Rudolf Steiner

“ The forces at work in the world are both destructive and creative. The destiny of manifested beings is birth and death. The Initiate is to behold this march of destiny. The veil, which in the ordinary course of life clouds the spiritual eyes, is to be uplifted, and the man is to see himself as one interwoven with these forces, with this destiny. His own nature contains destructive and creative powers. As undisguisedly as the other objects of his vision are revealed to the eye of the seer, his own soul is bared to his gaze. ”

“ I am working for a future personality. Between me and the Spirit of the Universe, something interposes which reaches beyond me, but is not yet the same as divinity. This something is my daimon. My to-day is only the product of yesterday, my to-morrow will be the product of to-day; in the same way my life is the result of a former and will be the foundation of a future one. Just as mortal man looks back to innumerable yesterdays and forward to many to-morrows, so does the soul of the sage look upon many lives in his past and many in the future. ”

“ Now we gaze in spirit on the rose and say to ourselves: “In the red sap of the rose is the erstwhile green sap of the plant—now changed to crimson—and the red rose follows the same pure, passionless laws of growth as does the green leaf.” Thus the red of the rose may offer us a symbol of a kind of blood which is the expression of cleansed impulses and passions, purged of all lower elements, and resembling in their purity the forces working in the red rose. Let us now try not only to assimilate such thoughts within our reason, but also let them come to life within our feelings. ”

“ We then feel as if all solid matter and things of sense had dissolved into water, and as if the ground were cut away from under our feet. Everything is dead which we felt before to be alive. The spirit has passed through the life of the senses, as a sword pierces a warm body; we have seen the blood of sense-nature flow. But a new life has appeared. We have risen from the nether-world. ”

“ It is best to choose a time when this desire is at its height, and when it is not yet certain whether the object of the desire will be attained or not. Then surrender yourself entirely to the contemplation of that which you observe, but maintain the utmost inner tranquility of soul. Make every endeavor to be deaf and blind to everything that may be going on around you at the same time, and bear in mind particularly that this contemplation is to evoke a state of feeling in your soul. Allow this state of feeling to arise in your soul, like a cloud rising on an otherwise cloudless horizon. ”

“ Must be fulfilled through power from Lucifer?
Capesius:
Thou dost desire this duty to fulfil,
And that can only be through Lucifer.
Look! Here he comes, the Spirit of the Light.
(Lucifer appears and, in the course of his speech, Benedictus.)
Lucifer:
Maria, thou art asking at my throne
Self-knowledge for that very human soul
Who standeth near thee in the life on Earth.
It cannot learn to know itself aright
Except by gazing deep into myself;
And that it will achieve without thine aid.
How canst thou think that I would grant to thee
All that thou mayst desire for this thy friend? ”

“ Men pursue only their own human ends. Moreover, each individual pursues his own private ends. For the world of ideas realises itself, not in a community, but only in individual men. What appears as the common goal of a community is nothing but the result of the separate volitions of its individual members, and most commonly of a few outstanding men whom the rest follow as their leaders. Each one of us has it in him to be a free spirit, just as every rosebud is potentially a rose.
Monism, then, is in the sphere of genuinely moral action the true philosophy of freedom. ”

“ Just as there the heat reflected their own personality back to them, so do the gaseous organisms now reflect back to them, in gleams of light, the images of their clairvoyant consciousness. They clairvoyantly behold what is taking place on the Sun. And this vision is by no means mere observation; it is as though something of the force which mortals call love made itself felt in the images which stream forth from the Sun. If a clairvoyant looks more closely, he will find the cause of this phenomenon. Exalted beings have blended their activity with the light that is being radiated from the Sun. ”

“ Benedictus:
My mystic group will always know itself
To be in touch with Strader’s soul, although
The life of sense no longer forms a bridge.
But when a spirit-messenger draws near
And manifests to us from his own worlds,
Then he must needs first win our confidence.
This he can only do if he appears
Without disguise unto our spirit-gaze.
Ahriman:
Thou art but striving for self-consciousness:
So stranger spirit-beings, who might wish
To render thee a service, are compelled
To show themselves as parts of thine own self,
If they may only help thee undisguised. ”

