THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN BEING
The following words of
Goethe's describe, in a beautiful manner, the starting point of one of
the ways by which the constitution of man can be known: "When a person
first becomes aware of the objects surrounding him, he observes them in
relation to himself, and rightly so, for his whole fate depends on
whether they please or displease him, attract or repel, help or harm
him. This quite natural way of looking at and judging things appears to
be as easy as it is necessary. Nevertheless, a person is exposed through
it to a thousand errors which often cause him shame and embitter his
life. A far more difficult task do those undertake whose keen desire for
knowledge urges them to strive to observe the objects of nature in
themselves and in their relations to each other, for they soon miss the
gauge which helped them when they, as persons,
p. 10
regard the objects in reference to
themselves
personally. They lack the gauge of pleasure and displeasure, attraction
and repulsion, usefulness and harmfulness; this gauge they have to
renounce entirely. They should, as dispassionate and, so to speak,
divine beings, seek and examine what is, and not what gratifies. Thus
the true botanist should not be affected either by the beauty or by the
usefulness of the plants. He has to study their structure and their
relation to the rest of the vegetable kingdom; and just as they are one
and all enticed forth and shone upon by the sun, so should he with an
equable, quiet glance look at and survey them all and obtain the gauge
for this knowledge, the data for his deductions, not out of himself, but
from within the circle of things which he observes."
The thought thus expressed by Goethe directs attention to three kinds
of things. First, the objects concerning which information continually
flows to man through the doors of his senses, those that he touches,
smells, tastes, hears, and sees. Second, the impressions which these
make on him, and which record themselves as his pleasure and
displeasure, his
p. 11
desire or abhorrence, according as he finds one harmonious, another
inharmonious, one useful, another harmful. Third, the knowledge and the
experiences which he, as a so-to-speak "divine being," gains concerning
the objects—the secrets of their activities and their being which unveil
themselves to him.
These three regions are distinctly separate in human life. And man
thereby becomes aware that he is interwoven with the world in a
threefold way. The first way is something that he finds present and
accepts as a given fact. Through the second way he makes the world into
his own affair, into something that has a significance for himself. The
third way he regards as a goal toward which he has unceasingly to
strive.
Why does the world appear to man in this threefold way? The simplest
consideration will explain that. I cross a Meadow covered with flowers.
The flowers make their colors known to me through my eyes. That is the
fact which I accept as given. I rejoice in the splendor of the colors.
Through this I turn the fact into an affair of my own. By means of my
feelings I link the flowers with my own
p. 12
existence. A year after I go again over the same meadow. Other
flowers are there. New joy arises in me through them. My joy of the
former year will appear as a memory. It is in me; the object which
aroused it in me is gone. But the flowers which I. now see are of the
same species as those I saw the year before; they have grown in
accordance with the same laws as did the others. If I have enlightened
myself regarding this species and these laws, I find them again in the
flowers of this year as I recognized them in those of the former year.
And I shall perhaps muse as follows: "The flowers of last year are gone;
my joy in them remains only in my remembrance. It is bound up with
my
existence alone. That, however, which I recognized in the flowers of
the former year and recognize again this year, will remain as long as
such flowers grow. That is something that revealed itself to me, but
which is not dependent on my existence in the same way as my joy is. My
feelings of joy remain in me; the laws, the
being of the flowers, remain outside of me in the world."
Man continually links himself in this threefold way with the things of the world. One
p. 13
should not for the time being read anything into this fact, but
merely take it as it presents itself. It makes it evident that man has
three sides to his nature. This and nothing else will for the present be indicated here by the three words
body,
soul, and
spirit.
He who connects any preconceived meanings, or even hypotheses, with
these three words will necessarily misunderstand the following
explanations. By
body is
here meant that by which the things in the environment of a man reveal
themselves to him, as in the example just cited, the flowers of the
meadow. By the word
soul
is signified that by which he links the things to his own being, through
which he experiences pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion, joy
and sorrow. By
spirit is
meant that which becomes manifest in him when, as Goethe expressed it,
he looks at things as "a so-to-speak divine being." In this sense the
human being consists of
body,
soul, and
spirit.
Through his body man is able to place himself for the time being in
connection with the things; through his soul he retains in himself the
impressions which they make on him; through his spirit there reveals
itself to him
p. 14
what the things retain in themselves. Only when one observes man in
these three aspects can one hope to gain light on his whole being. For
these three aspects show him to be related in a threefold way to the
rest of the world.
