9. The Bodhisattvas and the Christ

Now how does this apply to the evolution of human life? We have said that up to the point of time in human evolution characterised, by the advent of the Christ-impulse, it is a fact that when a man looked into his inner being, when he sought the way to the world of the Gods through the veil of his inner being, he entered—to use a collective name—the Luciferic world. This too was the path upon which, in those olden times, man sought for wisdom, upon which he sought to acquire a higher knowledge concerning the world than he could find behind the covering of the external sense world. His quest consisted in sinking down into his inner world; for in this world the intuitions and inspirations of moral and ethical life originated, even as the intuitions of conscience arose there. And of course all other intuitions and inspirations which pertain to the moral nature, to that which belongs to the soul, arose out of that soul world. Hence those lofty individualities who were the leaders of mankind in ancient times, had of necessity first to contact the inner life of a man if they wanted to give instruction upon that which belongs to the highest in humanity. The Holy Rishis had to contact the soul-life of man, his inner being, that is, as did all the great teachers of humanity in older civilisations. But the soul life of man belongs to time; it runs its course in time. That which surrounds us externally groups itself in space; that which runs its course inwardly, groups itself in time. Hence everything which is to speak to the inner being of man must use the clue of the number seven. How can we best understand a being with a message for the inner life of man? How, for instance, can we best understand those beings with their fundamentally individual characteristics whom we call the Holy Rishis? By relating them to soul life which runs its course in time. Hence in those ancient epochs wherein the great sages spoke, one question above all was asked: ‘Whence have they descended?’ Just as we might ask a son ‘Who are your father and mother?’—so ancestry, the time element, was then the subject of inquiry. On meeting a wise man the primary concern was: ‘Whence does he come?’ Who was the being who preceded him? What is his descent? Whose son is he? Therefore in speaking about the Luciferic world, the number seven had to be taken as basic and the interest was whose child it was who was speaking to the human soul. We speak of the children of Lucifer in this sense when we speak of those who in olden times taught of the spiritual world lying hidden behind the veil of soul life, behind that which belongs to time.