“ For the universe as a whole my feelings can be of value only if, as percepts of myself, they enter into connection with a concept and in this roundabout way become links in the cosmos.
Our life is a continual oscillation between our share in the universal world-process and our own individual existence. The farther we ascend into the universal nature of thought where the individual, at last, interests us only as an example, an instance, of the concept, the more the character of something individual, of the quite determinate, unique personality, becomes lost in us. ”

“ As purest life, brought death, my friend, to thee
And slew thy spirit.
Johannes:
And slew thy spirit. Aye. ’Tis so indeed.
What lifts thy soul to Heaven’s sun-kissed heights
When through thy life it comes into mine own
Thrusts my soul down, to death’s abysmal gloom.
When in our friendship’s rosy-fingered dawn
To this revealment thou didst lead me on,
Which sheds its light into the darkened realms,
Where human souls do enter every night,
Bereft of conscious life, and where full oft
Man’s being wanders erring: whilst the night
Of Death makes mock at Life’s reality. ”

“ Truth alone can give us confidence in developing our powers. He who is tortured by doubts finds his powers lamed. In a world the riddle of which baffles him, he can find no aim for his activity.
We no longer want to believe; we want to know. Belief demands the acceptance of truths which we do not wholly comprehend. But the individuality which seeks to experience everything in the depths of its own being, is repelled by what it cannot understand. Only that knowledge will satisfy us which springs from the inner life of the personality, and submits itself to no external norm. ”

“ Then, ghostlike, riseth from dark spirit-depths,
Before my spirit’s eyes, some phantom form
Like some dream-being, grim and terrible,
Pressing with fearful weight upon my soul,
And clutching horribly around my heart.
It seems to speak right through me words like these:
‘If thou dost fail to gain the victory
O’er me with those blunt weapons of thy thought,
Thou art a fleeting phantom, nothing more,
Formed by thine own deluded imagery.’
Theodosius:
That is the destiny of all such men,
As do approach the world by thought alone.
The spirit’s voice dwells deep in every soul. ”

“ That work, as in an ocean’s unseen depths,
And see revealéd all the life of men,
As wavelets on the ocean’s upturned face.
I am at one with all the sense of Life
For which men restless strive, and which to me
Is but their inner self that stands revealed.
I see, how oftentimes it binds itself
Unto the very kernel of man’s soul,
And lifts him to the highest that his heart
Can ever crave. Yet as it lives in me
It turns to bitter fruitage, when mine own
Touches another’s being. Even so
Hath this, my destiny, worked out in all
I willed to give thee, when thou cam’st in love. ”

“ If thy soul to that light holds ever true
Which powers from spirit-realms bestow on thee,
Johannes’ soul will thirst to drink of thine
E’en where the Lord of all Desire holds sway;
And through the love which holds it bound to thee
It will regain the path to light on high.
For ever must a living being strive
Through light or darkness, which hath once beheld
And known the heights of spirit in its soul.
It hath drawn breath from cosmic distances
Of air that pulseth with immortal life,
And living raiseth all our human kind
From its soul depths up to the sunshine’s heights. ”

“ That thou hast reached the end of all thy strife.
Thou hast beheld a picture, which thy will
Alone can turn unto reality.
Maria:
Although thy words just spoken fall on me
Like bitter pain that follows hours of bliss,
There is at least one lesson I have learned,
Which is to bow my head to wisdom’s light
When it doth prove itself through inward force.
Already something is becoming clear
Which up till now lay hidden in my heart.
But when in highest bliss delusion’s snare
Doth wear the mask of truth to human minds,
Darkness of soul is difficult to ban. ”

