Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II

GA 90b — 18 December 1905, Berlin

XXI. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds II

Today I would like to continue our examination of the things we began eight days ago. Not long ago, one of our Theosophical friends showed me a letter written in response to an invitation from a southern German pastor to the Theosophical friend. Our friend thought it might be a good idea to invite the gentleman in question to the lecture on the wisdom teachings of Christianity because he believed that the gentleman was actually preaching Theosophy and that a connection could be made between Theosophy and the pastor's understanding of Christianity. The answer given by the person concerned was interesting. He refused to come that evening. He was prevented by external circumstances. But he said that he had studied Theosophy and had also tried to read some issues of “Lucifer - Gnosis” and that he could see from them that the purpose of Theosophy is to renew certain old Gnostic ideas. He could not really see anything special in all these efforts, because he preferred to gain a direct relationship with his God and not to be satisfied with a relationship with divinity that was mediated by many intermediate beings. This is a very characteristic answer, which I mention because it is given by so many people today. A great many people say this, and I say this not as a criticism of our contemporaries, but simply as an observation, for the phenomenon is as justified as can be. It arises entirely from our sense of the times. I say that this answer is given frequently today. People think that one is actually doing something that does not quite correspond to today's consciousness and feelings if one assumes, in addition to the sensual world in which we live and the divinity that permeates the world, a whole series of intermediate beings, let us say gods or spiritual entities. For four centuries, humanity has been educated in this view. It is therefore not surprising that such a feeling has become general today, and that people believe that Theosophy has a little too much to do with all the different spirits and spiritual entities, with a whole hierarchy of spiritual entities between people, and of which one can have no consciousness, but only an inkling.

The doctrine of such a large number of spiritual beings is not new, but as old as humanity itself. The time in which one believes one can ignore this feeling of the spiritual is actually short in relation to the great time of development. Where there was an awareness of the real significance and depth of the spiritual world, there was never the widespread opinion that one can disregard spiritual beings and their knowledge. I have often mentioned here that Theosophy as such is nothing particularly new, that it only represents the popularization, the generally understandable proclamation of teachings, which have always been cultivated in the so-called brotherhoods. Only the way in which people came by these teachings was different in the past centuries than it is today. Fifty years ago, one could not have spoken of all the things we are talking about today. At that time, anyone who wanted to know something like that was definitely required to seek admission to a so-called occult school, and no one was introduced to such significant and far-reaching ideas as can be found today in every little manual of Theosophy. You had to acquire the ability to become acquainted with such things slowly and gradually, you had to complete and study degree after degree. Each new degree one acquired first entitled one to take in certain higher views. And the education within such a degree consisted in one getting the feeling that what one received in the ascending development of mankind from the teachers of occult schools was the true, correct and essential. This was not because it was forbidden - no criticism of the occult teacher - but because one gradually became convinced that it would be nonsense to criticize the occult teachers, just as it would be absurd for a child to criticize the multiplication table before he could do so, or for a student of geometry if he was not yet ready to understand it. In the same way, in the past one would never say, “I don't like that, it doesn't suit me,” and so on. One took it for granted because one was prepared for it.

Today we are obliged to introduce a further circle without such preparation and to speak of the elementary teachings of occultism. I have often explained the reasons why spiritual teaching is proclaimed before all people. Do not think that what we are allowed to proclaim of these occult teachings is the whole teaching of occultism. It is the very first. And the times will not come for a long time yet when the deeper teachings can be communicated. But these too will come, when it will also be possible to open up higher spiritual worlds. Today it is only necessary to proclaim and introduce people to as much as the course of time requires of us. Those who are sitting here have, for the most part, been here often, and for this reason assertions and communications can be made here all the time, which appear grotesque and paradoxical to those on the outside, to those who come to a public lecture, fantastic, if not crazy. But the deeper truths, especially those that constitute the very nerve of life, the deepest laws of world knowledge, these teachings appear at first to those who are only captivated by external sensuality and to what is otherwise said to them about the spiritual world as illusory, as paradoxical. For those who penetrate deeper and deeper into today's world, it is precisely what our senses teach us in our ordinary lives and what our minds can convey to us that appears as an illusion. Now, for centuries, humanity has lost the power to truly distinguish between spiritual things, and that, my esteemed audience, is something you consider to be essential in the introduction to today's lecture, that humanity's powers of discernment have somewhat diminished over the last four centuries.

