Lecture I

It was these primeval Teachers who imparted to mankind the great treasures of wisdom of which only echoes have survived, even in creations such as the Vedas and the Vedanta philosophy. Even these great teachings of the East are no more than echoes. A primeval wisdom once spread among humanity on the Earth and then perished, in order that out of themselves, by their own volition, men might again be able to scale the heights to the spiritual world. Human freedom would not have been possible if the primeval Teachers had remained among men. Hence a comparatively short time after the Moon had separated from the Earth they followed in its wake, establishing their abode upon it. And there they have dwelt, supreme among the denizens of this Moon colony, ever since they separated from the Earth, leaving human beings to their own resources. Although we who pass from one earthly life to another no longer meet these great Teachers on Earth, we do so very shortly after passing through the gate of death. When the physical body has been laid aside at death, our etheric body expands and expands, but also becomes evanescent, and finally dissolves in the Universe. As soon as the etheric body has been laid aside a few days after death, we feel that our existence is no longer on the Earth but in the immediate environment of the Earth. When a few days have passed after death we feel that we are no longer living on the Earth; it is as though this terrestrial body has expanded as far as the sphere encircled by the orbit of the Moon. We feel that we are living on a magnified Earth; the Moon is no longer felt to be a separate body, but the whole sphere is felt as a unity, demarcated by the Moon's orbit; the Earth has expanded to become the Moon sphere, and has become spiritual. We are within the Moon sphere and there we remain for a considerable time after death. But to begin with we come together again with those spiritual Beings who at the beginning of man's existence on Earth were the great primeval Teachers. They are the first Beings whom we encounter in the Cosmos after our death; we eventually come again into their realm and there undergo a remarkable experience.