“ Know thou thyself, O man.
Johannes: (As though coming to himself, sees Maria. The meditation passes to the plane of inner reality.)
Know thou thyself, O man. Thou here, my friend?
Maria:
I sought thee, friend, although I know full well
How comforting to thee is solitude, [52]
When many varying thoughts of many men
Have flooded o’er thy soul. I also know
I cannot by my presence help my friend
In this dark hour of strife—yet yearnings vague
Drive me in this same moment unto thee;
When Benedictus’ words, instead of light,
Such grievous sorrow drew from thy soul’s depths. ”

“ But thou, sun-ripened soul of Strader, thou
Who by the strengthening of thy spirit-powers
Didst drive the Lord of Error into flight
Thou shalt, as spirit-star, shine on thy friends.
Thy light shall henceforth ever penetrate
Into Maria’s and Johannes’ selves;
Through thee will they be able to equip
Themselves more strongly for their spirit-work,
That so they may with powerful thought reveal
Themselves as proof of soul-enlightenment,
E’en at such times as dusky Ahriman,
By clouding wisdom, seeks to spread the night
Of Chaos o’er full-wakened spirit-sight. ”

“ Was but the vain delusion of thy soul.
Maria:
In thee I see the sire of all deceit;
Yet know I too thou oft dost speak the truth.
And any one who chose to set aside
All counsel that might reach him through thy words
To utmost error soon would fall a prey.
And as illusion wears the mask of truth
The better to ensnare the souls of men,
So ’tis but easy for a man to yield
Thereto, by trying like a coward to slink
Past every place where error might be hid.
More than illusion finds the soul in thee;
For in the Spirit of Deceit doth live
The force that gives mankind discernment true. ”

“ Black night doth spread a curtain round my sight.
And many things that I must live and do,
Which spring as fruitage from my character,
Intensify the darkness of that night.
We two must seek clear vision in that light,
Which, though it vanish for a while from sight,
Can never be extinguished in the soul.
Johannes:
But then, Maria, dost thou realize
Through what my soul hath fought its way but now?
A grievous destiny awaiteth thee,
Most noble friend. For well I know that far
From thy pure nature lies that potent force,
That hath so wholly shattered me to bits. ”

“ Romanus:
The fact that thou hast hither found thy way
Gives me the power to give light to the will
Of both Johannes and Maria here.
That it no more may follow forces blind,
But from world-aims henceforth direct itself.
Maria:
Johannes, thou hast seen thine own self now
In spirit in myself. Thou shalt live out
Thine own existence as a spirit, when
The world’s light can behold itself in thee.
Johannes (to Felix Balde) :
In thee, good brother Felix, do I see
That soul-power which did hold my will fast bound
In its own spirit. ”

“ Thou dost not mark how full of rich content
Man, as the image of the cosmos, is.
His head doth mirror heaven’s very self,
The spirits of the spheres work through his limbs,
And in his breast earth-beings hold their sway.
To all of these opposed, in all their might
Appear the demons, natives of the Moon,
Whose lot it is to cross those beings’ aims.
The human being who before us stands,
The soul through which we learn to feel desire,
The spirit who illuminates our path:
All these, full many gods have worked to mould
Throughout the ages of eternity ”

“ Through thee my art hath learned to represent
The beauty of the truths revealed to thee,
Which warm my heart, illuminate my sense,
And clothe in radiant light the spirit-world.
The current of my work must take its rise
From thy soul’s spring and flow thence into mine,
Ere I can feel the wings that lift me up
To lofty heights of spirit, far from earth.
I love the life that quickens in thy soul,
And, loving it, can give it form and hue.
Love only can beget artistic power
And make an artist’s work bear fruit and live. ”