This is why objections can be made as in the letter mentioned. Imagine what such an objection means. It is exactly the same as if you wanted to make someone a suggestion that they should come to a lecture on botany and they wrote back: I have read a little about botany, read that it distinguishes between different plants - orchids, oaks, palms and so on - but it does not interest me further. I don't want to distinguish between individual plants, I want to be content with a general, direct feeling of plant life as such. I know that the world has plants: oaks, lilies, tulips, poplars - these are plants; but it is an exaggerated gnosis for me to first have to distinguish between lilies, firs, tulips, poplars. I am content with the fact that in general there is something spiritual, something divine that permeates the world. What are people talking about with such entities? Such a person is in the same situation as the one who objects to the distinction in botany. Humanity has lost some of this discernment over the centuries. But this discernment must be awakened again today. That is precisely the purpose of the theosophical worldview. For one who knows the spiritual connections, it is really not an easy decision to go before the world and speak of the great connections between the great spiritual beings, because he knows how hard it is to achieve understanding in this time and how man can be misled by such discussions about the spiritual beings. But at the same time, one must look into the course of the spiritual world.

It is little known that the phenomena of the world occur in so-called cycles. Today, in materialistic times, the regular, rhythmic course of even fatal phenomena in the world is overlooked. But he who looks into the hustle and bustle of the great human spiritual life sees something approaching, something that is revealing itself more and more to humanity. What I am about to say is also paradoxical, but it will only be recognized all too clearly in some time, perhaps in the not too distant future. What is in store for humanity, must be in store simply because of the materialism that has been preparing itself for four centuries, that is a certain loss of spiritual life, a confusion in spiritual life, which would most certainly develop into a kind of spiritual disease, into a kind of epidemic, if the teachers of spiritual life did not work to counteract this spiritual epidemic through their teachings. We would be facing that today. It is slowly preparing itself. Those who do not have eyes do not see, and those who do not have ears do not hear, even if they are in psychiatry. But those who can observe spiritually know the danger that man is in. This danger need not come, but it would come if the human spirit is not strengthened again through life, that is, if it does not receive a true center. The purpose of Theosophy is to produce firm, strong character in the depths of the soul, and not to allow any spiritually vacillating nature to arise. He who scurries about with his knowledge, flitting like a will-o'-the-wisp through the outer material phenomena of existence, today inclined to this person and tomorrow to that, is exposed to the great danger of losing his spiritual center. And it does not help if we imbue this scurrying with general ideas of divinity and spirituality. Just as the only ruler and safe in the plant kingdom is he who has learned botany, so only he can be sure of the spiritual beings — which are there after all — who has knowledge of the spiritual world.

In the past, no one ever said anything about higher spiritual entities. Those who were mature enough sought and found it. They came to people who could initiate them by no mere coincidence. It was the great spiritual human magnetism that necessarily draws the student to the teacher. They may seemingly encounter an innocent person, in the waiting room or on the train, where they may have to sit for hours. Then you will enter into conversation with such a person. It seems to be by chance, but in reality it is a necessity for you. You may find in such a person the one who has the most significant influence on you, who may be your occult teacher. So it has come about that this inner psychic magnetism has diminished to such an extent that this power no longer plays. You no longer find it so easy to connect with the actual spiritual teachers.

Therefore, it has become necessary to develop the occult teachings in an elementary way through the spoken word to the larger masses of our contemporaries, so that everyone can say to themselves, there and there is a center; if I want, I can join. Actually, no one should be asked to join any secret science current. How far the individual goes must be his absolutely free decision. One should never act under the sign of occultism, as is the view today. Such agitation brings about what should not be in this field. Those who join without actually being seekers say, “I like this and I don't like that – and this is not the right thing.” Actually, the principle of social union is not the right one, as in Buddhism. It is only a surrogate today because people join together socially for everything. What is right in occultism is the grouping.

Nor is there any sense in joining a society for the purpose of occultism, just as there is no sense in joining in relation to geometry. You can learn geometry from someone who knows geometry, but you cannot discern the truth of geometry in a society. The occult is a small circle within our society. The Theosophical Society is an administrative matter. But the occult life cannot be cultivated in any other way than the one I have tried to explain. Those who have settled into the occult life know that the great security of the inner soul character can only be achieved if one has the power of discernment within the spiritual world.

I had to presuppose this because, with teachings such as we will now develop, we will encounter the same contradictions over and over again.

