Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 18 September 1906

24. Substance and Power

Primal force and primal substance are one unity. From this unity all that is revealed emerges. It was the consciousness of this primal power and primal substance that drove it to manifestation, just as it is the consciousness of man that drives him into physical incarnations. This consciousness also rests in the primordial cause; but it comes to expression through the emergence from this primordial cause. In order for it to emerge, it needs a part of the primordial force, of life, and of the primordial substance, of being. Thus the consciousness, the thought of God, emerged at the beginning, based on the other parts of the divine unity, on the power and the substance or the life and the being. The consciousness is the spirit, the life is the son, the will is the father. The consciousness is the willed, the force is the willing; the life carries out the will of the primordial force.

To survey itself, the consciousness of the primordial power lifted itself out of that primordial power on the waves of life. Thus the consciousness emerged like the rays of light from the inside of a luminous body. It was carried out by the rhythm of the life springing from the inside. The carrier of consciousness remains hidden, just as the core of a luminous body remains hidden. We do not see the center of the shining sun, the center, the core of a flame remains dark; the power of human manifestation within man, which radiates the aura, appears even to the eye of the seer like the dark core of a flame.

The consciousness of the elemental force is the infinite space, and the thoughts of the elemental force meet us in this space as the figures. While we see in the forms the highest expression of the consciousness of the elemental force, we behold in the change of appearance the expression of the life of the elemental force; but the highest force itself rests in the unity from which the multiplicity emerges. There are two poles of the primeval force in the world; where force and substance appear as one, as undivided in themselves, is one pole; and the other pole is where both force and substance appear as many particulars, in physical manifestation. But since primordial force and primordial substance in this highest division also attain the highest degree of consciousness, this highest division of force and substance also forms a part of the perfection of the divine being. The perfection of the consciousness side of the divine lies in the possibility of consciously beholding itself through the divided cosmos. The greatness of power lies in unity, the greatness of consciousness in diversity, the greatness of life lies in the constant maintenance of the interrelation between primordial power and manifestation.

In the One, force and substance are together in eternal rest; in life, force and substance are in motion, in rhythm; in consciousness, force and substance face each other. Consciousness confronts that which has come to expression through itself. There first enters the objectivity of the world, opposite the subjectivity of consciousness.

Consciousness rises from the unified original substance and the original power through life. Now in that which has become it beholds the two poles, force and substance; but in that which is becoming, life, it recognizes their union, and thereby it also recognizes their original unity. Thus the trinity of all being joins together.

There is a law that the effect of a force decreases in the same proportion as the squares of the distance from it increase. In the physical cosmos we see the manifestation of the Godhead, the outworking of its consciousness. In this shaping of the divine consciousness, in the strongest emergence of the thoughts of God, we also see the greatest distance from the elemental force. Therefore, in the outer, visible world, the diversity of the thoughts arising from the elemental force can be recognized best for us, but the greatness of the force appears least to us there, because the force has given itself there by appearing in many individual phenomena. It is the outline of the elemental force that we recognize in the physical world, that we recognize in the figures. Only then we can recognize the meaning of the physical world, which appears to us in the space, if we regard the space as the consciousness of the Godhead, the figures in it as the thoughts of the Godhead. Everything that is around us in space are thoughts in the consciousness of the eternal, divine primeval power. While the primeval power and primeval substance is one and fills and encompasses everything that is and lives, it forms its thoughts in space, and communicates to them a part of its power, a part of its substance, as with the mineral; in addition to this, a part of its life, as with the plant; and in addition to this, a part of its consciousness, as with the animal and human kingdoms. To this it gave to man still the power of freedom, that is, to become self-aware. Through man, the Godhead beholds itself. And thereby it communicated to man the power to recognize the Godhead; [to recognize that men are both - like all created things - the become thoughts of God and that they receive their life from the Godhead and their power, their will rests in the will of the Godhead.]

Each individual embodied God-thought is a reflection of the original Unity. The greatest objectivity in the world is the reflection of the greatest subjectivity. From the One, through the life emanating from it, many individual forms emerged, and all these individual forms express a part of the powers of the One. Every form in the world is perfect when it expresses that part of the primordial power which it is intended to express, to which this primordial power has destined it.

The mineral world is to express above all the primordial being, the primordial substance in many individual beings. The plant world is to express the one life in many living forms; the animal kingdom is to express the sentience in many individual beings. Man is to become a reflection of the whole primordial power, and for this purpose he was given the possibility of self-consciousness and liberation. He became a child of the Godhead, gifted with all divine powers in such a way that he can develop in freedom to God-likeness. All physical beings are God-thought, but man is such a God-thought that turns back into the life of the Godhead and the will of the Godhead. Emerged from the will and the life of the Godhead as a thought, he turns back in the thought into the life and the will again, and thus he closes the cycle of the God-power, thus he leads the emerged, articulated God-power back again into its one original ground.