“ Chorus of the Sylphs (a swaying motion in rhythm) :
We weave and we unweave
The web of watery air;
We scatter and divide
Seed forces from the sun;
Light-force condense with care;
Fruit-powers destroy with skill;
For such is our soul-kind
From rays of feeling poured,
Which ever-living glows
That mankind may enjoy
Earth-evolution’s sense.
Chorus of the Gnomes (dancing, hopping, and gesticulating in rhythm) :
We titter and we laugh (said sharply and quickly)
We banter and grimace,
When stumbling human sense
And fumbling human mind
Beholds what we have made ”

“ I’ll change it into soul-power for thy use.
The message I direct unto thy soul
Absorbs the glimm’ring light of shadow-souls,
Who, during earth-life will arouse in thee
The thoughts they brood on through eternity.
And thou, the penitent of spirit-realms,
Direct thy soul-steps onward to the stars;
There nature-spirits long to use thy work
Wherefrom they will beam fantasy to souls
And so will fashion wings for life on earth.
[230]
Dame Balde’s Soul:
I follow thee, dear sister of my soul,
My Philia, who dost weave love from star
To star and from one spirit to the next. ”

“ So long as they hide darkly in the soul.
Until they can attain to wisdom’s light
I will be thy protector—through the light
I find deep-seated in the human soul.
He has as yet no pity for thy woes,
And ever lets thee sink among the shades
When he is striving up the heights of light.
For then he can forget that thou, his child,
Must lead a miserable phantom life.
But henceforth, thou wilt find me at thy side
When as a shade thou freezest through his fault.
I will exert my rights as Lucifer
(At the word ‘Lucifer’ the spirit of Johannes’ youth starts.) ”

“ Maria (to the Guardian) :
Thou knowest well, who hast been guardian
Of this realm’s threshold since the world began
What beings need to cross the threshold o’er
Who to thy kind and to thy time belong:
So too with men, who meet thee at this gate
If they do come alone, and cannot show
That they have done true spirit-good they must
Go back again from here to life on Earth.
But this man here hath been allowed to bring
That other soul unto thy threshold now
Whom fate hath bound so closely with his own. ”

“ Quicken with life the soul of this our son:
From inmost depths may there stream forth for him
That which can fill his soul with spirit-light.
From inmost depths may there resound for him
That which can wholly wake in him his Self
To the creative joy of spirit-life.
A Spirit-Voice behind the stage:
To founts of worlds primeval
His surging thoughts do mount;—
What as shadow he hath thought
What as fancy he hath lived
Soars up beyond the world of form and shape;
On whose fulness pondering
Mankind in shadow dreams,
O’er whose fulness gazing forth
Mankind in fancy lives. ”

“ Strader:
That is no way for us; for in our speech
We name such talk mere fancy, and we fain
Would seek firm ground, not fly to cloud-capped heights.
The Other Maria:
Then if ye wish to tread the other path
Ye must forthwith renounce your spirit’s pride.
Ye must forget what reason doth command,
And let the touch of nature conquer you.
In your men’s breasts let your child-soul have sway,
Artless and undisturbed by thought’s dim shades. ”

“ Capesius:
Capesius is not within this place;
And his soul will not hear him spoken of.
Benedictus:
Thou wilt not feel thou art Capesius
But him in spirit thou shalt see and know.
For thee the powerful work of thought hath now
In thy soul-body caged the spirit-life.
So that thy soul-life can release itself
From thought’s dream-play within thine earthly frame.
Too weak it felt itself to wander forth
From out world distances to depths of soul;
Too strong to gaze at lofty spirit-light
Through all the darkness that surrounds the Earth. ”

“ Capesius:
He who appears to thee hath often stood
Before great Lucifer who rules this realm.
And Lucifer hath made it clear to him
That only souls, who consciously make use
Of powers that from their earthly bodies come,
Can harm the realm which doth obey his will.
Those souls however who go through their life
Within the body, as it were in swoon,
And yet already have clairvoyant power,
These only learn in Lucifer’s domain,
And cannot cause it harm in any way.
Maria:
I know that in these realms of Spirit-life
’Tis not by words, but sight, that one doth learn. ”