The Rudolf Steiner Archive

If we conceive of the relationships between quantities, we have general arithmetic. Special arithmetic deals with specific quantities of units. Algebra is named after “Algeber” (an Arabic mathematician).

First relation between numbers: addition. One number is added to another: \(a + b\) and so on. This is extended to a series:

\(a + b + c + d + e + f\) and so on.

Second relation:

subtraction; you take one number away from another: \(a - b\). This expands: \(a - b - c - d - e\) and so on.

One prerequisite is necessary here, namely that \(a\) is greater than \(b\).

\(a \gt b\) (then \(a\) is greater than \(b\))
\(a = b\) (then \(a\) is equal to \(b\))
\(a \lt b\) (then \(a\) is less than \(b\))
\(c =\) the result: \(a - b = c\).

If \(a\) is greater than \(b\), then the question is how much remains if I take away \(b\) from \(a\)? \(c\) remains. \(c\) is the number by which \(a\) is greater than \(b\). If \(a\) is equal to \(b\), then \(c = 0\). If \(a\) is smaller than \(b\), then there is also a \(c\), for example: \(3 - 5 =?\) Here you ask how many units are missing from \(a\) if \(a\) is not as large as \(b\).

[This means: For] a number that is minus, it means: There was a subtraction; in this subtraction, the minuend was too small. — A negative number can only be understood as the result of an arithmetic operation.

The addition can be such that some numbers are equal to each other or all are equal to each other.

\(a + b + a + c\) and so on, or
\(a + a + a + a + a + a\) and so on

If all numbers are equal in the addition, we have multiplication. The number that tells you how many times the same number is in the sum is called the multiplier.

\(a \times b\) means: \(a\) is to be added to \(b\) the same number of times.

or \(a \cdot b\): \(a\) is multiplied by \(b).

\(a \cdot b \cdot c \cdot d\) (means: \(a\) is multiplied by \(b\), \(c\), \(d\) and so on one after the other).

When subtracting, you may subtract different numbers:
\(a - b - c - d - e - f\) and so on, or the same ones, for example \(a - b - b - b - b - b\) and so on.

The question is: how many times can I subtract b from a?
\(a : b\) is division (or a hidden subtraction).

The divisor is actually a minuend. The dividend is actually a subtrahend.

It is a special case of subtraction.

\(a \cdot b \cdot c \cdot d \cdot e \cdot f\)
\(a \cdot a \cdot\) and so on, m times (meaning: the same number multiplied over and over again by itself), is denoted by \(a^m\) (\(a m\) times)
\(a \cdot a \cdot a \cdot a \cdot a \cdot a\) and so on, multiplied by \(m\) (meaning: the same number multiplied over and over again by itself) is designated by \(a^m\) ( \(a m\) times)

\(a^m = P\) (\(a m\) times taken gives \(P\) = exponentiation).
\(a\) to the mth [power] \(=\) P

\(a =\) the root, the base or the factor.
\(m =\) the exponent.
\(P =\) the power.

The fifth arithmetic operation is exponentiation.

If P and m are known and a is sought:
\(\sqrt[m]{P} = x\) Square root.

abbreviated division:
\(P\) = radicand
\(m =\) root exponent
\(x(a) =\) radix.

If \(m\) is unknown, write \(a^x = P\).
To what power of a do you have to raise a to get \(P\)?
\(x = log_a P\) (the exponent in the parenthesis is the logarithm)
\(2 = log_3 9\) (\(2\) is equal to the log of \(9\) with respect to the root \(3\))

Taking logarithms is the seventh arithmetic operation.

\(a \cdot b\)
\(+a \cdot +b\)
\(+a \cdot +a \cdot +a \cdot +a + b - times\)
\(+a \cdot +b = +ab\)
\(-a \cdot +b = -ab\)
\(+a \cdot -b = -ab\)
\(-a \cdot -b = +ab\)

Multiplying equivalent numbers by each other yields a positive result; non-equivalent numbers yield a negative result.

\(+a \cdot -b = -c\)
\(+a \cdot +b = +c\)
\(-a \cdot +b = -c\)
\(-a \cdot -b = +c\)

Similar numbers divided by each other give a positive result, unlike numbers divided by each other give a negative result.

\(a^b = c\) where \(+a\) and \(+c\)

or \(-a\) and \(+c\)

\(\sqrt[b]{c} = a\)

\((+a)^+b = +c\)

\((-a)^+b = +c\)

\(c\) negative \(= -c\)
\(a^x = -c\)
\(\sqrt[x] - c = a\)

To denote a negative power, imaginary numbers must be found that are neither positive nor negative.

A triangle is a figure bounded by three straight lines. We distinguish triangles according to the size of their sides and their angles. First, we distinguish a triangle in which all three sides are equal, calling it an equilateral triangle, which also has all three angles equal. A triangle in which only two sides are equal and the third unequal is called an isosceles triangle. It has two equal angles, which are adjacent to the unequal side. Then one, which is unequal; all sides and angles are unequal. Size ratios of the angles of a triangle.

2. Secondary angle

Measuring the angle: The angles are measured according to the relative size of the arc. You measure an angle by drawing a circle around it.

First divide the circle into four parts, then again into two parts, then each of these into five and each of these into \(9\) parts = \(4 \times 2 \times 5 \times 9 = 360°\) (degrees). The angle is as large as the angle is of the \(360°\).

Two minor angles always add up to \(180°\).

Two vertex angles.

You name the angle by writing a letter in it.

\(\angle a\) is called angle \(a\)

\(\angle a = \angle b\) as vertex angles

\(\angle a + \angle b = 180°\) as an angle between

Four pairs of opposite angles

\(x\) the intersecting line
\(y\), \(z\) the lines intersected

When two straight lines are intersected by a third, four pairs of opposite angles arise, namely those that lie on the same side of the intersecting line and on the same side of the intersected line.

Alternate angles are those that lie on different sides of the intersecting line and on different sides of the line being cut. Four pairs of alternate angles.

Angles are those that lie on the same side of the intersecting line and on different sides of the line being cut. Four pairs of angles.

\(a\) and \(b\) are opposite angles.

If two parallels are intersected by a third, then the opposite angles are all equal to each other.

\(b\) and \(a\) are alternate angles.

Assume that \(b\) and \(a\) are alternate angles at [two intersecting parallels].

Alternate angles between parallel lines must always be equal.

\(b\) and \(a\) alternate angles \(=\) assumption.

Proof:

\((\angle b = \angle c)\)
\(\angle b = \angle c\) as opposite angle
\(\angle a = \angle c\) as vertex angleergo: \(\angle a = \angle b\)

If two quantities of a third are equal, they are also equal to each other.

This is an axiom, on which the proof is based. An axiom is a proposition that is neither capable nor in need of proof.

\(a\) and \(b\) are angles.

Proof:

\(\angle a\) and \(\angle b\) are angles (assumption)
\(\angle a = \angle c\) as opposite angle
\(\angle b + \angle c = 180\)° as adjacent angle
ergo: \(\angle b + \angle c = 180°\)
Proof that two angles are always \(180°\).

Axiom: In every calculation, one quantity can be replaced by another equal to it without changing the calculation.

\(ABC\) a triangle (assumption)
\(DE || AC\)
\(\angle a = \angle d\) as alternate angles
\(\angle c = \angle e\) as alternate angles
\(\angle b = \angle b\)

\(\angle d + \angle b + \angle e = 180°\)
ergo: \(\angle a + \angle b + \angle c = 180°\)

The sum of the three angles of any triangle is [\(180°\)].

\(A B C D\) quadrilateral. Given
\(\angle e + \angle a + \angle g = 180°\)
\(\angle f + \angle h + \angle c = 180°\)
\(\angle c + \angle a + \angle g + \angle f + \angle h + \angle c = 360°\)
\(\angle a + \angle b + \angle d + \angle c = 360°\)
ergo: In every quadrilateral, the sum of the \(4\) angles is \(360°\)

Line: spatial size of one dimension - length
Area: spatial size of two dimensions - length + width
Body: spatial size of three dimensions - length + width + thickness
? Spatial size of four dimensions

A two-dimensional space is bounded by a surface. A right angle has a quarter of a circular arc between its legs.

A square is a surface that is bounded by four equal lines and has four right angles.

Line with four units of measurement, \(e\) one unit of length, \(ab = 4 \times e\) (\(4 \times\) the unit), \(A B = 4 \times e\)

You can measure a length by counting how many times the unit is included.

\(e\) (size \(e\)) squared is the unit area. The unit area is a c described in terms of the unit length.

Area unit. Question: How much larger than the area unit is the whole square when the side is four times larger than the length unit?

\(A B C D = AB^2\)

The area of a square is found by multiplying one side by itself and raising it to the power of two.

\(1^2 = 1\)
\(2^2 = 4\)
\(3^2 = 9\)
\(4^2 = 16\)
\(5^2 = 25\)
\(6^2 = 36\)
\(7^2 = 49\)
\(8^2 = 67\)
\(9^2 = 81\)
\(10^2 = 100\)

The two sides of a right angle form the cathets. The opposite line is the hypotenuse.