Through his body he is related to the objects which present
themselves to his senses from without. The materials from the outer
world compose this body of his; and the forces of the outer world work
also in it. And just as he observes the things of the outer world with
his senses, he can also observe his own bodily existence. But it is
impossible to observe the soul existence in the same way. All
occurrences connected with my body can be perceived with my bodily
senses. My likes and dislikes, my joy and pain, neither I nor anyone
else can perceive with bodily senses. The region of the soul is one
which is inaccessible to bodily perception. The bodily existence of a
man is manifest to all eyes; the soul existence he carries within
himself as HIS world. Through the
spirit,
however, the outer world is revealed to him in a higher way. The
mysteries of the outer world, indeed, unveil themselves in his inner
being; but he steps in spirit out of himself
p. 15
and lets the things speak about themselves, about that which has significance not for him but for
them.
Man looks up at the starry heavens; the delight his soul experiences
belongs to him; the eternal laws of the stars which he comprehends in
thought, in
spirit, belong not to him but to the stars themselves.
Thus man is citizen of
three worlds. Through his
body he belongs to the world which he perceives through his body; through his
soul he constructs for himself his own world; through his
spirit a world reveals itself to him which is exalted above both the others.
It is evident that because of the essential differences of these
three worlds, one can obtain a clear understanding of them and of man's
share in them only by means of three different modes of observation.
1. THE CORPOREAL BEING OF MAN
One learns to know the body of man through the bodily senses. And the
way of observing it can differ in no way from that by which one learns
to know other objects perceived by the senses. As one observes minerals,
p. 16
plants, animals, so can one observe man also. He is related to these
three forms of existence. Like the minerals he builds his body out of
the materials in nature; like the plants he grows and propagates his
species; he perceives the objects around him and, like the animals,
forms on the basis of the impressions they make his inner experiences.
One may therefore ascribe to man a mineral, a plant, and an animal
existence.
The difference in the structure of minerals, plants, and animals
corresponds with these three forms of existence. And it is this
structure, this shape which one perceives through the senses, and which
alone one can call body. But the human body is different from that of
the animal. This difference everybody must recognize whatever may be his
opinion in other respects regarding the relationship of man to animals.
Even the most radical materialist who denies all soul will not be able
to avoid agreeing with the following sentence which Carus utters in his "
Organon der Natur and des Geistes". "The finer, inner construction of the nervous system, and especially of the brain, remains as yet an unsolved problem to the
p. 17
physiologist and the anatomist; but that this concentration of the
structure increases more and more in the animal, and in man reaches a
stage unequaled in any other being, is a fully established fact, a fact
which is of the deepest significance in regard to the spiritual
evolution of man, of which, indeed, we may frankly say it is a
sufficient explanation. Where, therefore, the structure of the brain has
not developed properly, where its smallness and poverty show
themselves, as in the case of microcephali and idiots, it goes without
saying that one can as little expect the appearance of original ideas
and of knowledge, as one can expect propagation of species in persons
with completely stunted organs of generation. On the other hand, a
strong and beautiful construction of the whole person, especially of the
brain, will certainly not in itself take the place of genius, but it
will at any rate supply the first and indispensable requirement for
higher knowledge." Just as one ascribes to the human body the three
forms of existence, mineral, plant, animal, one must now ascribe to it
yet a fourth, the distinctively
human form. Through his mineral form of existence man
p. 18
is related to everything visible, through his plant-like form of
existence to all beings that grow and propagate their species, through
his animal existence to all those that perceive their surroundings, and
by means of external impressions have inner experiences. Through his
human form of existence he constitutes, even in regard to his body
alone, a kingdom by himself.
2. THE SOUL BEING OF MAN
The soul being of man differs from his corporality through being his
own inner world. This inner world peculiar to each person faces one the
moment one directs one's attention to the simplest sensation. One finds,
in the first place, that no one can know if another person perceives
even the simplest sensation in exactly the same way as one does oneself.
It is known that there are people who are colorblind. They see things
only in different shades of gray. Others are partially colorblind. They
are unable, because of this, to perceive certain shades of colors. The
picture of the world which their eyes give them is different from that
of so-called normal persons.
p. 19
[paragraph continues]
And the same holds good in regard to the other senses. It will be seen,
therefore, without further elaboration, that even simple sensations
belong to the inner world. I can perceive with my bodily senses the red
table which another person also perceives; but I cannot perceive his
sensation of red. One must therefore describe sensation as belonging to
the
soul. If one grasps this fact alone quite clearly, he will soon cease to regard inner experiences
as mere brain processes or something similar. The first result of sensation is
feeling.
