3. The Inner Connections of the Seven Basic Principles

GA 91/1905-06-20/p005 ·1905-06-20 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Grundlage sind Aufzeichnungen, die jeweils nach der Stunde angefertigt wurden.» (The basis is records written down after each lesson.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 91). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

The physical body is the oldest, the etheric body the second, the astral body the youngest. The ego is formed in the present. At the beginning of our earth epoch the physical body was not a chaos, but beautifully and harmoniously built in itself, the human being could not do anything to it; from the outside in it was built by the formers, the creating entities. It was the same with the etheric body and also with the astral body. Only with the fourth stage the ego comes and works independently. It has no influence on the etheric and the physical body, but on the astral body. How? There was a time when man had no influence on the astral body, there were only urges, desires, passions. In the later stage of development he took them in hand and regulated them. As soon as the creative powers do not hold the physical body, it disappears in the general physical, likewise the etheric body [in the general world ether]. The creating gods take back these bodies. It is different with the astral body. What man works into it remains and comes back again. That is his karma. Karma or the astral worked is from man himself. What the I works into the astral body is manas. As much manas is in man as he works into his astral body. The astral body is what man has not yet worked out; manas what he has worked out. An outline, organization he works into it, which later becomes the chakrams. When man has worked through the whole astral body, he is completely filled with manas. Then he can begin to work on his etheric body as well. Likewise from within he works into what is called the budhi. Everything that he has in the astral body, he works with into the etheric body, this is his imprint. What man works into the etheric body remains. It remains with him just like his karma. When he dies, his etheric body does not dissolve in the general world ether, but as much as he has worked into it, so much remains. When he is incarnated again, he comes back into the same etheric body. Such a man is a chela.

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Cite: GA 91/1905-06-20/p005 · edition English