must rise to it. And this higher self, when we get to know it by entering the astral realm or a still higher realm, initially presents things to us somewhat differently than they can be according to the habits of thought, according to the ideas that we have acquired in the ordinary world. I have drawn your attention to the fact that when you are initiated as an occultist into this higher world, you first have to learn to see things as they are and to recognize them in their reality. An example of this is that you have to read a number in its mirror image. When you are initiated as an occult student into higher secrets, and the teacher of occult secrets, of occult science, shows you the number 5 61 is shown to you, you have to read it as shown by the mirror, namely 165. You also know that you see a sphere or a cube as if you were at the center of it and looking in all directions. Not from the outside, from all sides, but from the inside. You also know that time runs backwards in this higher world. We are accustomed to seeing the world as our senses present it to us. In the astral realm, it is different. We first have to get used to correctly recognizing what we see there, which is reversed. We first have to learn to read. Morality also presents itself differently in these higher worlds. You can best experience this when, in a pathological case, a person's astral realm is suddenly opened. There are many people who occupy themselves with this. The fact that there are many people to whom the astral realm is suddenly opened is due to the fact that materialism has now taken hold of all circles. However, the need to see the spirit sits so deeply in the human soul that precisely when a person is completely surrounded by the material world, the inner senses are opened. But then he falls into a state of fear and despair. Everything that emanates from us as instincts, desires and passions, everything that rests at the bottom of the human soul, be it base and mean, but also that which fills us with higher enthusiasm, all this appears in images. A mirror image of the lower self appears in the astral realm. Man beholds his entire inner being as in a large painting. He is frightened, for it is no small thing to see what lies at the bottom of the soul. This occult vision expresses a great and terrible truth. And there is no disguising or concealing it. It is not without good reason that in the Indian world view - which is not the theosophical one - our sensory world is called an illusion, Maja. Man often deceives himself about the qualities of his own inner being. But the occult finds everything that lies within him. It is this that gives the occultist the most inner expression on his face once he has entered this world. One speaks of the seriousness and dignity that are inseparable from an occult world view. You know that there is nothing fanciful about it. The strictest tests are imposed on the student. You know that you first develop a sober mind so that you are far beyond everything dreamy and fanciful. If you suddenly enter the astral world, you do not understand it. But it can happen pathologically. From this characteristic of the astral realm, the spiritual world, you can see that at first you have the form of a mirror image. How positive and negative, how warm and cold, what we experience in the higher, spiritual world relates to what we have here in the sensual world. This is not an arbitrary connection, but a necessary one, like that of a law of nature. Every person who knows the connection between these two worlds from his or her own experience can say that a link in one world necessarily draws the opposite pole in the other world. Longing [in the physical] is one pole, fulfillment [in the spiritual] is the other pole. Compassion is one pole, compassion is also the other pole. Purity of heart is one pole, divine vision is the other pole. I could give you a great number of these so-called pathological poles, from which you could see that everything that rests in our soul appears in the mirror image in the other world. In this lower self, if I am a person who is in need of truth and enlightenment, I have a longing for the truth, and then, for the occult observer, this longing of mine is reflected as a fulfillment in the higher self. What the lower self longs for necessarily indicates the opposite pole in the spiritual world. Whether fulfillment comes in this life or in another life is another question. But what is longing for the lower self here is fulfillment for the higher self. And what swings up from the lower self as fulfillment into the higher self here becomes longing on the higher level. That this is so was the profound wisdom that Christ Jesus presented to his intimate disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, in this initiation sermon. With a book like the Bible, we have to take the words much more literally than is usually the case. “To be blessed” — what does that actually mean? People who have had occult knowledge have always known this. And Goethe, who, as you know, is to be understood as one of the real and true occultists, knew very well what these words are about. That is why he described the awakening of the higher self, if not in the highest sense of the word, in the second part of 'Wilhelm Meister' in the character 'Makarie, 'the blessed. Goethe describes the inner life of this 'blessed personality' in a way that he definitely wants to be taken seriously, although Goethe presented these things with a certain humor. But anyone familiar with these things knows how seriously the fifteenth chapter of “Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years” must be read. If only the Goethe scholars would decide to take seriously what Goethe has said so earnestly in so many places. The fifteenth chapter begins as follows: Makarie is in a relationship to our solar system that one dare not even utter. In spirit, in soul, in imagination, she not only sees it, but she also makes a part of it, so to speak; she sees herself drawn into those heavenly circles, but in a very special way. She has been walking around the sun since childhood, and, as has now been discovered, in a spiral, moving further and further away from the center and circling toward the outer regions. If we may assume that beings strive towards the center if they are corporeal, and towards the periphery if they are spiritual, then our friend belongs to the most spiritual; she seems to have been born only to free herself from the earthly, to penetrate the nearest and furthest spaces of existence. This quality, as glorious as it is, has been seen in her since her earliest years as a difficult task. From an early age, she remembers her innermost self as permeated by luminous beings, illuminated by a light that even the brightest sunlight could not diminish. She often saw two suns, namely an inner one and one outside in the sky, two moons, the outer of which remained the same in size during all phases, while the inner one diminished more and more. This is, of course, spoken in such a way that it could not be expressed exoterically in any other way. But every expert knows that Goethe was familiar with the occult and that he knew what a “blessed personality could be called, a personality who could relate to the words: inner, higher, spiritual self and so on. If we give up this spiritual self as the reflection in the world of reflections, then it shows us the contradictions of polar qualities. So we can say to ourselves: because our higher self is in the realms of heaven, we can therefore arrange our lives in the realms of heaven, because we are able to shape our lives here. Now we come to the text. I have tried to translate the Beatitudes correctly, both literally and in terms of meaning. You will see how accurate this translation is. I) Blessed are the beggars for spirit, for in their self are the kingdoms of heaven. [Matt. 5:3] This “self” is also in the Greek text. It does not say “the spiritually poor”, but “the beggars for the Spirit”, that is, those who are in need of the Spirit. In the higher self, the beggar for the Spirit finds the Kingdoms of Heaven on earth [which he has longed for in the lower self]. The Christ Jesus also spoke of the Kingdoms of Heaven or the Kingdom of God in other places. These passages are also usually translated quite wrongly. I would like to translate them as they should be translated in terms of meaning, if we draw on everything that we can glean not from the dictionary but from the spirit and from a deeper knowledge of the subject. Jesus Christ was asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come. He replied: “The Kingdom of God is not coming with [external] perception - and by that he means sensory perception. Nor will they say, 'Look, here it is! or 'There it is!' For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you. The Kingdom of God is all around us, just as the physical senses are. If we had no eyes, we would see no colors and no shapes. If we had no ears, we would hear no sounds. Likewise, for those whose higher, spiritual senses have been awakened, their surroundings are no longer sensual alone; they are full of spiritual beings that are around us. The spirit was taught by Christ Jesus. That is why he says: “Not with the eyes with which you [see], not with the ears with which you hear, will you perceive the Kingdom of God, but with the eyes and ears of the spirit, just as we also see the Kingdom of Devachan. Whether we see a realm or not depends on whether we have sensory organs for it. The same realm that we call Devachan is also referred to by Christ Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount [as the heavens]. II) Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the Earth in their higher self. [Matt. 5:5] Through the meekness of their lower self, they will generate a power in their higher self that makes this Earth their possession, that is, the power to shape the Earth in the spirit of humanity. Not through anger, not through wild passions of the lower self, but through the gentleness of the lower self, the opposite qualities are generated in the higher self, in powers that express themselves on earth in a peaceful existence, in a realm of humanity. III) Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted in themselves. Those who patiently bear their suffering in their lower self will see a higher self arise in the realm of heaven, in which they will find comfort. This is the significant teaching of occultism: that what is sown in the lower self is absorbed in the higher self. IV) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they shall be satisfied in themselves. [But there is no necessary connection here. It does not mean that the blessed who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied in themselves. Hunger and thirst for righteousness in the lower self strengthens righteousness in the higher self. V) Blessed are the merciful, for they shall also obtain mercy. This means that if we understand what is meant by the expression “compassion,” we will have a sense of the harmony of humanity and radiate this harmony into the higher worlds. VI) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This is a saying that could be considered the basic tenet of all theosophy and occultism. He who is not pure of heart, who has prejudices of an intellectual or moral nature, is like one whose eye or crystal lens is penetrated by false powers. But he who has a pure heart will send forth the rays of pure hearts, and will see God. —You see the two poles again. [How the eye can only develop its vision if the crystalline lens is pure.] Just as the outer world can only become conscious with pure vision, so God can only become conscious to the pure heart.