In the physical world of forms we recognize the highest division of the Godhead according to the side of the force as well as according to that of the substance, because force and substance are basically always connected. The close connection of the individual particles in all mineral forms is only a deception. Just as the individual shapes are recognizable for our senses only by the fact that they are separated, also the individual particles of the shaped in the mineral world are recognizable for us only by the fact that there are spaces between all atoms. Just as light and shadow came into being through the separation of the individual shapes, so that they thereby became visible to the physical eye, so also all mineral substances are visible to the physical eye because they cause light and shadow through separation of the atoms. If all mineral substances were an undifferentiated unity and we were likewise undifferentiated in this unity, then we could recognize nothing objectively in the environment. Then there would be no separation, but also no light and shadow, no external physical perception by the physical senses. So that the objects could emerge - as single ones -, separation had to occur, it had to become light between us and the objects. What has happened with the formation of the thoughts of God, which come to us as special individual beings, has also happened in the whole substance; the individual atoms came apart. We could not cut a body if its substance formed a continuous mass. Water cannot be cut through, air cannot be cut through, because the particles of water and air are more closely connected than the particles of solid substances. But one can separate nevertheless water and air particles by solid substances which are pushed in continuously. We know, however, that both the water and the air particles have the tendency to flow together again and again. We find something similar with some solid substances, for example with magnetic iron, that they also have the tendency to flow together. The finer and less perceptible to our physical senses a substance is, the more intimate is its connection, the less we can separate the individual particles from each other, the faster the gaps fill in, the greater is the force that holds the individual particles together. The original substance cannot be divided by any other force, it is in itself one, undifferentiated; and where there is any gap in the other substances which proceed from it, it fills it up by itself, or by the substances divided out of itself. Thus everything is permanently filled with the fullness of the Godhead.

As it descends, the primordial substance becomes less and less dense. Solid matter is actually the least dense, because it is the least continuous, the most changeful, the most irregular, the expression of the highest separateness and the strongest antipole of the one primordial substance. The primordial substance, in which substance and force are completely one, is the origin of all life. Life is the interaction of force and substance. There emerges from the unmoved a movement which runs rhythmically. By the will of the divine primal ground this movement arises, and all life emerges from this movement. The two poles are formed out of the divine One, substance and force; what holds them together is life. In life, substance and force are united. Life is stretched like a string from the pole of force to that of substance; and like a string it vibrates rhythmically between these two poles, thus bringing everything that is into rhythmic movement. This rhythmic movement, which is both substance and force, which occurs in the tension between substance and force, is that which expresses itself in all living things. The stronger the tension, the stronger the life; the less strong the tension, the less life there is. But only in the less strong tension can life express itself. In the case of the string that is stretched tightly, we hardly notice the vibrations at all. In the case of the less tightly stretched string, we can see the oscillations more clearly. The movement of the infinitely taut string cannot be seen at all, because it is too fast and the rhythm is so continuous that it is like immobility. Life can become perceptible to us only where it occurs in the lesser tension between force and substance. The least tension is there in the physical, there we see the movement of life in the passing and arising of the forms. These are the slowest vibrations, the greatest waves of life, but they also have the least force, which emerge the most, but also flow away the farthest. The stronger tension of life concentrates life in itself; it does not emerge so strongly and therefore does not flood off so strongly. It remains more within itself, although the power and the speed of the rhythm is significantly greater there. The greatest rapidity coincides with the greatest calmness, the greatest power lies in being completely closed, [in] not stepping out of oneself.

So we recognize in the external existence the division of the divine consciousness into individual thoughts; and the greatest waves of the divine life in the appearances flowing up and down. Only in the fact that the individual forms stand before us, objectively, and in the fact that life flows up and down, we recognize the divine will. In building up and destroying the divine will makes itself known. There is the power, which lets the life flow up and down, and the power, which lets formations arise from the sea of life. That everything comes into being and passes away again is the divine expression of will. The will of God itself is always one, eternal, imperishable, completely undifferentiated, but its reflection is the succession of life and death. That which called the figures into life also calls them back out of life, just as the ego of man drives him into incarnation and pulls him back out of it again. The consciousness of man is expressed in the thought, the consciousness of God in the figures. That which shapes them, which gives them growth, that is the divine life. But that the consciousness shapes itself vividly, that proceeds from the divine will.

In the whole world we see the formed thoughts of the Godhead. That the thoughts of the Godhead could become visible externally, is possible by the sacrifice of the life into the mineral kingdom. There the life has given itself to bring the thought to the expression. There the life steps back completely behind the expression of the thought. Our thoughts are to become just as purely from all remainder, which mixes itself with it, as the crystal unclouded and uniformly, in itself united and eagerly expresses a God-thought. The crystal is the perfect expression of a God-thought. The substance has arranged itself there according to the lines of the thought sent out by the divine consciousness. The crystals are an expression of the forms of the archetypes of life, but not imbued with life. If the life rhythms of the Godhead are streamed into such pure thoughts of God, then they arise alive before our eyes. The plant world appears before us as living thoughts of God. It expresses the pure rhythm of life. Also the plant is still desireless. It is thought and life, but without passion, without will of its own.