\(3^2 = 4^2 = 5^2\)

\(BDEC = BC^2\)
\(HEFJ = \angle ABC + HJCE\)
\(CE =BC\)
\(HEFJ = \angle ABC + HJCE\)
\(CE =BC\)
\(ABC = BDG\)
\(JKC = BGK\)
\(BDEC = BGHECB + BGD + HCE\)
\(HEFJ = HJCE + CEF\)
\(HJGB = HBJK + BGK\)
\(HJCE + EEF + BGK + ABKJ =\)

\(BGHECJKB + ABC + ABKJ\)
\(BGHEC + ABC + ABJK + JKC\)

\(BEDC = BC^2\)
\(BGE = DCF\)
\(EHD = BAC\)
\(BKCDHG = BKCDHG BGK = JKC\)
therefore
\(BKCDHG + ABC + DFC =\)
\(KKCDHG + BGE + EHD\)

\(EB = BC\), \(ED = BC\), \(CD = BC\)
\(ABC\), \(BGE\), \(EHD\), \(DFC\) are right triangles on equal hypotenuses, and therefore equal, since all the angles correspond; therefore, triangle \(EGB = DCF\) and \(EHD = ABC\); [illegible] \(BGHD:CK\) is equal to itself.

We must not confuse space and dimension. Only three dimensions can be recognized in space, These are the three dimensions of what has become, of what exists, that is, which represent what hovers before our eyes in the present as a shadow image of the intersecting forces of past and future. To this, however, the word "everything flows" is always to be applied. Nothing remains of it, but everything is in constant change. The three spatial dimensions are only the means to bring the individual development moments before our eyes like in a panorama, so that we as three-dimensional beings, which are pronounced in the space, can also recognize other processes in their three-dimensional pictoriality. This is necessary so that man learns to recognize himself as a special being in the world. Otherwise he would never have come to the objective recognition of the environment and would always have felt it only subjectively within himself.

Now we have the other dimensions also all in us and around us. The other dimensions are not to be looked for in the space. But the space, the three dimensions, rest in the other dimensions. The other dimensions contain the three dimensions of space within them, but are not delimited in them - just as water can contain floating pieces of ice, but is not delimited in them, or as air can contain denser substances, but is not delimited in them.

The dimension in which we live, which initially conditions our development, our growth, in the first place, is time. Every moment of our life is a moving through this fourth dimension, time. Time includes everything spatial. The inanimate has only the three dimensions; it does not change into the fourth dimension, into time. But everything that is alive lives into time. To live means to change into time, to change into the fourth dimension. The fact that we are physically different today than yesterday is only possible through the fourth dimension. Within the three dimensions, changes in growth cannot take place. They only become visible within the three dimensions as shadow images of changing in time.

The fifth dimension still includes the fourth; it is sensation; that goes beyond space and time. That which connects us with the other beings, that is the fifth dimension. Sensation holds space and time within itself and is not limited by space and time. Each higher dimension makes us independent of the one below, because in the higher one we control the one below. The second dimension is a going beyond the first dimension; the third dimension is a going beyond the second dimension, a progression to independence. The fourth dimension is a going beyond the third dimension, a further becoming independent. For time makes us independent of space. What we could not achieve bound to space, we can achieve in the fourth dimension, time. Time makes it possible for us to rise above the space dimension. Thus, sensation, the fifth dimension, makes it possible for us to rise above time; we become independent of time through sensation. Likewise, self-consciousness, the sixth dimension, makes us independent of sensation. The sixth dimension, self-consciousness, is the one from which we also master sentience, the fifth dimension. With self-consciousness, we also encompass the fifth dimension, sentience. Our sensation can rest in the self-consciousness, the fifth dimension in the sixth. Thus time rests in sensation, the fourth dimension in the fifth; and space rests in time, the third dimension in the fourth; the surface rests on the body, the second dimension on the third; the line rests on the surface, the first dimension on the second. The sixth dimension, self-consciousness, leads over to still higher dimensions. The overcoming of self-consciousness lies in the seventh dimension, in that which goes beyond self-consciousness. In the seventh dimension, the chela begins to live, entering higher worlds through self-consciousness. The seventh dimension is the conscious surrender to the world. In this conscious surrender lies the seventh dimension. The eighth dimension is conscious absorption in the environment; the ninth dimension is conscious creation in the environment.

Dimensions 1 through 3 are the inanimate;
Dimensions 4 through 6 are the living but passive;
Dimensions 7 to 9 are the creating ones.

Through the third dimension alone there is separation. The third dimension is the dimension of specialness. By overcoming the third dimension, we step out of the specialness into the community.

Beings with higher dimensions and with the first and second are not bound to specialness, but can overcome space. The third dimension is space in the first place. Beings can have several dimensions that have nothing to do with the third dimension of space. Those who have the first and second dimension and the fourth - the time - and the fifth - the sensation - are independent of the third space dimension. In the astral world we are also independent of the third space dimension. But there we have the time like a panorama behind us and in front of us. As we look here in the space, we can look in the astral, in the fourth dimension, in the time. Time lies rolled up in front of us. The past and the future surround us like a panorama here in space. Looking back into the past or looking into the future is therefore conditioned by the ability to consciously enter the fourth dimension or to consciously grasp the panorama of time that is rolled up there before us.

The point has no extension. That what has no extension gets an extension is conditioned by the first dimension; thereby the point becomes a line. That the line can move is conditioned by the second dimension; thereby it becomes the surface; that the surface can move is conditioned by the third dimension; by the third dimension everything existing becomes physical, fixed. When the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, nothing had yet entered the third dimension, nothing was yet physically fixed. The other dimensions were there, but the third space dimension was not. That meant the greatest congestion of the life currents on earth. Thereby the physical, the separation, the particularity, the emergence of the individual things from the totality, the becoming fixed, crystallizing out came into being. It is the symbol for that, what in the spiritual the human being should undertake with himself. Just as a cosmos crystallized out of the chaos of the world, out of the confusion of the currents in the world, and became visible in the third dimension, formed itself, whereby a solid, fixed thing arose in the flooding sea of the world, whereby rhythm came into the chaos, so man should spiritually form a cosmos out of the forces flowing in him. He should first find in his self-consciousness the fixed point, the mainland, on which he can stand, and then arrange around it, rhythmically shape all the forces that are in him. The material for this microcosm is given to him, but he should work on this material himself, build a temple out of it, in which the divine rules. Just as the forces in nature, by working together, by crossing each other, cause a congestion, but also a crystallization, so also man should build a temple out of higher and lower forces, by their flowing against each other, by congestion, by forming something solid, lasting, by crystallization. When he has achieved this, he can himself work creatively in the world out of this ordered, harmonious whole. Then he is the ruler in this microcosm. Then he is no longer driven by the forces, but he is the driving force, the creator of something new. Then he rules all dimensions. Then they are for him only the lines along which he sends out his forces into the world. Spiritual growth transcends all dimensions; it masters and transcends all dimensions; there is no limit to it, neither by space nor by time nor by sensation.

The third dimension of space has great importance in the development of the world and in the development of the individuality of man. But it must be overcome. By overcoming the third dimension, man becomes free. Entering the third dimension means congestion; but congestion is also gathering of strength, fortification, anchoring in a fixed point, the only possibility for man to learn to stand firm. But man must not remain in the congestion of the third dimension, but must again grow beyond it, consciously grow beyond this congestion, so that the accumulated forces can become free, can unfold. That which has become solid must be made fluid again. If man frees himself from the congestion, frees his own forces, then he can also free all the rest of nature from the congestion. That is releasing the mineral kingdom and transferring nature into the plant kingdom, transferring it out of the congestion of the third dimension into the life of the fourth dimension. Then also everything is still there that is there now, but living in the fourth dimension, with overcoming of the third dimension. Then we do not look at what has become, but all around us at what is becoming. Everything that lies in time then becomes visible to us. The conditions of life then take place visibly before our eyes. While now all life lies hidden behind the veil - maya - of what has become, we then grasp life itself.

Just as the second dimension enables the movement of the first, the third the movement of the second, so the fourth dimension enables the movement of a three-dimensional body. And further, sensation enables the movement of time - the fourth dimension; and self-consciousness enables the movement of sensation. Or, we can say: the first dimension moves in the second, the second in the third, the third in time, time in sensation, sensation in self-consciousness. Or, as the first dimension fixes the second, so the second fixes the third, the third fixes the fourth; so space fixes time, time fixes sensation, sensation fixes self-consciousness. On the one hand we proceed from the cause, on the other from the effect; on the one hand from the narrower, more limited, more dependent, on the other from the wider, going beyond, more independent.

