Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 24 September 1906

31. Life, Revelation, Wisdom, Love

The power of the self that enables human beings to become independent is the Kama power, the fire of passion in its physical manifestation and the warmth of love in its manifestation in the soul.

The warmth that is now in man was on the earlier planets, the moon, in the whole atmosphere. There people lived in the fire, in the lunar warmth, just as they now have the fire, the warmth within them and it gives them warmth here. It was only after man had developed his own warmth that he could become an independent, self-contained being. But just as his own warmth enabled him to become independent, so this same warmth also gave him the power to send something of his being out into his surroundings, to communicate with them. Just as a body that contains warmth communicates this warmth with its surroundings, so it is also the warmth of the soul of man that initially connects him with his surroundings. This warmth first connected him with himself, gave him independence and self-awareness, then it brought him together with his surroundings again.

The warmth of the soul, the striving towards other beings, manifests itself as love. This is the first expression of the independence achieved by man in a refined form. In the course of development, fire and passion became warmth and love. These are also the ones that lead man upwards. Just as warmth influences physical matter in such a way that it refines and radiates, so love also causes a refinement in the soul, through which the soul can communicate with its surroundings. When the vibrations of warmth are increased even more, the warmth is transformed into light, and this light has the property, to an even greater extent, of radiating out into the surroundings and enveloping the surroundings completely. Thus through light an even closer connection with the environment occurs. Light is an even stronger expression of the inner being than warmth, it is an increased warmth. If the vibrations of warmth in man were increased in a certain way, then man would not only possess his own warmth, but his own light. He would become radiant himself. When the soul-heat of man, love, is more and more elevated, more and more refined and ennobled, love leads man to knowledge. While he previously communicated with another person through love, he now penetrates into the being of that person with the power of knowledge. He unites with the other being to a higher degree than through love.

We now know that all light can be recognized through the division of an all-containing primary source of light – the so-called white light – as it emanates from the sun and is revealed through division into seven main rays and many intermediate colors. The light that we can perceive comes from the division of another power into number. Thus all knowledge of man comes from the revelation of the higher life, and through knowledge it penetrates again into this revelation. When he raises his knowledge to a higher level, everything around him reveals itself to him according to its innermost nature. Thus the elevation of warmth is light, the elevation of light is number; and in the sphere of the soul, the elevation of love is knowledge, and the elevation of that which is known is revelation. Just as the first number proceeded from unity, from life itself, so the first revelation also proceeded from the divine Self. By rising through love to knowledge and through knowledge to revelation, man attains access to the divine self, to life, through the further elevation of his powers, through further ennoblement and refinement.

The divine life expressed itself through the number and further through the light, and then it entered into man through the warmth, which in turn enabled him to penetrate through love and knowledge into the revelation of the divine self and to connect with the self through it. We find the disposition to receive the divine self in man in the inherent warmth that the divine life (prana) has imparted to him. It is the power that leads the human being up to independence, to becoming himself, to the original source from which he emerged.

The development of the human being has led him to form his environment, in which he finds the means for his ascent. First, he received from the divine life the disposition of his physical body. All substance that was superfluous for the formation of his physical body gave rise to the disposition of the mineral kingdom.

The perfection of the physical body now also went through further stages, during which man secreted the plant and animal kingdoms out of himself as superfluous forces. On the second stage, he secreted the plant kingdom, the superfluous life force; on the third stage, he secreted the superfluous warmth and passion, whereby the animal kingdom was assessed. At each stage of the descent, the physical body of man was perfected by the addition of the other forces. From the second stage onwards, when the etheric body of man was endowed with the life force and the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom also progressed towards perfection. From the third stage onwards, the astral body of man with the Kama and the animal kingdom were also formed. It was only after the human being's own warmth was drawn into him on the fourth stage that he could become self-aware and continue to work on his own perfection. On the fourth stage, his physical body reached perfection, and with his physical body, the mineral kingdom around him. His etheric body and astral body were still less perfect, and his I was the least perfect, which could only enter the fully developed physical body at the fourth stage. Of the natural kingdoms, the mineral kingdom, which corresponds to his physical body, was now fully developed. The plant and animal kingdoms were still imperfect and therefore had to go through further stages: the plant kingdom one more stage and the animal kingdom two more stages. But man has to go through one more stage to develop the still imperfect [etheric body], two more stages to develop the [astral body] and three more stages to fully develop the I. Then man will have become the full expression of the I.

Initially, the human being works on the transformation and perfection of the least perfect body, the astral body.

The astral body is elevated through its own warmth. Through love, the human being ennobles his passion and makes it selfless. In this way, love becomes knowledge, and the astral body is transformed into the carrier of knowledge, of spiritual light. Man passes over into the light of knowledge. The means for him to achieve this knowledge lies in the mineral environment, in the world of forms that has become objective with him.

