VIII. Working with Sculptural Architecture II

After what had occurred in paradise and is told in the paradise myth, man was permitted to eat from the tree of knowledge but not from the tree of life. Now this inner enjoyment would be the enjoying of the tree of life, and man is not permitted to do this. I cannot develop this theme further today as it would lead too far, but through meditating on it yourselves you will be able to discover more about it. Another thing that can have special significance for us in connection with these present lectures and arises out of this, is the following: not being able to eat from the tree of life means not being able to enjoy the blood and nerve activity going on within us. Yet just because we know the outer world by means of our senses and our reason, something comes about that surely has something to do with this kind of enjoyment. Whenever we perceive anything in the outer world and whenever we think about it, we follow the course of our blood circulation in the region of the senses—eyes, ears, nose and taste nerves—and, in the case of thinking, the nerve channels. But we do not have the perception of what is going on in the blood circulation and nerve channels, for what we would have perceived in the blood is reflected and mirrored by the senses, thus causing the sense impressions to arise. And what is conducted through the nerve channels is also reflected and conducted back to the nerve ends, where it is then mirrored as thought.