Lecture II

Here we must admit that perhaps a little unevenness arises as regards our naming of things. In considering human evolution from the point of view of our teaching, we place (counting from above) Spirit-Self after Life-spirit or Budhi. This manner of designation is absolutely correct for the present cycle of humanity, and in the course of these lectures we shall see why. We do not insert Ahamkara between Budhi and Manas, but for the purpose of our concept we unite it with Manas and call both together Spirit-Self. In those old days it was quite justifiable to consider them as separate, for a reason which I shall only indicate today and later elaborate. It was justifiable because one could not then use that important characteristic that we must give if we are to make ourselves understood at the present day; the characteristic which comes on the one side from the influence of Lucifer, and on the other from that of Ahriman. This characteristic is absolutely lacking in the Sankhya philosophy, and for a construction that had no occasion to look towards these two principles because it could as yet find no trace of their force, it was quite justifiable to slip in this differentiated form between Budhi and Manas. When we therefore speak of Manas in the sense of the Sankhya philosophy, we are not speaking of quite the same thing as when we speak of it in the sense of Sankaracharya. In the latter we can perfectly identify Manas with Spirit-Self; but we cannot actually do so in the sense of Sankhya philosophy; though we can characterise quite fully what Manas is.