Now I would like to expand on what we discussed last time. I have already indicated that there are four levels of knowledge. These four steps have always been cultivated wherever there have been occultists. Not arbitrarily, my esteemed audience, through deliberation, through reasoning, through speculation, has humanity gained knowledge of the higher spiritual worlds and their beings, but by forming the spiritual organs through which one can gain experience in these higher worlds.

Now let us briefly bring these stages of higher life before our soul. The ordinary knowledge that is peculiar to all people in the world is called material knowledge. This material knowledge is almost the only thing that people today know. Almost no other form of knowledge is known today than this material knowledge. You seek it in everyday life, whether you are dancing, cooking or doing something else, and you recognize in this way. But even in the anatomical dissecting room, in the laboratory and in all of science, there is nothing but material knowledge. It is the first step of knowledge. It is not the case that the occultist wants to criticize material knowledge. Material knowledge has its full justification in life. It must be said, however, that there are higher levels of knowledge. You have to be aware of this material knowledge in its individual parts.

There are four elements involved in material cognition. Now, please follow me closely. What belongs to ordinary material cognition? Imagine that you are to look at this flower from the point of view of material cognition. Four things are necessary for this material cognition to come about. First, the flower, which is the object. Secondly, the image of the object. If you want to appreciate something like this at all, you have to engage in such subtle things. Thirdly, the concept. This is something different from the image. The concept is attained through inner spiritual work. The image remains as an impression of the object on your soul. But the concept is something else. I will make it even clearer.

Imagine: many people have looked at the starry sky. They either had the image without the concept or the concept and also the image. The astronomer has a concept of the starry sky and the image; the farmer has an image of it, but no concept. You can see here that the concept and the image are different. Let's take the concept of a circle. The circle is a line that extends equally from the center.

The fourth is the I, yourself. If you consider these four things, you have the components of ordinary material knowledge. That by which the image comes about in material cognition is called sensation.

The second level of knowledge, which also exists, differs from the first in that the external object is absent, and with it the sensation. That which gives you the stimulus for the image is gone. All that you recognize in this way, that an object has an effect on you, is precisely not the second level of knowledge. You have to imagine that the whole world is gone. Now, the materialistic person says that there is nothing left at all. But that is what matters, that you still have something. Indeed, the one who does not undergo development has nothing left when he closes his eyes. He has the empty, dark space around him. The second stage of realization is developed through so-called meditation. The external object has gone. What is still present is the image, the concept and the I. These three are still there. The fact that there is no external object, only the image, tempts many to say: this is fantasy.

It can be, and it will always be fantastic if it is not systematically developed. To regard it as fantastic just because one has only an image would be foolishness. If someone could invent the dirigible balloon in a dream and then realize it, it does not matter whether he made the discovery while dreaming or while awake. If you can become convinced that what appears to you in dreams is true, then it is right – and that is what it is about. The object that otherwise causes sensation must be replaced. What occurs is what in occultism is called illumination. And this whole cognition, which again has four parts – namely image, concept, I and illumination – is now called imaginative cognition. This imaginative cognition is trained through meditation. I have often described how this is done. One cannot meditate without the guidance of someone who has experience in this field. Meditation proceeds in such a way that the meditator really loses sight of the objects around him, that he makes himself blind and deaf and then also loses his memory, so that the soul is completely empty of external objects. You have to be able to fire a cannon without paying attention, then you have achieved the stillness of the soul.

Then, through practice, illumination must be stimulated. You can recognize that you have achieved something by noticing that your dreams no longer have a chaotic character. You have to pay attention to the fact that the dream world is calm and steady. In the case of ordinary people, their dream world is usually one in which they have reminiscences or in which they experience the moods of their external lives in their dreams. So when he meditates, the dream world begins to take on a regular character. He then gets to know things he does not know. Dreams speak in symbols first. This must be felt. But that is where people usually go too far. They try to interpret these dream images. But they should not be interpreted intellectually. The legend of digging for treasure also refers to this fact. It says that when you dig a treasure, you must not speak, otherwise it cannot come out. Even if you say something inwardly, that is, quibble, that is already a danger. You can only speak to someone who has precise experience of this matter. But if you quibble, then the intellect begins to act like a scorching, burning fire on the fine spiritual life.

