XXXI. The Mission of Truth

By immersing himself in the wisdom of the world, man loses his self, and his I becomes one that, so to speak, flows out more and more; it becomes impoverished of inner strength. By thinking ahead in his daily activities, by demanding that what has been thought ahead be translated into external reality, he wants to imprint his ego on the external world, he wants to see more and more in his surroundings what his self wills; he wants to imprint his self on his surroundings. In this way, he is completely absorbed in his selfhood, and has created an interest in making this I, quite apart from the environment, as strong as possible. We can see two possibilities for the education of the I. One is that the I becomes a completely reflective one, where it is completely devoted to the outer world, where it is more and more devoted to the outer world, where it does not grow stronger in its power. The other is where the self is not merely filled with ideas from the outside world, but should be filled by the will. In the first case, the self can become desolate in the will. We can experience that such people, who absorb objective truth in the most conscientious way, are weak in will. On the other hand, we can observe that those people who only want to impress their will on their environment become closed off from what is going on in the outside world, from what should awaken their interest in the wisdom-filled content of the world. Thus we see, so to speak, the thinking I developed in those people who develop in the first way, and the willing I in those who develop in the second way. But we can achieve harmonious interaction between the thinking I and the willing I by allowing spiritual-scientific truths to take effect in us. Then the two beneficent powers in the I will awaken. On the one hand, the I will let all the content of the world into itself, out of which it is born, and will enrich itself inwardly through what is poured out into the whole world as its spiritual content. On the other hand, it will gather itself together within itself in order to become strong within itself. Thus the ego will not be impoverished in either direction, but will become strong and healthy in both. And this is the health-giving quality of theosophical truth: on the one hand, it is as fully realized as the reflective truth, and on the other hand, it has the same effect as the reflective truth. Therefore, it is healing because on the one hand it pours into us all the beauty of the world and on the other hand makes our ego so flourishing and fruitful because it enables what grows in the ego to find its reflection in the outer phenomena. Through the theosophical truth, we develop our ego so much because it is the truth that is both premeditated and reflected. That is the healthy aspect of the theosophical truth. While we would see in a person who is only a reflective person, who only wants to comprehend the wisdom of the world, that he can, under certain circumstances, paralyze himself more and more in terms of willpower and that his inner weakness , that he becomes inwardly ill from lack of such power, we would see on the other hand that he who only wants to realize his will becomes inwardly impoverished because he has no connection with the world. On the other hand, we see harmony prevailing in all respects in the theosophist. The thought becomes more concentrated as it is seized by the confidence of realization. In short, by permeating itself with the theosophical truth, the ego becomes a point of passage for wisdom. There the will is enlightened and on the other side becomes the true center by having the premeditated truth with the postmeditated truth in relation to the world. Humanity will gradually recognize that the will, which can appear so dry and so sober to the one who merely wants it implemented in external reality, warms up to living feelings because it meets with the wisdom of the world; and again, that this wisdom, which can seem so dry to us when we merely reflect on the world, can seem individual to us when it meets with the living will in the ego. Wisdom and will must meet in the ego. This is the healthy, life-affirming truth that we not only produce mind-soul - or emotional soul - but mind-permeated mind-soul and mind-permeated emotional soul [the German: Gemüt-durchsetzte Verstandesseele und Verstand-durchsetzte Gemütsseele, an intellectual soul permeated by feeling and a mind soul permeated by the intellect] in the higher soul members, in the mind-soul, through the nature of the I, these two sides of approaching the truth.