VII) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

In the last lectures we described the exalted future of Christianity. From this it became clear that Christianity has the power of Christ for the future, that it will become ever purer and greater and nobler, and that what this Christianity will pour out on the peoples of the earth will be peace. This peace can only become God when peacefulness, arising from the lower self, reaches up. People who prepare themselves through peacefulness will ascend to the higher self and as such will be called “children of God.

VIII) Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [Matt. 5:10]

Persecution means refuge, that is a counterpole. If I am persecuted in the lower self today, I will find refuge in the higher self, because that is the other counterpole.

Thus, in the theosophical sense, these sublime truths are to be read. It is necessary today to emphasize this essential of the Sermon on the Mount for the reason that we live in a time when a core of humanity must again be made aware of this higher self, of this kingdom of heaven, in order to consciously strive for it. A part of humanity must become genuine, true Christians again. You know, as the misunderstood Goethe often says, selflessness is overcoming one's self. But in truth it is the unlocking of the spiritual self.

Those who have heard my Wagner lectures know what we in Theosophy call the Hebrew spirit. They will also know that from the occult point of view, from the point of view of the Secret Doctrine, this Hebrew spirit is one of the important ones. As true as this is, it is equally true that the future can only bring a spiritual humanity if the pure, free, Christian spirit is rediscovered. We need the original power, because the higher self must come from something original. Consider what has happened. Usually one does not look deeply enough at the pages of world history. It is true – because everything historical is necessary – that in the past times the wave of materialism has also risen, that the spirit has emerged, which is limited only to the external sense world. This spirit is the spirit of materialism. But this materialism has lost its significance for humanity. For the discerning, materialism today is idolatry; for the discerning, spiritualism must replace materialism.

If we look at it this way, we will see that in a sense the vessel for the spirit to be poured into it already exists. We need only consider what I have once called the “northern current” and the “southern current” in our cultural life, which go from east to west. One is the one called the Indian-Persian-Germanic cultural current. The other is the one that goes through the Chaldean, Babylonian, Egyptian and southern European Greco-Roman countries. We must distinguish between these two currents. To the occult observer they present themselves quite clearly, so that the one that comes through Spain and gave the Middle Ages their final impact must be replaced by the Sanskrit-Persian-Germanic current. The sixth sub-race will be completely dominated by the northern current. However, we can only achieve what we are supposed to achieve as self-aware beings if we consciously recognize it. The Theosophists are the least likely to say that what is to happen will happen by itself, because man must bring it about. Therefore, we must delve into the task that world history presents to us. We must recognize what is in decline and what is in the ascendant, what is in the rising of the sun.

Karma is not a fatalistic book of nature. We must recognize what it means to work towards the future in the sense of Christianity. The vessel has been handed over to us from the past.

But just as water will not become water from hydrogen and oxygen if the chemist does not mix them, [Karma will not create new Karma] if man does not act. The lower, personal self has played a major role in the materialistic epoch that has just ended. From this element, the higher self of humanity will arise and then show itself in its glory.

I said that people do not look deeply enough at contemporary history; we have forgotten how to do that because of materialism. But materialism has reached its extreme point. If you observe in the small things, you will see this. I would like to give just a few small symptoms; they are decisive for those who are able to see deeper into the interrelationships. A few hours before the lecture, when I read in a newspaper about the departure of [Hungarian] Minister Stephan [Tisza], I also read a sentence in an editorial in the “Neue Freie Presse” in Vienna that expresses a deep irony about our entire time. If it is possible that a person's thinking habits are such that he dares to write such sentences, then this person's inner life is insipid. The sentence roughly translates as: “What I have heard this man say at the time when no one could have known that his fall marked the end of a development, that is the complete seriousness of his aims.” So it is possible that the aims of a great statesman are not serious. The time has come when a person with serious aims can already be called a great man.

