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particularly to the Gospel of St. Luke, given in Kassel, and From Jesus to Christ. And now we have heard of the other fact, namely that all external progress on Earth from one culture-epoch to the next is dependent upon influences from beyond the Saturn region. A question arises here: Progress on Earth from one culture-epoch to another is dependent upon influences connected with a world beyond the Saturn sphere a world altogether different from the one where progress is brought about by the stream of spirituality that flows through the evolution of humanity, that approached humanity in ancient times, has its centre of gravity in the Mystery of Golgotha and thereafter took its course in the way often described. How do these two facts harmonise? The truth is that they harmonise completely. You need only picture to yourself that our Earth evolution as it is today was preceded by the earlier incarnation of the Earth, namely Old Moon. Now think of Old Moon as we have often described it, followed by the present Earth. Midway in the process of evolution between Old Moon and Earth something like a condition of cosmic sleep took place. During the transition from Old Moon to Earth, everything that had existed on Old Moon passed into a kind of germinal state from which, at a later stage, everything in existence on Earth came forth. But all the planetary spheres also came forth from that cosmic sleep. During the epoch of Old Moon, therefore, the planetary spheres were not in the state in which they exist today. Old Moon passes into the cosmic sleep and out of this condition the planetary spheres develop into what they now are. Everything that evolved in the Cosmos between the era of Old Moon and that of the Earth is contained within the range of the Saturn sphere. The Christ Impulse, however, does not belong to what evolved in the Cosmos during the period of transition from Old Moon to Earth, but it already belonged to the Old Sun and remained in the Sun sphere when Old Moon eventually separated from it. The Christ Impulse continued to evolve onwards towards the Earth but remained united with the Sun sphere after the Saturn sphere, the Jupiter sphere and so forth, had separated from it. And so, in addition to what the human soul was, before the Mystery of Golgotha, it now has within it something that is more than all that is contained in the planetary spheres, something that is founded in the depths of the Cosmos, that does indeed come over from Sun to Earth but belongs to far deeper regions of the spiritual world than do the planetary spheres. For these planetary spheres are a product of what took place when Old Moon evolved to become Earth. What streams to us from the Christ Impulse, however, comes from Old Sun which preceded Old Moon. From this we realise that external culture on Earth is connected with the Cosmos, whereas the inner life of soul is connected in a much deeper sense with the Sun. Thus in all these connections in their spiritual aspect too there is something of which the following can be said: When we look out into the stellar spheres there is revealed to us, as it were outspread in space, a world that is embodied in culture on Earth because souls of men have entered into these stellar spheres between death and rebirth; but when we gaze at the Sun we behold something that has become what it is today because behind it there is an infinitely long period of evolution. In an age when it was not yet possible to speak of a connection between culture on Earth and the stellar worlds as can be done today, even then the Sun was already united with the Christ Impulse. Thus everything brought from the stellar worlds for the promotion of culture on the Earth is to be regarded as a kind of Earth-body which needed to be and actually was ensouled by what came to the Earth from the Sun, namely by the Christ Impulse. The Earth was ensouled when the Mystery of Golgotha took place; it was then that culture on Earth received its soul . The death on Golgotha was only seemingly a death; in reality it was the birth of the Earth-Soul. And everything that can be brought to the Earth from cosmic expanses, also from beyond the Saturn sphere, is related to the Earth-Sphere as the Earth-Body is related to the Earth-Soul. These reflections can show us that the presentation given in the book Theosophy in rather different words and from a different point of view contains what has been described as the cosmic aspect in the lectures given this Winter. You need only be reminded that in the one case the account is given from the point of view of the soul, and in the other from that of the great cosmic conditions, and you will find that the two descriptions are in complete harmony. The conclusion which I should like to be able to draw from these lectures is that you realise how vast is the range of Spiritual Science and that its method must be to gather from every possible side whatever can throw light on the nature of the spiritual world. Even when additions are made to what had been said years ago, there need be no contradiction, for what is said is not the outcome of any philosophical argument or reflective thinking, but of occult investigation. Yellow today will still be yellow ten years hence, even though the essential quality of yellow as a colour is grasped for the first time ten years later. What was said years ago still holds good, although light is shed upon it from the new points of view which it has been possible to contribute during last Winter. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |