Lecture XI

In the first place man stands before us in his physical nature. He lives at the same time in the Astral and Mental Worlds, but has self-awareness only in the physical world. He must traverse the entire physical world until his awareness of self has absorbed everything that the physical world can teach him. Here man says to himself: ‘I’. He connects his ‘I’ with the things around him, learns to expand his ‘I’ through contemplation; it flows outwards and becomes one with the objects which he has completely comprehended. If we had already comprehended the entire physical world we should no longer need it, for then we should have it within us. At present however man has within him only a part of the physical world. The human being who is born as a Lemurian in his first incarnation, who is just at the point of directing his ego towards the physical world, knows as yet but little of it. When however he comes to his last incarnation, he must have united the entire physical world with his ‘I’.