Man had to descend completely into the narrow, the limited, into dependence, in order to gather forces from the environment for his own field, so that he could become an individual, and now he must overcome the limits again, give the forces he has gathered back to the world. But it is precisely in this giving back that his spiritual growth now consists. To the extent that he gives, he increases spiritually, because spiritually one does not give oneself away, but spiritual giving means growing out to it oneself, to the extent that one gives. If I give something physically, I remain where I am, and what is given is then no longer my property. If I give something spiritually, I go with what is given. If I keep everything to myself spiritually, I remain in accumulation, I do not grow. If I give spiritually, I expand myself in proportion to what I give. To give spiritually means to build oneself up. Everything that a person gives spiritually to his environment is and remains himself. Therefore, anyone who succeeds in giving himself completely spiritually to the rest of the world, as Christ did, will grow into the whole of the rest of the world.

This means not being closed off, opening up to the environment of spiritual beings. Through this, the inner light shines out into the environment. A being who does not live in congestion, who is not closed off in the third dimension, radiates his innermost out into the environment; thereby he shines out into the environment. He who lives in congestion, in egoism, cannot radiate and become luminous; only the selflessly devoted can do that. He who closes himself off has no light of his own. He needs light from outside to perceive the environment in his seclusion. He who does not shut himself off has his own light shining from within him; he enlightens the environment.

Plato calls the phenomena in the physical world the shadow-images of the higher world. To understand this, we must spiritualize the mental images of the physical world, of space. The image of the first dimension is the line. But it is also the image of the fourth dimension, time. Time also goes on inexorably in one direction. Moment follows moment, like point follows point in the line. If now two beings meet in this fourth dimension, in the time, then the fifth dimension, the sensation, arises. What meets only in the space, does not feel. Two stones, which we put next to each other, do not feel. Two beings living in time, on the other hand, feel when they meet in this fourth dimension.

This meeting in time is represented by two crossing lines, which thereby represent a congestion. The sensation is a congestion in time caused by the meeting of two beings in time. So this is the soul meaning of the two-dimensional image, the plane, the square. We can also say, just as the first dimension squared forms the second, so the fourth dimension, time, squared gives the fifth, sensation. Each dimension is raised into the square by the fact that another meets perpendicularly against it. With the second dimension, the third is formed by a further crossing with another current. The square is transformed into the cube. In this we see at the same time the first dimension raised into the cubic number.

If we assume the line to be \(3\), then the square would be \(3^2 = 9\), and its cube would be \(3^3 = 27\). Thus, the first dimension relates to the second as a number relates to its square and to the third as a number relates to its cube. Just as in the third dimension a congestion arises from the encounter of two two-dimensional things, we can also observe that when two beings living in the fifth dimension, two beings who have sensation, meet, self-awareness arises when these sensations cross. Two accumulating sensations emanating from different beings create self-awareness. The image in the physical world for this is the cube. The most striking moments of accumulation in sensation, causing the growth of self-awareness, are love and hate, sympathy and antipathy. Man would never have learned to feel himself as a self if he had not encountered the sensation of other selves in his own sensation. Otherwise he would only have been able to feel a whole. He would never have been able to become aware of the individual beings, nor of himself. With the objectification, with the emergence of the individual things, it became possible for him to reflect on himself. Just as in the physical world every thing only appears objectively when it enters the third dimension, so in the soul world self-awareness only becomes possible when accumulations also form there in the fifth dimension, the feeling, which give rise to self-awareness. So here too, the fourth dimension, time, is squared, the fifth, feeling, is cubed, and self-awareness is the sixth. The cube is the image of the self-aware human.

But into still higher dimensions man must rise. One manifestation of self-consciousness is thought. Thinking can be a confused one or a clear one. What is usually called "thinking", the everyday repeating of what is experienced in the world of senses and soul, thinking over, repeating human thoughts, this is not real thinking, not pure thinking. It is mixed with feelings, with antipathy and sympathy, confused, chaotic. Thinking is only the deepening into the environment, the immersion into the environment, into the great thoughts of the world, into the thoughts embodied in the world. To this belongs first of all a sensation-free concentration on a world thought, the striking of a certain direction of thought, without digressing to the right and to the left, the dwelling on a point, which, however, then becomes a line through the immersion. This penetration, this selfless devotion to a world thought, is the same in the spiritual as time in the spiritual and the line in the physical. It is an unlimited moving forward in one direction.

By the uniting of two thoughts a mental picture is formed; the one thought must cross with the other; thereby a picture is formed, just as from the crossing of two beings living in time the sensation is formed, and from the jamming of two lines the plane is formed. An image that arises in the spirit, the imaginative thinking, is the concentrated pure thought raised into the square. These imaginings arise from the fact that man rises out of his self-consciousness in thought, pure thought, or penetrates into a world-thought, a world-truth; but the thought which comes to meet him and produces in him the image in which it crosses with his thought, that is the thought of the spirit-being itself which sent it out; that is man's meeting with a higher spiritual being, the union with the spirit of the world. Thereby the ability of imaginative thinking arises in him. There he lives in the eighth dimension, while pure thinking is the seventh dimension. The image for the eighth dimension is the same as for sensation, the square.

Now, when man can engage in imaginative thinking, and can produce images in the spiritual world, the images of the world-life, then the world-life itself flows into these images; again a meeting of two currents occurs, the current of imaginative thinking emanating from man, and the current of the world-life itself. A figure, a spiritual being, emerges from the image. Man becomes one with the world life and thereby creative. He accomplishes this in the ninth dimension, which brings forth forms. There man is endowed with the creative word, which brings forth living things. This is the spiritual cube of the human being, just as self-consciousness is the spiritual cube. In the self-consciousness man forms himself as something special, as a closed being; in the ninth dimension, in the creative word, he forms new beings out of himself, He reaches the tenth dimension when he gives these beings formed out of himself permanent existence. Then he has become a planetary spirit, which forms permanent beings out of itself. This tenth dimension is the sphere which encloses all other dimensions. There the cube is transformed into the sphere, the square into the circle, the congestion has become life again. Therefore, the square in the circle is the image of the tenth dimension, or also the line in the circle, because everything started from the line, and in the circle it is brought to completion. So the number ten or the circle with the line is the image of the whole creation. And every new creation begins with the line, which is formed into the circle. So we can represent the ten dimensions like this:

As man stands before us, he contains three beings within himself; he is a citizen of three worlds, physical, mental, and spiritual. But man is self-conscious only in the physical. While he is self-conscious in the physical world as a single individual, the other beings in nature do not have this self-consciousness in the physical world as single individuals. The beings, which he has left behind him as stages of his ascent, have no self-consciousness in their individual appearances. He has gained his self-consciousness at the expense of these other beings. His development is a development to freedom at the expense of the other unfree kingdoms of nature left behind by him.

Each of these kingdoms of nature possesses one or more properties and powers which make it related to man. With the mineral kingdom he shares the mineral existence, the three-dimensional indie-appearance by condensation to the mineral existence, the becoming objective in comparison with the environment, the physical form, which is mineral in its composition, the physical substance and corporeality. Now everything that was too much for him of this physical, mineral substance and corporeality, he left behind, and from this the mineral environment arose. We observe this process of excretion of the superfluous physical substance and its passing over into the mineral world now still likewise with the human being. If his whole physical corporeality has become superfluous or an obstacle to his further development, it falls away from him altogether; death occurs, and the physical body is returned to the mineral world from which it was taken.

Secondly, man possesses - like the plant kingdom around him - the ability to grow and reproduce himself, which elevates him above the mineral kingdom. He acquired the ability to grow by absorbing food from his environment and adding it to his body to give him new strength. With the fact that he could take up new things - by the food - was also connected that he could produce new things - the production power - which appeared with him first as physical self-producing power. The reproduction power is basically only the antipole of the food intake. When man still led a vegetable existence, he, like the plant, on the one hand took up nourishment from the environment, and on the other hand he grew from within into the environment. At that time the taking in of the food was an inhalation of the environment, and the exhalation meant the growing into the environment, the reproducing of oneself, as it can be observed now also with the plant. What was superfluous at this reproducing in substances, that remained to the mineral world. The plant world stands around us as an image of these forces of nourishment and of the residual processing of the nourishment taken up and transformed into growth and reproduction. It is a stage [from] which man has ascended and which he has left behind as the second on the way of his development. But it is also a stage which he is to reach again in the future. It is exemplary for him. He is to learn once again, like the plant, to absorb dispassionately the forces of the environment and then - after he has allowed them to pass through him, and by surrendering his innermost being, imbued with these forces, to sweep them out - to return these forces to the environment in a more elevated way. He should perform alchemy with the forces of the environment in himself, which brings them all into beautiful harmony, transforming even the base into pure, clean gold. This he can do when he has reached the point where he recognizes himself also as a force in the cosmos, which is needed for the further development of the cosmos; when he no longer wants his force for himself, in order to build himself up physically from the environment, in order to satisfy his desires, and likewise to reproduce himself for the satisfaction of his own desires. It is a special power; it lies in its individuality. Being individuality means nothing else than being a special, undivided cosmic force. All cosmic forces are individualities. Minerals, plants and animals are not individualities. But higher individualities work through them and in them. All natural forces are conscious expressions of individualities. The more such cosmic forces are formed, the more beautiful and harmonious the universe becomes. It was perfect from the very beginning, but the evolution of the universe is one of diversity and beauty. Beauty is to crown cosmic existence.

