Man, Nature and the Cosmos

GA 91 — 14 August 1905, Haubinda

17. Reincarnation

Incarnation or reincarnation is not the same thing in all cases. A reincarnation we call the life between birth and death. It is only arbitrary to say that man died after death and his incarnation is here. Let us think of an entity that never incarnated on earth and never incarnated in the astral; such an entity would observe man in the devachan. It would see man disappear when he went to earth, and would then see him arrive again. This being would say: He is born when he arrives and he dies when he disappears. It depends entirely on the point of view of the observer. When a student of occultism develops higher knowledge, devachanic seeing, the first thing he comes to know in devachan is the area between death and a new birth that man goes through. That is why it is said that what a seer first sees is in the midst of Devachan. When he comes up still higher, even the planetary chain with its manvantaras does not light up for him, but first the pralayas become bright. It is important because now we have to ascend to another kind of reincarnation, namely one that does not have devachan and pralaya in the sense that man does - these are the racial spirits.

Let us take the spirits of the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, and the first, second, third and fourth sub-races of the Aryans, that is, five spirits which are much higher in their development than man. Because they are much higher, they incarnate somewhat differently. With them the course of life is no longer interrupted by birth and death. Man will later also come into such kinds of incarnation. Such a being does not die, but his body becomes weaker and weaker, and while it becomes weaker, a second one builds up. In the case of man, it is intermittent cycles that he has to go through. The racial spirit builds a second, then a third [body] when the previous one is in decay. The body consists of the individuals of a race. In this process, one race does not die so suddenly, but it decays very gradually, while the other one rises. This is how the racial spirit leads across. In man there is an alternation between the life on earth and the life in Devachan. In the center of the Devachan life the outer earthly life explains itself; therefore also in the center between the incarnations the explanation will have to be fetched for that which incarnates itself. This is indeed also the case with the race spirit. The race spirit will likewise find its explanation through certain points. [This is to occupy us now.

Think of the following]: If man wants to have an explanation for himself, for his life, he looks to Devachan. If he wants to have an explanation for the race, there must be an opportunity in the race itself for the spirit of the race to reveal itself. This is indeed what happens. In certain points the spirit of the race reveals itself. What did it have to tell us in the fifth sub-race of the fourth root race? That at a certain point the cosmic upward leader would appear, namely, that Christ would reveal Himself.

What comes out in man in the devachan is the human manas. The racial spirit is one step higher; as the redeeming word, what comes out is what corresponds to manas in man, and that is Budhi, the Word. So that the whole fifth root race urges to reveal the word of Christ. Every time in the interstices between the five sub-races under consideration, the message of the coming Christ is proclaimed anew, and this proclamation is called the Gospel for the whole root race. And the blessed race spirit between the fifth sub-race of the fourth root race and the first of the fifth root race is called Matthew; the second, between the first and second sub-race: Mark; the third, between the second and third: Luke; and the fourth, between the third and fourth sub-race: John. That is why it always says "according to Matthew." That's why there are four Gospels, because there are four intermediate states, four Good News between the [five] sub-races.

The first Gospel represents, as it were, the physical incarnation, therefore it also narrates the [generational succession] of Christ. The second Gospel represents the etheric body of the race; it is conferred by the race body being purified, The Gospel of Luke is the proclamation from the kamic side. The Gospel of John is the most spiritual of all. Irenaeus has been completely misunderstood. [He has stated how many of the Gospels are to be held as the correct ones, and considered it arbitrary. But this is not correct.]