Third Lecture

Now it is important to really grasp how one must go beyond ordinary everyday concepts in order to arrive at the kind of thinking that is meant here. You know that there are materialistic thinkers in the world. Today the number of materialistic thinkers is very large, and you are probably all convinced in your innermost being that one should not be a materialistic thinker. At least you were convinced to a certain extent and therefore came to a more spiritual way of thinking, felt drawn to the spiritual thinking that is cultivated in this anthroposophical movement. So let us disregard ourselves here. But there are also other people who represent the spirit, and there are many such people in the world who say: Well, there are all those people walking around who think only of material processes and material beings. These materialistically thinking, materialistically feeling people are opposed by the spiritually thinking and spiritually feeling. The latter believe in the spirit and are often despised by the materialistic thinkers as fantasists. But they accept this contempt because they believe that the materialists do not realize how right they, the fantasists, are when they hold on to the spiritual. This distinction is made and observed in the world between materialistic thinking and spiritual thinking, and there is much dispute between the two camps as to which is right, the materialistic thinker or the spiritual thinker. From some of the things that have been discussed here, you should realize that basically the one who has not yet penetrated into the meaning of spiritual science is the one who argues about such things, but only the one who says, 'You are a materialist; that's fine, that's all right,' has properly penetrated into the meaning of spiritual science. You are a spiritualist, that's fine too, that's also very good. Just as you can photograph a tree from one side and photograph it from the other side: it looks different from the different sides, but it is always the same tree. If you grasp the world materially, it is only a photograph from one side. If you grasp the world spiritually, it is a photograph from a different side. Materialism looks quite different from spiritualism. But the secret is that you have neither materialism nor spiritualism in the world, but that these are actually only two photographs from different points of view. Basically, the materialist is just as right as the spiritualist and the spiritualist is just as right as the materialist. Because these concepts, spirituality and materiality, are only valid on the physical plane. As soon as one goes beyond the physical plane, these concepts are overcome. Then one no longer argues whether the world is material or spiritual, because one knows that these are two different aspects. But why does man actually argue about whether man is material or spiritual? Why does man argue about whether one has a mere bodily being or a mere spiritual being? Why do some people see only, I would say, physical corporeality in a person, while others see soul and spirit in addition to physical corporeality? Because a person is both! And the secret of life actually consists in the fact that a person is both. If you say: a thought is only a spiritual entity, it is only something spiritual, then you are right, because the thought is only something spiritual. But the thought is never in you as spiritual-soul without having a physical imprint, so that you can actually always also prove the physical imprint; it is there. So that every thought is also something material. One would like to say: The universe has impartially ensured that one can be both a spiritualist and a materialist. Because you are indeed spiritual; if you see it that way, you can be a spiritualist. But you are also a material imprint of the spiritual; if you see it that way and ignore the other, you can be a materialist, because a person is both, and because one is only an imprint of the other, because one is the same as the other. Therefore, it is really only a matter of whether man puts himself more into his physical being, then he becomes a materialist; or whether he puts himself more into his soul-spiritual being, then he becomes a spiritualist.