How the development can and shall proceed selflessly and harmoniously, beautifully designed, beneficial for the environment, man shall learn from the plant kingdom, to which he once belonged without self-consciousness, without own will - dependent on higher powers - but selfless and chaste, without desire. Now he is to enter the state of plant existence on an elevated level, self-conscious, gifted with his own will, with purified, chaste creative power. The plant sits firmly in the soil; it cannot live without the soil in which it is rooted; thus it is dependent on the physical world. Man should take root in the spiritual; from it he should draw his nourishment. He is to take root and revive and flourish in the spiritual, independent of the physical world.

The firm ground in the spiritual is his I; therein he is rooted; he is to live in the spiritual light and blossom through wisdom, and bear fruit through his own divine will. The development should make him free, give him his own will, but finally his own will for spiritual life. There he leads an existence similar to the plant, but independent, free, in harmony with the development plan of the cosmic individualities and forces. On a higher level, therefore, the plant kingdom represents what he is to strive for as his life, his activity in the world. It is the symbol of the higher life. And the mineral kingdom, in its tranquility and lack of desire, represents all that is necessary for this life and its expressions, the formative substance in which man will then live, from which he will build himself up, from which he will take up forces, material, in order to transform this through alchemy into a living thing. Everything mineral will then pass through him again and emerge from him vegetable. He will awaken the dead to life. He will then release the mineral kingdom, which remains under the spell and is solidified, from this spell. While he now lives on living things and destroys the living things in order to build himself up, and produces only mineral things, he will then feed on minerals and produce living things. While now he brings pain and disharmony to the world through his life, he will then spread joy and harmony around him.

Man can do this only when he has completely mastered his etheric body and all the powers of his etheric body have become free. Then he can lead this vegetable existence on a higher level. He then lives in his life body itself, he is then life, the Word, Christ, Budhi. He can then turn his life outward in the same way, give it to the environment continuously, as he now sends out his desires into the environment. His physical body is now a reflection of his desire body. He was even more so in earlier times. The sense organs are the outwardly turned desires which connect him with the physical. Man's will now rests in his desires and enters the environment through them. Therefore, the physical body is now still an image, an expression of the will living in the desire. Later, the physical body will be an image, an expression of the will dwelling in life.

Now man takes in the environment through the senses, which are the organs of the astral body, the desire body, and he uses his reproductive power only for reproduction in the physical. Later, when he has become selfless, after the purification of the astral body, a reversal of forces will take place in him. What is now used for reproduction in the physical will be lifted up to the spiritual power of reproduction through the Word, the creative sound; and the organs which served reproduction will be transformed into those which receive life from the environment. The physical body will then be an image of life, of the physical body. It will then be alive, vegetable. Desire brought man death; desire is the very thing that kills. Devotion brings him life. It builds him the immortal body, which only generates itself out of itself. The whole development is a development to life. Development means life.

All now what is stored up in the animal kingdom in forces shows us the stage which was necessary to lead man into physical existence. The animal kingdom is the stored-up desire of man. To the extent that he overcomes his desires, to the extent that he has a liberating effect on the animal kingdom. The power accumulated in the animal kingdom, the passion, which in man increased to self-conscious passion, must gradually be absolved again by purification of human nature and there be used as power and transformed into life. Then, through inner alchemy, he shapes the harmonious life of the plant kingdom out of the passion of the animal kingdom and the tranquility of the mineral kingdom. Out of the inactive and the chaotic he then crystallizes in living forms the living, harmonious, beautiful.

In the mineral kingdom is embodied wisdom, the wise thought; in the animal kingdom is embodied power; in the plant kingdom power and wisdom shall blossom united into beauty.

That is why man himself had first to separate all these kingdoms, so that he could afterwards, as an individuality, as a free, cosmic force, fashion out of these kingdoms, which are at the same time a means of ascent, a model and a field of action for him, a beautiful cosmos. Then the wisdom of the mineral kingdom and the power of the animal kingdom will enter completely into the vegetable life. Man will then be the builder who uses these forces and reshapes them into a beautiful, spiritualized world-temple full of life and harmony.

Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.

That is to say, before the world of the soul opens up to our gaze, we must control our own soul in such a way that it becomes a means by which we can understand everything of a spiritual nature. Tears are drawn from the eye by its own pain. As long as the soul is moved by its own pain, it cannot become the organ for the pain of other beings that is hidden from the physical eye. But first the soul must be prepared by its own pain. The soul organ for giving must be developed through its own pain. But it can only become active when it grows beyond its own pain, when a person can feel pain without being shaken by it, when he has acquired complete composure. Then the ability to feel pain is transformed into the ability to perceive the pain of other beings, to see it as something real. Every pain is there to lift people up a level, to transform their feelings from a human, moving, passionate one into a divine, serene, enlightened one. Only then can the soul of his fellow creatures be reflected in his soul. His inner eye opens; he learns to see in the world of souls.

Before the ear is able to hear, sensitivity must fade.

We must learn not to take what is said in the voice, the word of another person, personally - neither the pleasant through vanity nor the unpleasant through hurt. What the other person says to us must no more hurt us than if he had said it to a person we did not care about. It must not touch us. If we have refined our soul to such an extent that it is free of all vanity, the coarse vibrations of the hurtful word cannot leave an impression in our ear. They may reach our soul and be heard, but they cannot enter and wreak havoc. Overcoming all personal vanity, all sense of the importance of one's own being in relation to others, that is what enables us to hear the words of higher beings. These sounds are drowned out by the vibrations of one's own soul for the sensitive ear.

Before the Masters, the voice can speak, but it must learn to wound.

As long as we still use the voice to say such things to our fellow human beings that hurt them, as long as our words are not yet full of gentleness and forbearance, but still resound with pride, self-importance , imperiousness or a thought of hate, a thought of discontent, we cannot raise our voice to those who can only accept the pure, selfless, forgiving and devoted word.

Every harsh, hurtful word, and every word that is filled with an ugly, discordant thought of selfishness, separates us from the masters. The masters cannot speak through us while this is the case. — And they only understand us when they can use us as an instrument to speak through us. They understand only their own language, their own sounds. Our voice can speak to the Masters only when we are so full of human love that every word is an expression of human love. Only then do our words become melody, music for humanity, because they bring only good to them. - Our words are a force through which we impress ourselves on our environment. Every word we speak leaves an impression on our environment. As long as our words do not contain love, they bring disharmony into our environment. That is why Paul says:

If I speak with human and angelic tongues but have not love, I am only a gong or a clanging cymbal.

I would only speak disharmonious words. It is love that makes the word harmonious, that makes it music. And:

Before the soul can stand before them, the blood of their hearts must moisten their feet.

Being able to stand means being grounded. - In the ordinary person, only the physical body stands on firm ground, but the soul must learn to stand just as firmly. It can only do so when the passion is at rest. Passion dwells in the heart's blood. The heart's blood must be purified through experience, through insight and compassion, sublimated like the blood of Christ. When this heart's blood wets the feet, that is, when it flows as purified blood in love for humanity, then the soul can stand before the masters. Then man's Kama, his own selfish passion, is transformed into selfless warmth, into love. Then the heart's blood no longer courses through his organism for his own interests, it no longer stirs, but flows freely outwards to help others, as a force in the Whole. Then the soul can stand before the masters, for then it is ready to be used as an instrument. Then the human being can stand and walk in his soul, then he no longer needs to depend on higher beings to guide his soul, on such beings who take him by the hand and lead him through the soul world. He can then look up to those who have guided him so far, look them in the eye because he has become their colleague. Passion binds the human being to the world of the senses. As long as he still lives in passion, he cannot raise himself spiritually to the level of the masters. He still crawls on the ground like an animal. The physical body is then upright, but the astral body, left to its own devices, still takes on an animal-like form. To stand means to be able to point freely upwards. The animal cannot do this, it is tied to the ground, its gaze turned downwards. Just as the human being can now physically turn his gaze upwards, he must also be able to do so spiritually. Then he becomes independent in the soul world, stands firm and can now become a messenger of the masters, who can only use as their messenger someone who can walk in the soul world themselves. That Peter first sank when walking on the sea, but that Christ then raised him up and he stood firm on the sea through His help, means that his soul had to be strengthened through Christ's sacrifice before he himself could become a messenger for humanity. The blood of Christ was shed for all people to make it possible for them to purify their souls to such an extent that they can stand before the masters.

Because Christ came into people as the I in the Lemurian time, people learned to stand in the physical. Because his blood flowed on the cross, they learn to stand in the soul.

