4. Consciousness and the Soul Life.

Now, what is consciousness? I shall not proceed to define the word but will merely characterize. If you approach the concept “consciousness” in the light of what we have already studied, you will see that in view of the continuous stream of visualizations the condition of consciousness in the soul does not, after all, coincide with the soul life. Why is that? We have seen, you know, that the soul life differs from the condition of consciousness through the fact that a visualization can live on in the soul without entering consciousness. A conception out of the past lives on in our soul life. We can recall it, but if we do so only after a day or so, not immediately, it was not in our consciousness in the interim, it was only in our memory. Memory is not always conscious. The conception, then, existed in the soul but was momentarily not in our consciousness. Consciousness is not the same thing as the continuous stream of the soul life. We must put it this way. Representing the visualizations, which we may possibly remember some time, by an arrow pointing in the direction taken by the stream of visualizations in time, we thereby include all the visualizations flowing out of the past into the future. In order to be conscious of them we must first call them up out of the unconscious life of the soul by an act of will.