After the inherent warmth had moved into the predisposed human germs, they were able to emerge from the sea of soul life. In order for them to recognize themselves, it had to become light around them. Light came through the condensation of the mineral world; light is a radiation of all mineral substances, of objective mineral matter. Thus, through his own warmth, which shaped him, man also physically entered into a realm of light. His further development consists in his making this light his own, in his gathering knowledge through this light of the mineral world. Once he has gained this knowledge and learned from the mineral world what he is meant to learn, his warmth has been transformed into light, his love into truth, then he can ascend further through experiences in the plant kingdom, the realm of number, symmetry, revelation, in which world life comes to light in number and the manifestation of life.

In the mineral kingdom, number and manifestation have passed over into light. This light and the knowledge gained from it ennoble the astral body of man in such a way that he can now proceed to ennoble his life body, the etheric body, by penetrating further into the essence of world life and adapting to it. As this appears in the plant kingdom, in number and rhythm, so must the human being also ascend to it through integration into the laws of number and rhythm, through penetration into the manifestation of life. With this penetration of his knowledge into the revelation, his life body is transformed into an ever more perfect expression of the revelation, and with it the plant kingdom in which he has found the revelation. - By penetrating into the revelation and merging into the rhythm, the human being unites completely with life, with the self. Through this power of the self, he can now ennoble the life in the animal kingdom and transform his physical body in the same way as he has transformed his astral and etheric bodies. On an even higher level, what the human being has developed on the first three levels and perfected on the following three levels is expressed more fully, and the whole being of the human being has now become an expression of his I, of his self.

We therefore have coexistence

— in the first place, life, the self, which comes to expression in the physical body and in the mineral kingdom;

— in the second place, number, manifestation, through which life, through predisposition, forms the etheric body and the plant kingdom;

— in the third place, light, knowledge, through which life, through predisposition, forms the astral body and the animal kingdom;

— Fourthly, warmth, love, through which life predisposes the ego, the actually human core of being, and perfects the physical body, in which the ego finds a firm hold.

Then the ego must educate itself

through love, knowledge; through warmth, light; and [it must] lead the astral body to perfection, further through light, number, bring about rhythm, through knowledge, revelation and the ennoblement of the etheric body; - then finally through this rhythm, through revelation, penetrate into the life, the self, and completely subjugate the physical body.

The kingdoms descend with him and ascend with him. On the descending arc we find 1) the mineral kingdom predisposed, physical body through life, 2) plant kingdom predisposed, etheric body through number, 3) animal kingdom predisposed, astral body through light, 4) human kingdom predisposed, the ego through warmth.

On the ascending arc we find:

4) The I begins the work itself, finds the soil from which it grows in the physical body and the mineral kingdom, works the astral body to receive light, Manas.

5) The I finds the rhythm of life in the plant kingdom, works through this rhythm to receive the revelation in the Budhi through the etheric body.

6) The I finds life itself in the animal kingdom, works through the physical body to receive life, the self in all its individual parts, to receive Atma.

Thus we find the descending arc, on which the forces of the ego are assessed, and the ascending arc, in which they are expressed; furthermore, what was assessed during the descent as a field of activity for the ego and is processed by it during the ascent. Thus a circle is formed through the development of the ego and a descending line as a field of activity for the ego.

Life can first have a formative effect in the realm that it first developed and led through four stages to perfection: in the mineral realm, and correspondingly in the physical body of man, through the I. Since the physical body had already passed through four stages, it could first take in life itself and become an expression of life. The etheric body grows through a further stage and the astral body through two stages and the I through [three] stages. But the I is first called upon to collaborate on the most imperfect body, the astral body, then on the etheric body and then on the physical body.

Thus, the work of the I complements the work of the life of the world in reverse order, just as the ascent is also a reverse repetition of the descent. During the ascent, it begins again from the inside, where it left off, but it begins its own activity in the realm and in the body that were formed first. In its perfection, it works in the realms that have been created alongside it in the order in which they were created – because what was created first has become the most perfect. The arc that the realms describe is therefore as follows: predisposed mineral realm human realm completed predisposed plant realm animal realm predisposed animal realm plant realm completed predisposed human realm completed the mineral realm

Or if we arrange the kingdoms of perfection according to and not according to origin, then the following follow one another:

Human kingdom – human
kingdom, animal kingdom – animal
kingdom, plant kingdom – plant kingdom
mineral kingdom.

Accordingly, the development of the descent and ascent of man runs

from life – self to number – revelation to light – knowledge warmth

He gains knowledge from the mineral kingdom, the kingdom of light, revelation from the plant kingdom, the kingdom of number (rhythm), and reaches the self through the animal kingdom (life). - Only then does the perfect human kingdom emerge.