Every sound we speak, every word brings forth vibrations in our environment, vibrations that spread in waves in all directions. These vibrations propagate through the air, but also through the denser bodies. Through our organ of hearing, these vibrations of the air and also of the denser bodies, for example the vibrating string of an instrument, are fed to our brain and interpreted there by the consciousness; that is, the sound vibrations are converted there into consciousness vibrations. If we could now make the vibrations, which are produced by our words, visible, they would produce visible changes in the matter around us. If we would let a certain word sound continuously, and if we could give form to this word in the matter around us, then our environment would finally form the formation of this word. Our surroundings would then have become the expression of the word emanating from us.

When we thus communicate ourselves to our surroundings through sound, we set everything around us into a certain vibration, into a movement, into a rhythm. One hears our words only by the fact that we let them sound, but also let them fade away again. We create a rhythm through our words and then let it fade away again. At first our environment is without this rhythm produced by us through the sound. Then it is put into rhythm by the sound. Then the rhythmic waves flood off again, and everything goes back to a state of immobility. If we would let a word sound continuously, the oscillations would always remain the same; one would follow the other without a cessation of the movement. If these vibrations were to follow one another without interruption, one would not be able to distinguish one vibration from the next, and this continuous following and passing over of vibrations would be equal to complete rest. So we can think of such a degree of movement, of rhythm, which is equal to rest. It is then a uniform, uninterrupted rhythm.

If we were able to transfer the rhythm of a word to our whole environment, this environment of ours would at last become the expression of that word; we would set the matter around us in such motion by our word and keep it in a certain tension by the continuously sounding word, which at last would also be visibly expressed.

So also in the beginning, that is, at the beginning of our earth's development, the divine Creator's Word resounded and set the earth in a certain rhythm, and by the continuance of this rhythm the movements of matter became condensation; matter was kept in a certain tension by the sound of the Word. However, this divine creator word sounded not only in the beginning. It sounds incessantly. If it would sound only one second no more, then the world would be changed immediately into a chaos. Everything around us is the expression of this divine word of creation that resounds through the world. Everything visible is the outwardly perceptible vibrational limit of the divine word; it is the rhythm of life pushed to the surface that we behold in the sense world around us, and the forms of the sense world are the thoughts of God expressed in this divine word of creation.

The world is in a constant rhythm brought forth by the divine Creator Word. The Divine is all that is there; the Word is the movement that enters into the Divine Eternal; all that enters into appearance is the thought of the Divine flowing out through the Word from within the Godhead. Thus, out of the divine Being, out of the rest, which is at the same time unceasing, undifferentiated movement, life comes forth through the Word and puts everything into the unceasing differentiated movement and thereby shapes the thought of God in what was previously undifferentiated. Thus the Divine is everywhere at the same time eternal rest, according to being; then eternal life, which is like eternal change, for eternal life means eternal change, eternal springing up, growing forth, and last of all eternal consciousness; a constant expression of the God-thought that has become is the world.

All that we perceive externally in the world is the consciousness transformed into external being by the divine life. Man also develops one day to the point that he can send his consciousness outward through the Word and transform it into an external creation. For this he must first be able to send out the clear thought from within himself. Then he must be able to imbue this thought with a life. Then he must be able to imprint this living, rhythmic thought permanently on the environment, to bring it to embodiment. Then he himself has become a creator in a higher sense, then he is godlike. When he sends out clear thoughts into the world, he works by the power of the divine spirit; when he produces living thoughts, he works by the power of the Son; when he sends out formative, living thoughts, he works by the power of the Father.

Everything that comes to manifestation in the world is God-thought, the Spirit of God; that it can be expressed is conditioned by divine Being, the Father; who expresses it is divine Life, the Son.

So the world lives through the life of the Son and brings to expression, to revelation the spirit, the consciousness, the thought of the divine Father-power. In this divine Father-power the future worlds all slumber; in the divine consciousness they are already eternally there; the consciousness rests eternally in the divine Being; Father and Spirit are one. Through life the consciousness emerges and becomes in the divine being the revelation, the world of forms. The being encloses the world - the consciousness rests in it -; the life brings the consciousness in the being to the appearance. Father and Spirit are one; but the Son expresses the Spirit and thereby establishes the Trinity. The Son is the life of the Father, which expresses the Spirit.

We are first met by the expressed Spirit in the formed reality; then we find the life which expresses the Spirit; then the life leads us up to the fountainhead of being, the Father. That is why Christ could say, "No one comes to the Father except through me." He is the world life that leads to the Father. By our thinking we can become one with the Spirit; by our living we become one with the Son; by our willing we become one with the Father, having united ourselves with the Spirit and the Son.

As long as we immerse ourselves in the world only with the thought, we come to understand the Spirit; but when we place our life in the rhythm of the world, we become one with the Son, the Word; we help to keep the thought alive. As soon as we unite our whole will with the divine will, we become partakers of the power of the Father, from which everything comes forth.

We behold in the environment the creator thought that has become. That we do not see the becoming itself, the life, that we do not really hear the world-word sounding, that comes from the fact that we have developed only the senses which can take up the becoming, the embodied thought. Now we cannot recognize life with our physical senses, because our physical senses are the expression of our desire for the world that has become, for the existence of the senses. We have infused all our powers into this sense life and are initially absorbed in it. We are completely immersed with all our powers into the sense existence. That is why we miss everything that stands behind it, the real life of the world; that is why we only see what is, but not what will become, [we see] what has become and not what is becoming. And we do not hear the word of life itself, but see only the external expression of this word in the material sense world around us. Just as the whole world with its forces has turned itself outward to the objective existence, to the external world of appearance; just as the objective creation has emerged from the living Word, just as if the bottom of the sea had lifted itself out of the depths and risen above the surface of the water, so also man has lifted all his forces of the soul out of this reason of the soul and directed them outward in the sense organs, which bring to his consciousness the world that has risen out of the sea of life.

With the emporium of the Word of Life, man is able to see the world that has risen out of the sea of life. With the rising of the sense world out of the sea of the soul world, of the world life, there also rose up in man the ability to receive the sense world, to live in it. Man also went through the world process in his development. The life that stands behind what has become, the sea of worlds out of which what has become rises, is now recognized by man only outwardly in the eternal change of things. The eternal change of the world of appearances is that which proclaims to man that behind it flows a living, never ceasing power, which eternally generates itself anew. On the waves of the world life the appearances flow. Seemingly at rest, the outer world of appearances is nevertheless just the eternally changing. Just as our thoughts detach themselves in unceasing succession, so outside in the world the forms that have become detach themselves. The life behind it is eternal. Thus the world that has become floods up and down in the eternal life, like the waves of the air flood up and down through the sounding of the tone. The Creator Word sustains all things in eternal becoming.

If man had remained only in the process of eternal becoming, he would never have become an embodied thought of God. He also had to pass for a time through the world in which there is not only eternal life without change, but in which there is becoming and passing away, living and dying. Now if he had rested constantly in the eternal life, life itself would never have become his own consciousness. He had to learn to recognize what had become externally, he had to recognize himself as a special being, a being that had become, in contrast to the indiscriminate life. He had to win once for a time the mainland emerging from the sea of the world, in order to incorporate from there himself consciously as a special, individual being of the environment. He had to make a part of the divine consciousness his own in such a way that he himself could believe for a time that his consciousness, his life, his existence was separate from all the rest; he even had to be alienated from God for a time, so that he could find him again self-consciously afterwards. If the world life had not brought the world thought to the outer expression, then man could never have become a thinking, self-conscious being himself. He would have lived in the world-thought, but he would never have grasped the world-thought for himself. Now he cuts out, as it were, a piece of the world-thought for himself with every thought that he thinks in the sense of the world-thought. He thus consciously appropriates the world thought. He could only do this by descending into the world of the senses, by emerging as an individual being from the totality of life. Only through this he could himself become partaker of the divine consciousness.

At every incarnation he goes through this process of becoming. He appears first as an individual being, as a special, physical being. Then in this physical body the life works and comes to expression in it. Then the thought, the spirit, connects with it, and man awakens to self-consciousness. The cosmic career repeats itself with every embodiment of man. The descent into physical existence, into the body world - from the spirit world, consciousness and the soul world, life - happens in the same sequence as the cosmic descent of the world and of man into condensation. This descent repeats itself before every birth in the higher worlds, in secret. Spirit and soul were there first; only then the physical body was formed. The ascent happens in every single life also like in the cosmic life. First the formation of the physical, in the world of the senses, happens; then the formation of the sensation, in the world of the soul, then the formation of the thinking, in the world of the spirit.

When man has learned all that he should learn in the world of the senses, namely, when he has learned to read out the thoughts of God from the world of appearances and has united himself with the pure thought of God, with the spirit of God, then he can fertilize his soul with it and awaken to life in the soul the powers slumbering therein. Then the life force itself begins to blossom there, and he begins to realize, through the soul's own life forces, the life of the world, the life and being of the Word. He then lives in a world that transcends the world of the senses. And new organs open up to him and become for him the key to life itself.

