4. The Spirit, Soul, and Body of Man

One now comes to observe the life of the soul in such a way that the observation does not remain merely in the soul experience, but points to the spirit. I would like to mention two points first, although they could be multiplied a hundredfold, but they are important key points. By coming to true self-observation in this way, which is carried out outside the body and thus faces the spirit, the human being arrives at a direct observation of not only the relationship between ordinary waking and ordinary sleeping, but above all of what the phenomena of waking up and falling asleep are. It is still the fate of spiritual science today that it not only speaks of things that are largely unknown today, but that it must speak in a completely different way than is usually done about things that play into the consciousness of every human being, things that are actually familiar in everyday life. In addition, spiritual science must use words that are coined for ordinary, everyday life. This presents many difficulties, since spiritual science sometimes has to use the same words in a different sense. It must tie in with familiar phenomena of life in order to be able to shed light on the spiritual realm. From the standpoint of consciousness, not from the standpoint of natural science — which is not the subject of our consideration today — human beings are familiar with the alternating states of sleeping and waking. On the one hand, there is the time when human consciousness is present, from waking up to falling asleep, and on the other hand as the time when consciousness is plunged into darkness, into the consciousness of sleep. The spiritual researcher knows that it is so weak that one usually speaks of the absence of consciousness in sleep. Now, these two alternating states of the human being, which are truly equally necessary for life, are suitable for introducing us a little way into the mystery of the human being through a realistic observation. From the outset, it should be obvious to everyone that the actual human being cannot possibly begin anew with falling asleep and waking up. That which is the soul-spiritual being in man, which otherwise lives as consciousness in the waking state, must also be present in sleep. But for ordinary consciousness, the situation is such that man cannot observe himself in sleep through his own self-observation, and therefore cannot compare the waking state with the sleeping state inwardly and spiritually. Externally, scientifically, this is a different matter. Now it is a question of coming closer to these things by really ascending from ordinary sensory observation to spiritual observation in the manner described, so that one grasps the life of imagination, feeling, and will with the inner spiritual eye.