Now, if a part of God's will flows into the living forms, a realm of passion arises, as we see it in the animal kingdom and in the lower human nature. There is nothing rooted in the whole anymore. It separates itself from the whole as something special. In its external movement it becomes independent of the whole. This is brought about by the divine will that appears in it. It represents the own will separated from the God-consciousness. Passion, too, is a power of the Godhead, which brought forth independence in the created forms. The desire is first the expression of the independence won in this way. Now, however, the divine will sank into man in such a way that the divine life and the divine consciousness could also become his own possession, and through the divine consciousness he recognized himself as a part of the Godhead, as having emerged from the Godhead. He could unite himself anew with the Godhead first through the consciousness; thereby the separation was overcome. Then he had to become one with Him also in the realm from which his life was taken, and then in the realm which drove him into existence, in the realm of the will of God, the Father-power.

The realm of thought is like the periphery; the realm of will like the center; the realm of life like the rhythmic movement between center and periphery. In the realm of thought man becomes independent; through the rhythm of life he lets himself be carried back into the primordial ground from which he emerged. In the realm of individual phenomena he forms himself into an individuality, into the I; by flowing back into the realm of life on the waves of life together with other individualities, he finds the way back to the Father-power.

According to the law, which is even more strongly expressed in the higher worlds than in the physical, that there can be no emptiness, according to the law the being of man renews itself in the measure in which he surrenders himself to the higher life. The more he surrenders, the stronger the higher life flows to him. He must die in order to become. The more he dies, the more he becomes, until at last he enters life, where there is no longer any distinction at all between becoming and passing away, where becoming takes place so rapidly from passing away that everything is one continuous life.

As we recognize in the mineral kingdom the kingdom of God's thoughts, so we recognize in the plant kingdom the kingdom of life. It is the intermediate kingdom between the elaboration of the divine thought and the divine will in the individual beings. The plant kingdom mediates the life currents in the world. Without the oxygen that the plant kingdom provides, the animal and human kingdoms could not live, and everything plant serves to build up the animal and human bodies. The mineral kingdom does not contain life, man cannot maintain his life from it; in the animal kingdom we see life in stasis; that which man uses for food from the animal kingdom also does not promote life in him, but the stasis of life, passion. The plant kingdom is the one in which man breathes and which also forms his natural food that promotes his life development. Thus, on the one hand, the mineral kingdom is built up from the dead plant kingdom, and on the other hand, the animal and human kingdoms are kept alive from the living plant kingdom. According to the substance, the kingdom of life thus serves for the continued building up of the mineral kingdom, and according to the power, it serves for the continued development of the animal and human kingdom. There also the two poles of substance and power meet us in the life and weaving of the plant kingdom, the actual kingdom of life.

This also represents the institution of the Lord's Supper. In the life of the world both are contained, substance and power. In the bread is symbolized the dead plant which builds up the mineral in the world and also the body of man; in the wine is symbolized the life force which the world life infuses into the substance. As long as man still dwells in the mineral existence, he must take substance from the kingdom of life in order to build himself up, and take strength in order to live. When he himself passes from the realm of the mineral world, of becoming and passing away, into the realm of life, then he finds substance and strength in himself as the two poles of his being between which his life runs. Then he no longer needs to build himself up minerally, but he gains form in the higher worlds, in life itself. Form and life are then united in him, and he then leads the whole earth permanently over into the eternal rhythm of life.

In order for man to reach this stage of development, he must allow the forces at work in the mineral and plant kingdoms to arise in him. The desireless, mineral ideal forms of the crystals represent for him what is to become his thought. The crystal is the expression of the pure, chaste, divine thought. As the plant gives up its whole life to express the divine will, without its own desire, without its own passion, so also man is to live and grow in the world only as an expression of the divine power which the Godhead has sunk into him.

What it leads to, if he lives a life of passion, he recognizes in the animal kingdom. There he sees how passion brings suffering because it distracts beings from the light of wisdom. The animal kingdom is the expression of passion, the realm of joy and pain. The unpurified power expresses itself in the animal kingdom. Through the unpurified power, man is also driven into joy and pain. But by purification of the power he grows beyond joy and pain. For how he should purify the force, the calmness and unity of the mineral kingdom and the desireless life of the plant kingdom are a model for him. His thoughts must become as concentrated as the forms of a crystal; his life must be as rhythmic as the life of the plant, then he will stamp the divinity in his being. Then the power in him will no longer be expressed as passion, but as supreme blessedness and as an expression of blissful resting in the will of the Godhead, and what substance there is in him will then serve him only for the shaping of a sublime expression of the power of God.