He then hears the word, because he himself can consciously resonate in his inner being with the world-word. Then he hears the world word in everything that has become. He then recognizes everything that has become as a vibrational expression of the world-word. He then recognizes the sense world as floating on the ocean of world life. Consciously he then incorporates himself into this world-life.

The world-light has become manifest in the world of appearance. As visible light the world wisdom has appeared before us. The light shone into the darkness of the twilight dream life of mankind, so that they could see the thoughts of God appear before them in objective forms. But the darkness did not understand the light. The people did not read out of the world of appearance the thought of God, which became clearly visible before our eyes through the light. That is why they could not yet rise to the consciousness of the world life, to the recognition of the word. First we have to understand the light, the God-thought that became objective; then we can understand the word, the living God-thought. The Word was there first, but we comprehend it later. What was there from the beginning is recognized only at the end. Thus closes the circle of human development, which emerges from the divine through the Word and re-enters the divine through conscious becoming one with the Word.

We should recognize the divinity in what has become. We should live in it through union with life itself. It is this life that connects us to the primordial power of being, from the beginning. Through this life we flow back into the primordial power of being and then consciously flow forth as a part of it. Then our consciousness also becomes creative consciousness. Then, just as we now live consciously and producing in the physical, we will live consciously and producing in the spirit, and through our word we will bring our consciousness to form. A new cosmos will then emerge from us.

Only after the world-life had descended to the lowest point, into physical existence, into each individual physically embodied human being, only then could humanity evolve upward. Historically this descent of the world life took place in the appearance of the Christ in a personality. There the life of the world stood before the eyes of man in person. God Himself had descended into man and lived the divine life in a physical existence before all men.

Before mankind also spiritually completely merged into the material life, there had to appear a personal incarnation of the life of God on earth. If mankind had made the passage through materialism without the world life incarnating itself in the personality of the Christ Jesus, it would have completely lost the consciousness of its divine origin, its divinity would have sunk and been submerged forever in the life of the senses. But indelibly it impressed itself on the consciousness of mankind that Christ lived, that a divine being dwelt among men and gave the visible proof that there is a divine life in the world and in man. Even the greatest doubts through which individuals had to pass could not destroy the memory that God's Son had walked among men. That was the light that had shone on man, that was the word of God that had reached man's ear. That could not be forgotten forever.

But it had to fade from memory for a time. Even the last external support had to be snatched away from man. He had to be put completely on his own feet. The world life eluded for a time the looks of the people. Man had not only to get to know death at the end of each life through many incarnations, but he had to learn to understand once what death has to mean for the whole world at all. He did not live the real life for a while. His going up in the material was a continued dying.

But through the descent of the Son of God, a seed of new life had been planted in humanity, and after passing through the death of materialism, this seed was able to sprout again. For a time mankind had to forget what power had been embodied in the Christ Jesus, but then it was to come fully to its consciousness. Only the life of the world had veiled itself from the eyes of men, in order then, when men had become independent, to arise anew before them.

It was with us all the days, only we did not see it; but it will arise anew and be with us until the end of the world. The appearance of the Christ life in a personality first led men to the proper appreciation of the personal life in physical existence. In order that this appreciation of the personality could occur, the highest had to live once in a personality among the people. In the Christ Jesus people had to learn that the physical body is a temple of the Godhead. This impressed itself so deeply on mankind that the consciousness of the value of the personality finally led to an overestimation of the physical, and that over it the higher worlds were forgotten. Man worshipped only the physical atoms, but no longer saw the world life animating them. Great personalities emerged, but they no longer recognized the higher life.

The sun was hidden behind clouds, and without spiritual light mankind had to walk its way for a time. God-forsaken it was and completely on itself. Outside it found no more help and looked now for the strength to the life only in itself. Self-reliant people had to become, in order to recognize thereby that the divinity, which works outside in the world, which had withdrawn itself from their looks for a time, works also in them in each individual.

This transition from the belief in the outer God to the recognition of the inner God, all mankind has to go through, and gradually all will pass again from the darkness of doubt and not knowing God into the clear recognition of the Divine in their own breast, And this inner Divine then leads them back along the same path, through the physical, to the recognition of the spiritual. The physical is that which leads man down, but also that which leads him up. Through the physical personality goes the way to the eternal. As man enters the body from the outside, this is a process of darkening, a turning away from the spirit, a sinking down into the condensation of physical matter, a darkening, similar to when one enters from the bright sunlight into a dark room. But in the darkness of this physical body man found the greatest treasure, a treasure he had to lift; he found himself; there his I had moved in, the germ of God, slumbering there under the cover of the physical body. With this I his consciousness had to connect. Then, with this I and in this I, he could look out again through the physical shell into the environment. Through the physical body he could now look out. And now he learned that seen from the inside, the physical body is not the same as seen from the outside. He first learned the true value of the physical condensation. It gave his ego a shell in which it could manifest itself, but at the same time it became the means by which the ego could enter into conscious connection with the physical and with the higher worlds. And just the physical body, which darkened the spiritual world for him during the descent, now became illuminated and bright and the passage point for the light and the higher life. Thus, on the one hand, the physical body became a shell for the ego, which closed it off from the environment; just as the body of Jesus of Nazareth became a shell for the world life, in which it could dwell for a time; but on the other hand, the physical body became the threshold to the higher existence, the organ for recognizing the spirit of the world in the world of forms around us and for receiving the light of the spirit of God. It had to become a temple in which the divine I dwells consciously.

Christ had to die because of this, because the I entered the darkening by moving into the physical body. This meant a crucifixion. And in the physical body the I remained at first as if imprisoned, as if buried; through two and a half days until the third day the body of Jesus, the personality, was without life. Thus the meaning of the Christ's life remained hidden behind the personal appearance of Jesus of Nazareth for the whole mankind during two thousand years. Only in the third millennium - corresponding to the third day after the death of Christ - mankind will realize the full meaning of Christianity. Then Christ will be resurrected in mankind; and consciously the individual human beings will become partakers of the Christ-life. All mankind together will then form a temple in which Christ dwells.

So, on the one hand, physical existence stands as a partition separating us from the spiritual, but on the other hand, it also stands as the bridge to the spiritual. Up to the physical existence the I, the germ of God was sunk. The appearance of the Christ Jesus proved this to mankind. But this physical existence leads over to the spiritual. As a seed is placed in the earth, so the I was sunk into the physical existence. As the seed sprouts in spring, so must the I sprout out of the physical, it must illuminate the physical shell from within. Then there is repeated in the individual human being what Christ always means in the world, the sprouting of all living things out of physical matter, and what he has once portrayed in a human being, the coming forth of the life of God out of a personality. When the I has reached maturity, in the physical shell, then it can be born out into the environment and enrich the environment by a new divine power, just as at every physical birth the environment is enriched by a new physical form. The birth of the Christ represents the becoming conscious of the I in the physical human being - the death and the burial are the going up of the I in the physical; the resurrection means the conscious coming out of the physical. When Christ was born into the world, the I in man first began to develop into self-consciousness. Then for a time it confused itself with the personality, and finally, when it had reached maturity, it stepped beyond the threshold of the personality and united itself with the life of the world and rose as a new, greater, spiritual thing.

The I is the same in man as Christ is in the world. It is the turning point in the whole evolution of mankind. Everything that preceded Christ in the development of mankind was a preparation for the appearance of Christ; everything that followed the appearance of Christ proceeded from it. Christ is the center of the world. He is the Word who stands in the center of the whole development. Like rays, the whole evolution of mankind flows toward Him, toward His embodiment.