Materialism had to be there; it created our natural science, our entire external culture. We also want to admit that the sensual way of thinking has produced our industry and technology. But now it is time to move up again. Man must rise above the lower personality to that which is the higher self in the sense of the Sermon on the Mount. He must therefore know the connection between the lower and higher worlds. He must rise above the spirit of the fifth root race. There is also much that is impersonal in insipidity. This has also taken place in an impersonal, natural way.

It is completely foreign to a theosophist to look at things other than objectively. Therefore, what I am about to say is meant objectively. No personality is to be denigrated. These personalities are a symptom of materialism, which has actually already overcome itself.

Two people [of the Rothschild family] died recently, one shortly after the other. It would no longer be possible today for the symbol that was decisive for the Rothschild world house - it is a five-pointed star - to gain significance. This five-pointed star - what does it mean? It means that until some time before the end of the nineteenth century, this world house was active in five different places in Europe, that its spirit was active in these five places. The purely personal self was at work there, and it did much more to build up the last period than anyone who only knows history on the outside can imagine. Someone who can also say something about what is hidden behind the respectability of some banking houses knows what domination emanated from this materialistic spirit, that it weighed on our state and that our state history can no longer be understood without taking this materialistic spirit into account. Here is a significant characteristic:

Rothschild once received a visit from a statesman. He was sitting at his desk, noticed the visit, but continued writing. When this went on for some time, the statesman said, “I am Count So-and-so.” To which Rothschild replied, “Please sit down and take a chair.” The statesman was quite amazed and repeated once more: “I am Count So-and-so and I come on behalf of the king.” And to this Rothschild replied: “Please take two chairs.”

This five-leaf clover [of the Rothschilds] had become so powerful. But materialism has now become impersonal; it is more powerful than even five individual personalities are today. Even these personalities would be powerless before the impersonal corporation when it unites. The impersonal share, as it dominates the world today, is the external symbol of our world that has become entirely external. International, cosmopolitan, strong, without any individual power, is the impersonal, materialistic spirit today. Only the higher, spiritual spirit will defeat it, and this will flow from people when they have found their higher self.

If the theosophical movement does not prove to be one that educates the core of people, then

much evil could follow in its wake. The Theosophical Society has been created out of the necessity of our time, and everyone who contributes, even if only by listening to a theosophical lecture now and then, in order to imbibe the theosophical thoughts and reproduce them in the smallest of circles, truly contributes to an increase in human spirituality. Only someone who has no idea of the tasks of our time or to whom the tasks of our time are completely indifferent could pass by the theosophical spirit, by the theosophical attitude.

We must take Christianity very seriously. St. Paul was the first to use the word theosophy. He used it in our sense. What matters is to rise above the so-called spirit of liberalism, which is so widespread today and which is nothing more than the spirit of the egoism of the crowd. We must rise above it into the spirit of community born of clear, enlightened knowledge, not of mere sentiment, for that is not the genuine thing. This is how we must understand and live Theosophy. Then we will see that we see every word in a new light, in a new splendor. Do not be misled by those who speak of Theosophy as a “new Buddhism,” as if it were bringing a completely new worldview to Europe. A true theosophist will seek the truth where it is to be found at the root of a nation's culture. That is why I have tried to replace the Indian expressions with good German expressions [in my book “Theosophy”]. Many have misunderstood this. But it is not meant the way you take it. The true theosophist does not say, “I am bringing something foreign to everyone,” but rather, “Every person and every people is born of the spirit, and if we recognize the spirit, we also recognize the deepest soul of the people.”

This is how the great teachers of the world religions have worked. The Buddha did not go to India and teach his students something that was native to Europe. They all drew from the same source, the God-wisdom; but each presented the wisdom in a way that was appropriate to his people. United, the great sages are in the white brother lodge. But each speaks in the language of his people, his age and his education, so that people can understand him.

In the same way, the Christ also came among people. He did not preach a wisdom that was taken from a different substance. If we take this spirit, we will find the spiritual spirit again. We will find that it is not becoming for us to stick with the old and that we should not fall into the materialistic spirit either. We should fill ourselves with souls that are free from materialism and that lead to the higher self. Then we will feel the inner meaning of what is meant by “blessed” in the Sermon on the Mount. If we become beggars for the spirit, then we will partake in the future of the rich in heaven.