Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 3 September 1906

12. The Descent of Man

It would be foolish and presumptuous to believe that we can know the whole truth, and yet every person can learn to find the truth. We are not able to absorb all the light of the sun within us, but we can all live in its light, we can all see the sun with our eyes. Many of the sun's rays can shine on us, illuminating and warming us, but we are not able to absorb all of the sun's light, warmth and life. The sun is certainly there for all of us, but we cannot embrace it. In the same way, the truth is there for us undivided, but our strength is not enough to embrace its full radiance. Just as a ray of sunshine that falls into the darkness is enough to illuminate the darkness, so too is a ray of spiritual light enough to show us the way to the spiritual.

The moment will come for each of us when such a ray of light falls into the darkness of the soul. And then the person, who until then had only groped uncertainly in the dark, gains the hope of being able to walk in the light one day. We are meant for the light. Once we also walked in the light, but like children holding hands with our divine guides and leaders.

It was not the self-achieved light. To achieve it ourselves, we had to descend into the darkness for a time and dwell there. But only for a time. Within us remained the longing for the lost realm of light. Our home is not in the darkness. But man had to earn the right to this home for himself. Only what is self-acquired has value. In the darkness, man first learned to appreciate self-acquired possessions. But no matter what he acquired in the darkness, it could not satisfy him – because his longing for his homeland was too strong. Then a gate was opened for him to the realm of light – and a ray of light shone through it, showing him the way to get there. Only those who passed through this gate could find the way into the realm of light. One came who showed him this way and said: You must first go through this narrow gate. To do that, you must become poor and leave behind everything you have acquired in the realm of darkness. As long as you cling to the possessions you have acquired, you cannot set foot over the threshold of this gate. And now a struggle arose in man; he longed to return to the kingdom of light; but he had to gain the entrance himself, and he did so by giving up everything else he had acquired.

The more he absorbed the ray of light in his heart, the more he felt what he had acquired in the realm of darkness and what had seemed valuable to him until then, as a heavy burden that weighed on him more and more – until he finally threw off this burden. And then his foot had crossed the threshold of the gate, and he looked into the full splendor of the spirit sun and spread his arms and let himself be filled with light and warmth. And a ray of the sun penetrated to his heart, and on this ray was his name, and from the world of light his name sounded to him. And in the light, he saw a figure that spread its arms as if to bless, and from the hands of this figure radiated the most wonderful colors and flooded into melodies through the realm of light, and he saw how the beam that hit his heart shone forth from the hand of this light being. Then he called his brothers in the realm of darkness and showed them the way to the realm of light as well, and the more he brought to this path, the lighter it became around him, the more lovely the melodies sounded around him, and the closer he came to the being in the light. So he built step upon step through his devotion and compassion, and ascended to the throne of light and was allowed to worship in indescribable bliss to /unreadable] his who stood there above.