The whole world life had gone through a descending process into the physical. At last it appeared in the physical. The Divine had completely united with its own creation when Christ descended to the personality of Jesus of Nazareth and made His entrance in Him. This Christ was an expression of the whole world life in a physical body, in the shell of the personality of Jesus, who lived in Palestine. There the whole world life was radiated together as in a center. There the world ego dwelled during three earthly years. There the world ego came to the consciousness of its whole task for the world, which had gone out from it before. If at first the Logos had let the world come out of him by the word of creation, he himself held this world flowing out of him in his arms and pulsated it with his own life, now he took upon himself the great sacrifice to no longer live only as creator and sustainer of this world and to rule over it, but he moved with his life into the center of this world. He had designed the world as a shell, as the temple in which he wanted to dwell. There the word connected itself with everything that was thought by the same. The word became flesh. Therefore it could connect [with] the human shell that walked in Palestine as Jesus of Nazareth. Never before had the I so completely embedded itself in man. The Christ-embodiment was the I-becoming of the world. Long, through millions of years, this moment had prepared itself, and through millions of years it will continue to work to bring time to completion. From this moment, the center of our whole development, all further development radiates, as in former times all development flowed together there. We can develop only rooted in the Word, in the life of Christ, which has been the heart of the world since the Incarnation of Christ. All life had flowed to this heart of the world, and now it flows out and pulsates through everything that is. What has formed out of there, at the incarnation of the divine life, is the expression of the greatest love of the Godhead for us. She did not want to have around her only dependent beings who had come forth through her power and were guided by her power; she wanted to see free beings around her, to whom she communicated so much of herself that they could become like the Deity. Her own bliss, her own power, her own wisdom she wanted to communicate to them. Therefore, the deity sacrificed itself and moved into the center of the world; it thus formed the heart of the world, in order to flow from there through everything created with its own inner being. After three years of activity, the Christ Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross. Thus the world life prepared its own descent into humanity during three world years, the first three planetary years; then it united completely with the world in the earth center, where this earth reached its greatest condensation. And now it remained at first hidden from mankind at large. Only some people, a small crowd, could recognize the world life in the Christ Jesus. Thus the world life rested in the world. It resounded incessantly as the Word and instilled its life into the world; it flowed into every human being and gave him his power to feel himself as I, to find a center in himself, to live in his I. But people did not recognize the connection between the world life and the Christ Jesus. But people did not recognize the connection with the world life, the Christ. Until the third day, Christ remained for the world the dead Christ, who had died and been buried on the cross. Just as at that time his disciples believed that he had really passed away from them, that he was dead, so also for a time people could no longer consciously feel his life. He had to be resurrected so that people could recognize him. On the third day, the Christ rose from the dead in Palestine. The certainty that he was alive was returned to the small multitude that had believed in him, Then this certainty flowed into them. And they became the bearers of this certainty. From them once this certainty should go over to all people. "All days I am with you, even to the end of the world," Christ said to them. They had experienced that he was alive and that physical death could not destroy his life. He who could overcome physical death could bring everything else to life. They realized that he was the world life. Only through him could one ascend to the Godhead. He brought the Deity to life before their eyes. There was the deity in truth there in the world. He was the truth itself, the divine truth; he was the life itself, the divine life; and so he was also the mediator, the way that could lead people to the goal. The way, the truth and the life he was for all mankind. From him alone mankind could progress towards perfection.

Just as the whole of humanity had found in Christ its center, the world ego, around which the whole of world life must be grouped, so then also men each found in himself the ego as the central point around which their own being must be grouped. Only through the appearance of Christ did I-consciousness become fully possible for man. He was, after all, the embodied I of the world. He had told men that he was closely connected with them, that his life flowed through them: "I am the vine, you are the branches." Such is the close connection of the core of our being with the Christ of the world. He gave them bread and wine, saying, "This is my flesh; this is my blood. With all that you receive into yourselves from the world, you receive my life." What is around us, everything that lives, that grows and blossoms and develops, it is a part of the Christ-life that dwells in everything created. With each thing that we take into us from the environment, the Christ life flows into us. This should become more and more conscious to humanity. When this consciousness of being one with Christ has fully entered humanity, then Christ has risen for the whole world; then he has so saturated the world with his life that everything that lives will be his temple in which he can express his own life unhindered. For the first time he expressed it fully in the appearance of the Christ Jesus. Then it came to expression in all those people who united themselves wholly with him, in those who had brought themselves so far into harmony with the world life that they became a part of the world life, that the world word spoke through them to the world. It is these who work out of the world-word in the world, who themselves embody the word and can thereby bring the word to men.

Before Christ there were great leaders and teachers of mankind; they taught mankind and guided it. Since Christ appeared, another has entered mankind. The leaders of mankind now not only instruct mankind, but they share their lives with mankind. They have a magical effect on those whom they teach. They lead humanity to freedom, therefore they must share their own lives with humanity, so that each I may develop to freedom and self-reliance, to God-likeness.

Some great leaders are in humanity who do not teach outwardly, but who give to mankind the impulses which communicate to them their own power, their life, a part of the Christ-life, of the world-ego. Humanity should learn by itself to understand the Divine and to live in the Divine, through its own knowledge, not through compulsion and dependence. Before Christ appeared, humanity could not do that. Before, it lacked the power to do so. Christ was the world impulse for the development of freedom of mankind.

The more people unite with the power of the Christ-life, the more they become free beings, the more God-like they become. There, in the center of the world, people must get all the impulses of life. The I in man is the key to this center of the world. It is the spark that connects him with the central fire of the world. It is the source from which he must draw; it is eternally renewed by the world ego, the world life itself. It is the narrow gate through which man must pass to enter the spirit world. All human forces must flow into the ego, as into a point, and only through this point, through the narrow gate of the ego, can they come forth again, just as world life could only come forth again into the world and communicate itself to it by flowing into the appearance of Christ Jesus.

The I becomes fully formed only through the flowing together of all the powers of man, through the concentration of his whole being on one point. Thereby only the I reaches the true becoming. Thereby the becoming of the I of the human being takes place. All that the Godhead has made of him, all the forces, he lets flow together into one great force; thereby a new thing arises in him, a special thing, a nucleus of being; then the world-ego, the world-life is localized in him, just as the life of the plant is localized in the seed.

Initially it is there only in the germ, but the germ contains all the possibilities of development, since it forms an extract of the world-forces. When man becomes fully aware of this truth, that he is the shell for a spark of God, for a germ of God, then the Christ has been born in him, then he is a conscious guardian of the divine treasure in his own heart, of the world-life, what has sunk into him.

From that moment on he will get all his impulses from this certainty that he lives through the world-life and for the shaping of the world-life in his own inner being. His further development is then a purification of his whole being, a ennoblement, a spiritualization of all his powers, for a temple of God he is, and he wants to work at making this temple of God more and more glorious. He now lives in the beatification of the consciousness that the world life rests in him, in his I, and that it grows and increases in him and will one day fill him completely. He then pours out this world life in every thought, every wish, every word, in his whole being; he communicates it to other beings. He helps to overcome death; he has become the redeemer, liberator of the world. Because what lives in him, he does not want to keep for himself. That would be a stagnation of life; that would mean death. Only by the passing on of the life it is possible that in him the world life generates itself anew. The more he gives of it to the environment, the stronger becomes in him the inexhaustible source of world life. Thus man forms in himself the Christ-appearance; thus all mankind will one day express the Christ, the Word, and every man will then be a sound in this world-word. And when all mankind has thus become an expression of the Christ, then this is the transition to a new stage of world development. Then all the forces that were in the world will have been formed, and now these life forces can be included anew in the center of the world, and there together they will form the plan for a new cosmos, which in a new stage of evolution will flow out from the center just as our present evolution has flowed out from the center of the world. With the completion of our earth evolution only an exhalation of the Godhead is completed. Everything will be included again in the center of the Godhead in order to arise anew at the next exhalation. But nothing that has been formed will be lost. Everything that is, remains in the consciousness of the Godhead. From the consciousness of the Godhead it enters again into life, and the life of the Godhead brings everything to new formation, in order to express in this formation the consciousness of the Godhead.

So the great world-builder builds his world-temple according to the world-plan which slumbers within him; and more and more perfect and more perfect he fashions this world-temple. We are to become co-workers of the master world builder at the world temple. Thus we, too, must bring together in our I all the experiences we have in the world, locate them there, and then transform and use them for the more beautiful shaping of our own being in connection with the development of the cosmos.

The plant kingdom is the symbol of evolution. It is the real realm of life, of the second Logos, of the Christ Principle. How evolution and involution proceed in the cosmos and in all parts of the cosmos, we see daily before us in the plant kingdom. A plant develops before our eyes. From the one seed sprouts a new life that was previously dormant in it. The forces of the world surround the seed, moisture, warmth and light act on it; the life forces contained in the seed respond to this and come forth; they reveal themselves, they pass from unity into majority, into number, More and more the hidden forces unfold, and leaves and blossoms come into being. Thus the life of the plant sprouts up before us. Thus life becomes recognizable to us in the outer form.

In this shaping of life and in this transposition of life into external form, there then occurs a point at which the life force has apparently exhausted itself, since the plant no longer increases in growth, since at first it apparently stops in its growth; and thereupon [following] we see it even wither and die, become lifeless. But its life is not lost, for it leaves behind the viable seed. It contains everything that is necessary for a new entity to arise from it. The life forces of the dead plant have therefore not disappeared; they have rather moved into the seed. There all the vital forces of the plant are gathered together, and there they rest until the time comes when they awaken anew.

This is how the mystery of evolution and involution plays out before our eyes every day. As with the plant, so we can observe the physical evolution and involution also with the animal and man. All the forces of the animal and of man, after they have reached maturity in the individual being, flow together in the germs into new physical beings.

If we lift our gaze to cosmic evolution, we see there also how evolution and involution follow each other apart. Out of chaos the Godhead created this earth. Before, the earth was desolate and empty; that is, no life manifested itself. The spirit of God hovered over the waters. He rested on the germs of life in order to awaken them to development, to life, so that the life hidden in them could reveal itself. And so the divine power awakened form upon form from the slumbering germs of life, just as also today the sun calls forth the seed resting in the earth and awakens it to life.

