I. Man and the Surrounding World

You are all familiar with the self-consciousness of man. You know that we distinguish four members of the human being: physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. What we call self-consciousness arises from the fact that man grows conscious of his Ego. Self-consciousness does not only enable us to gain knowledge of the surrounding world, but also of ourselves; it enables us to know that each one of us is an independent being. When we really follow this thought to the end, we will grasp how this self-consciousness in man is to be understood.