One should experience dreams very intimately, treat them like very delicate things to which one surrenders with intuition, and not interpret things in sharp, rough lines of the mind. One must do this for the reason that the dream images, when they occur with a reality value, then have such a rich and comprehensive reality value that the ordinary powers of the mind are not sufficient to grasp them. They destroy their inner life when they approach the cobweb-like inner structures with the outer mind. This is how this wonderful life begins, how the inner illuminations begin, and soon you become aware that a new world is opening up in them. Through them you get to know something that is quite different from this ordinary, material world around you.

I would like to understand how it is structured in terms of a way of perceiving within the illumination. Take this flower, for example. It is yellow and has green leaves. Let's look at the colors first. These colors are spread over the surface of the object, so to speak. Think about the fact that you usually perceive color as appearing spread over the surface of the body. Try to consider how seldom it happens that you see colors separate from objects. At most, you have this with a rainbow. You can roughly imagine this when you see a sunbeam entering a dusty room. You have a rough sense of a color. Now imagine that the yellow is not attached to the object, but is free like flakes of color floating through space. Now imagine a room like this, filled in all directions with these color flakes and color formations, and you will have something approximating what you will see when you visualize the world of illumination in terms of colors.

Occult students with a softer nature than Westerners do very special exercises. Westerners are much too compact for that. But because of their soft nature, the Orientals have the opportunity to do these exercises. The Oriental yogi sits down and looks at the color of such a flower, turns all his attention to that color, lives in that color so that he is able to withdraw his attention completely from the object and fix it only on the color, then he acquires the ability to hold the color even when the object is gone. Then it becomes possible for him to gradually bring this floating world of color into consciousness.

The same can be said for the world of sound and for other forms of the world. You see: Man conquers a whole new field of perception. This world and these color flakes are always and everywhere there. These color flakes are not irregular, they are not just clouds flying around, but just as objects on the physical earth plane are not just blocks, but also entities, so too do entities reveal themselves in this flaky world of colors. They have no bones and no flesh, they are incarnated in the substance that I have just described.

So these are the bodies of certain entities. The forms of the entities that you can get to know, once you have generated the illumination so that you can perceive them in this space, are mostly the bodies of the spirits of the twilight. So you can perceive them as the outstanding spirits of this sphere: the spirits of the twilight, the lunar or moon Pitris. Such beings people themselves once were on the planet preceding our Earth. They have only attained their present form through their condensation. Those beings who have not attained human condensation, who have remained at that level, stand today in that world as Lunar Pitris, as spirits of the twilight.

Just as one has to become familiar with each realm in turn, ascending from the mineral realm to the plant realm to the animal realm, and one must not lump all three realms together, so too can we now ascend further to the realm of the lunar Pitris, who can manifest themselves in this so-called elemental realm. This is the first elemental realm - actually the third.

We have not been talking in vague terms, but have indicated a path that leads to the perception of a type of being that you will get to know in planetary development. These twilight spirits play a very special role in this. These are the beings that are closest to man in the spiritual world. Next time I will share something about the relationship between man and these spiritual beings. These entities are present around you and influence you continuously.

At the next level of realization, the image also disappears. So only the concept and the ego remain. This state is achieved through concentration. This consists of the person associating certain parts with certain parts of the organism. That which prevents him from blindly fantasizing, from inventing concepts, is something similar to the illumination of the previous level and the sensation of the level before that. So we have sensation, illumination and now, at the third stage, inspiration. Here, the object and the image are absent, and the concept acquires content through the inspiration that occurs. So here you are dealing with the I, the concept and inspiration.

Illumination has something light-like about it, which is why it is also called illumination. Inspiration is completely free of all these pictorial representations. Here the human being floats in the purely spiritual world. That is why it is also said that his ideas take on a content without the need for them to be images first. It is the word 'imageless' that can be used to compare it to. That is why it is also said that at this stage, a person receives the inner word, that is, he is able to find truths through inspiration, in that the spiritual world works into his understanding in such a way that it is not the image that affects him, but that the spirit speaks directly to him. The language of the spiritual world itself flows into his concepts. That is inspiration. It is the conversation with the beings of a spiritual world. The person is quietly closed in on himself, rejects everything visionary, everything pictorial, keeps quiet and still, and the spirits tell him the truth. That is the level of inspiration, the inner word. This level of inspiration makes it possible for a person to not only see objects wherever he goes, but for them to tell him something everywhere, so that he can hear everywhere what is buzzing around in a new space. This level of knowledge is what Goethe means when he speaks the words at the beginning of the prologue in heaven: “The sun resounds in the old way in the brother spheres of value singing.” This is not a phrase, it is reality. He speaks of the spiritual sun that resounds. The whole world becomes a resounding world that teaches us significantly about the inner core of our being. In this world, we then make acquaintance with a higher group of spiritual beings, which we call the sun spirits or also the fire spirits. Just as we got to know the spirits of twilight there, we get to know the spirits of fire here.