In the cosmos, too, there follow periods of revelation, of life, and those in which life withdraws into itself. These great cosmic periods are called by the Indian sage the "days and nights of Brahma," his breathing out and breathing in; Hebrew religious teaching also speaks of days of creation. They are great, cosmic periods of the revelation of life. There, too, day does not follow day without interruption, but the nights lie in between, in which life withdraws into itself again, in order to reveal itself with increased strength on a new day. As in mathematics the process of exponentiation goes on, so in the cosmos and in everything what lives, the life unfolds. On the other hand, as in mathematics the process of radiating is carried out, so also in the cosmos the life flows together again into one point. On the one hand, we recognize highest revelation, unfolding, passing into number; on the other hand, highest accumulation of force, drawing together into one point, overflowing into unity.

The expression for the highest unfoldment of force is the greatest manifoldness; but the possibility of unfoldment lies in the one root from which all revelation arises, in the One, which is the origin of all numbers, although it is not itself number. One is the root of all numbers; the unrevealed is the root of all revelation; rest is the root of all motion; darkness is the root of light, nothingness is the root of all being. That we can observe life is conditioned by the revelation, the unfolding, the growth around us. But that life always renews itself, that its power never runs out, that is conditioned by the confluence of life in one point, the leaving of the periphery and the drawing back to the center. During a world day, a manvantara, life lives on the periphery, during the intermediate states, during the pralaya, life lives in the center of the cosmos. While it lives on the periphery, it becomes manifest; in the center, it hides. But while it shows the highest power development at the periphery, it possesses the highest power in the center. Now, as life flows out, it surrenders; and as it flows into the center, it gathers again, in order to be able to renew itself later in increased measure. It is precisely this confluence of life in one center, one point, that causes the new, higher possibilities of manifestation. Thus, in the end, the highest power rests in the point, the atom, into which all life withdraws again from the revelation, into which all revealed life forces flow again. Not in the leaves and blossoms of the plant rests the highest power but in the seed in which the life forces have concentrated. Unfolding is the expression of power, but concentration is the accumulation of power. Therein lies the secret of all evolutionary possibility. In every evolution life exercises its forces, unfolds all possibilities of force. By concentrating these again into one point, a much higher new force is created, which now unites all the unfolded possibilities of force into a greater force. The whole evolution of the earth is arranged and proceeds according to this plan.

The seasons are also an aid to the maintenance of life. One season is a time of life development, the other a time of life concentration. In the middle of winter falls the festival of life concentration. In the spring falls the festival of life unfoldment, of resurrection. Just as in winter the germs of life slumber under the earth, and as in spring they unfold and sprout, so the whole life of the world passes through periods of concealment and accumulation of strength, and such periods where it reveals itself.

This mystery of evolution and involution of life we recognize in the whole process of life which takes place before our eyes in the world, But it should be implanted in the consciousness of man still especially by the appearance of the Christ Jesus on earth. In him the life of the whole world flows together, and from him it goes out again. He contains everything that is called life. That it is in him, that life rests in Christ, and that it also goes out from him, was proven to the world by his death and the overcoming of death in the resurrection. Then the whole process of the world, the whole involution and the whole evolution, was repeated in three days.

Christ is the world self, the world life. That lived visibly among men. By his death and his resurrection they had to recognize that this world life in truth does not pass away, that it only withdraws into itself, into the hidden, in order to rise from the hidden again anew, with new strength. The otherwise imperceptible process of world involution and world evolution took place here before the eyes of man. Based on this law, the life in the world renews itself continuously; in the plant, animal and human kingdom we can observe this. But what arises there new, are new physical forms. With our eyes we see only the growth of the physical.

According to the same laws according to which the physical life takes place, according to the same laws also the spiritual life develops. That the spirit of man lives, reveals itself and increases in strength, this is based on the fact that all the development of strength of man in the individual physical incarnations, where his life is expressed in the world, is revealed, is again included in his I, in the inner, spiritual life center. What Christ is for the world, the I is for man. His I is a part of the Christ, from his I all forces emerge; but in order that they may grow and increase, they must flow together in his I again and again. This confluence of the human forces in the I happens in the intervening periods between incarnations. There the forces that have unfolded during a human life gather and consolidate in order to emerge strengthened in a new incarnation. But when man reaches a somewhat higher stage of development, he learns more and more to carry out this process consciously also during his life on earth. He consciously unfolds his powers in the service of the world, and the experiences thus gained he consciously transfers into his I, into the center of his being. They are then implanted in the I already during his life on earth; he thereby anticipates the work of many years of the intervening time between his incarnations, where this gathering of the unfolded forces in the I takes place through the help of higher beings.

As soon as man begins to collect and redevelop forces himself consciously during life in this way, his spirit grows in the spiritual world, and he transforms more and more his whole being into an immortal one. For what he himself incorporates into his being, that remains with him as a permanent component of his being.

In the exercises that the yoga student does, he first learns to concentrate his thoughts. Through this, his mind gains new strength. From each concentration of thought, as from a focal point, new powers emerge. Thus, at a later stage, he also learns to concentrate his life. By drawing all life forces together from the periphery as into one point, he awakens a higher life force there. And by learning to concentrate his whole will, there he brings his will to growth.

In this way man becomes stronger and stronger in thinking, in living, in willing. The more he radiates all these forces on the one hand in the service of the world and on the other hand pulls them together into his innermost being, the more he acts as a co-worker of the Godhead, because in this way he becomes more and more integrated into the evolutionary process. Everything that man experiences can be used for his growth. He must participate in the life on the periphery of existence in order to work and to gain experience. But he must again and again let his thoughts, his life and his will flow in from the periphery of existence into his I and there unite with the Divine and deify all experiences there, so that they can flow out of him as new, higher forces.

The disciple thereby anticipates the work of the Devachan, and when he has in this way completely placed himself in the process of evolution, then he no longer needs the Devachan time for his transformation. He can then live permanently completely for the world. This is the process by which man incorporates world-life, by which he himself becomes one with world-life; then he himself becomes the Word, because all his powers have become rhythmic and harmonious.

All the disharmonies of life flooding up to him he then lets flow together in the innermost core of his being, and there he transforms them into harmony, which he streams back into the world. He transforms evil into good, impurity into purity, darkness into light, passion into enthusiasm, pain into joy, hatred into love, and death into life.

So, for our further development it depends much less on where we live, how people confront us, how the circumstances are, but rather it depends on the fact that in any environment, in any circumstances, among any people, we know how to gather and utilize the right experiences, that in the right way with all these experiences we undertake the transformation process that leads to our own growth and to the enrichment of our environment, to the ennoblement of the environment.

The person who understands this in the right way, to perform this spiritual alchemy with all the currents of life that approach him, no matter where he lives, becomes a center of peace for the world. Unaware of the surroundings, this transformation takes place within him. It is saved by him from greater disharmonies, from greater pain and suffering, because he is there. Perhaps often misunderstood and misjudged, such a person nevertheless learns to transform everything into harmony and to transfigure the pain into new, higher forces within himself, which he then again helpfully pours out into the environment.

So the world has always been saved from the greatest disharmonies by those people who have learned to become conscious co-workers in the work of the Godhead, and consciously to place themselves completely in the development of the world.

The ascent of man is conditioned in the transformation and utilization of the forces of the environment. The more a man understands how to make all the forces that approach him from the environment his own, the higher he rises. It is the forces of the environment flowing together in him that lift him up. Thus we can learn to build ourselves up from the forces that flow into us, from the forces of nature around us, but to an even greater extent from the forces of the people around us. In the environment, and especially in our fellow human beings, lies our future, our ascent. Through them higher forces flow into us. Each individual is more or less the special expression of a certain cosmic force. If we learn to absorb this force and concentrate it within us, it becomes our own, as if we had trained it ourselves beforehand. The fact that we live among people also has this great significance, that we accumulate forces from them and incorporate them into our own being. Whoever understands this in the right way, learns to unite in himself everything that the individual people around him represent in cosmic forces. Thus Christ united in himself all the individual forces that were expressed in his twelve disciples. He was as the thirteenth the center into which all these forces flowed in order to emerge from it as a higher force. So also the earth as the expression of the second Logos is the center, which unites all forces of the twelve zodiacal images in itself and will emerge as higher from these forces one day. In the Manvantara it passes through seven, in the Pralaya through five stages of consciousness.

We are the building blocks used to make a world temple. But the more we are able to build ourselves from all the forces of the world, the more beautiful this world temple will become. We should learn to absorb the forces of the other individualities into ourselves, so that we can again let these collected forces become a higher force, in order to let them flow together in union with our brothers for the construction of ever higher beings. In this way the living world-temple builds itself up. Around us we behold in the kingdoms of nature the steps on which we have ascended; in our fellow-men lie hidden the forces for our higher ascent; and in our elder brothers, the masters and leaders of humanity, there lies our future, the goal toward which we are to strive.