4. Consciousness and the Soul Life.

What can bring about this inner reflection? The inner delimitation of the etheric body. Only through this does the ego become conscious as the result of inner reflection. We learned, you remember, that the astral body comes to meet the etheric body. It is the ego that fills out the etheric body and, through inner reflection, becomes conscious of it as such. This ego consciousness is powerfully gripped by all interest, all desires, for these implant themselves firmly in the ego. Nevertheless, even though this takes place to such a degree that we characterize it as egotism, there is something peculiar about this ego perception, something in a certain way independent of desires. There is a certain demand that the human soul makes upon itself, readily attested by the soul; every soul knows that mere desire cannot possibly call forth the ego. However much you want to do it, it cannot be done. Ego consciousness does not consist of the stream of desires any more than it does of the stream of visualizations. It is an element fundamentally different from either, but one that assimilates both streams. We can represent this state of affairs graphically by drawing the ego current at right angles to the stream of time. That gives a correct picture.