So we have: mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, spirits of twilight, spirits of fire. The realization at this level is a volitional realization, because the power that one must particularly develop is the will. A special training of the will through concentration, through inner willpower and will education. One then makes the acquaintance of the beings that are growth-producing power, power of reproduction and so on. We get to know this in this way. That which exists everywhere of these fire spirits lives in all growing entities. The one who rises to an inspired realization is one who 'hears the grass growing'. The proverbs are often tremendous words of wisdom. At this level, all growth is heard. That which makes the beings grow is the power that lives in the fire beings.

Finally, there is still the [fourth] stage. The concept is still missing. Then there is only the I. There is no more recognition in the concept, there is a recognition without concept, a pure life in the spiritual. You creep into the beings you want to recognize. The coarsest form of recognition is in the material. Think how little you are able to penetrate a flower. You have to stay outside. In imaginative cognition, you have the images around you. In inspired cognition, the sounds from the outside world come to you. But now you enter into the beings. You are every being you recognize. Space and time cease to exist. You are where you recognize the corresponding being. You are no longer different from that being. Your ego has submerged in that being. And that is the realization through intuition – intuitive realization.

These are the four stages of realization. Through this intuitive realization, you get to know not only the outer appearance of the beings, but the beings in their inner being. The I expands to include the whole environment. The person who has attained this higher realization is called the “swan”. Lohengrin is led from a spiritual world into the physical world by a swan. Through this gift, one attains a knowledge that is only accessible to those who have the gift of transformation into these beings. If you want to rise to the level at which intuitive recognition stands, you must present yourself in such a way that intuitive recognition can transform into you. That is why Zeus had to transform himself into a swan so that he could be grasped. The legends all have a great relationship to this world existence.

Through this intuitive knowledge, you rise to the level of entities called the spirits of personality or the spirits of selfishness. Everything that lives in us as a principle, as an essence of selfishness, comes from this spiritual realm, the realm of the spirits of selfishness or personality. The spirits of selfishness have always been at work. First, the physical body is worked on by the spirits of selfishness, then the etheric body, and then the astral body. Therefore, as a kama-manasic being, man is an egoist. What he thinks is what is independent and also what is selfish. What these beings are can only be recognized when one stands at the stage that one can crawl into the being, into the ego of the beings. There you get to know the spirits of the personality.

So you see that it is not just talk when you find something like this in my 'Lucifer' or in Mrs. Besant's books, even if perhaps not under the same names. The spirits are not invented, but gained through the stages of knowledge. Therefore, we distinguish: mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human, lunar Pitris or spirits of twilight, fire spirits or solar Pitris, spirits of egoism or spirits of personality - Suras and Asuras. Then the higher realms: spirits of form, spirits of movement and spirits of wisdom. We will talk about these four spiritual levels next time.

But you can already apply what I have said today in practice, namely that if you know something about this nature, even if you do not yet rise to the level of direct experience in this way, you will gain inner strength if you know even just a little. Man would completely lose his center in the coming decades if the knowledge of these things did not come. These entities do not exist in cloud-cuckoo-land, but surround us continually. The person standing in front of me is not just a human being, but interrelated with him is the Lunar-Pitri, the Solar-Pitri, the spirits of selfishness and so on. And they are constantly active in this person. I recognize something incompletely when I only have the outer person in front of me. Just imagine how insecure you would become if you were to go blind. Orientation in the new world is only made possible by new senses. In the same way, knowledge in the world is only made possible by knowing what is there. It makes us feel secure to know that such things exist, that such things are there. It is therefore necessary for humanity to know such things. In the fourth century, higher spiritual beings still led man, unconsciously. That is the higher development. The meaning of the materialistic time is that the spirits have fled to reappear in his consciousness. Man has descended into darkness to consciously ascend to the light again. That would be the greatest harm if man remained down here in darkness and did not find his way back to the light. The theosophical doctrine has not been brought out of mere caprice, but because it is a necessity for humanity. There have always been individuals in secret societies who had the realization. But it must become much more general. That is why the popular way in which these teachings are spread in theosophy.