One sensation causes man pleasure, another displeasure. These are
stirrings of his inner, his soul life. Man creates in his feelings a
second world in addition to that which works on him from without. And a
third is added to this—the will. Through it man reacts on the outer
world. And he thereby stamps the impress of his inner being on the outer
world. The soul of man, as it were, flows outward in the activities of
his will. The actions of the human being differ from the occurrences of
outer nature in that they bear the impress of his inner life. In this
way the
soul represents what is man's own in
p. 20
contradistinction to the outer world. He receives from the outer
world the incitements; but he creates, in responding to these
incitements, a world of his own. The corporality becomes the foundation
of the soul being of man.
3. THE SPIRITUAL BEING OF MAN
The soul being of man is not determined by the body alone. Man does
not wander aimlessly and without a goal from one sensation to another;
neither does he act under the influence of every casual incitement
directed on him either from without or through the processes of his
body. He
thinks about his
perceptions and his acts. By thinking about his perceptions he gains
knowledge of things; by thinking about his acts he introduces a
reasonable coherence into his life. He knows also that he will fulfill
his duty as a human being only when he lets himself be guided by
correct thinking
in knowledge as well as in acts. The soul of man, therefore, faces a
twofold necessity. The laws of the body govern it in accordance with the
necessities of nature, but it allows itself to be governed by
p. 21
the laws which guide it to exact thinking because it voluntarily
acknowledges their necessity. Nature subjects man to the laws of the
change of matter, but he subjects himself to the laws of thought. By
this means he makes himself a member of a higher order than that to
which he belongs through his body. And this order is the
spiritual.
The soul is as different from the body as the body is different from
the soul. So long as one speaks only of the particles of carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen which stir in the body, one has not the
soul in view. The soul life begins only when within the motion of these
particles sensation arises, and one can say: "I taste sweetness" or "I
feel pleasure." Just as little has one the
spiritual
in view when one considers merely the soul experiences which course
through a man who gives himself over entirely to the outer world and his
bodily life. Rather is this soul life merely the basis for the
spiritual, just as the body is the basis of the soul life. The
naturalist, or investigator of nature, has to do with the body, the
investigator of the soul (the psychologist) with the soul, and the
investigator of the spirit with the
spirit. To
p. 22
realize what one is in oneself, and thus become clear as to the
difference between body, soul, and spirit, is a requirement which must
be demanded from those who wish by thinking to enlighten themselves
regarding the constitution of man.
4. BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT
Man can enlighten himself in a correct way concerning himself only when he grasps the significance of
thinking
within his being. The brain is the bodily instrument for thinking. Just
as man can only see colors with a properly constructed eye, so the
suitably constructed brain serves him for thought. The whole body of man
is so formed that it receives its crown in the organ of the spirit, the
brain. One can understand the construction of the human brain only by
observing it in relation to its task, which consists in being the
instrument or tool for the thinking spirit. This is borne out by a
comparative survey of the animal world. Among amphibians we find the
brain small in comparison with the spinal cord, in mammals it is
proportionately larger, in man it is largest in comparison with the
p. 23
rest of the body. There are many prejudices prevalent regarding such statements about
thinking as are brought forward here. Many persons are inclined to undervalue
thinking,
and to place higher the "warm life of feeling" or "emotion." Some,
indeed, say it is not by "dry thinking" but by warmth of feeling, by the
immediate power of "the emotions," that one raises oneself to higher
knowledge. Persons who speak thus fear to blunt the feelings by clear
thinking. This certainly results from the ordinary thinking that refers
only to matters of utility. But in the case of thoughts that lead to
higher regions of existence, the opposite is the result. There is no
feeling and no enthusiasm to be compared with the sentiments of warmth,
beauty, and exaltation which are enkindled through the pure,
crystal-clear thoughts which refer to the higher worlds. For the highest
feelings are, as a matter of fact, not those which come "of
themselves," but those which are gained by energetic and persevering
thinking.
The human body has a construction adapted to
thinking. The same materials and forces which are present in the mineral kingdom are
p. 24
so combined in the human body that by means of these combinations
thought can manifest itself. This mineral construction, formed as a
suitable instrument for its work, will be called in the following pages
the
physical body of man. (In theosophical literature it is called "Sthula sharira.")
This organized mineral construction with the brain as its center comes into existence by
propagation, and reaches its developed form through
growth.
Propagation and growth man has in common with plants and animals.
Propagation and growth distinguish what is living from the lifeless
mineral. What lives comes forth from the living by means of the germ.
The descendant follows the forefathers in the succession of the living.
The forces through which a mineral originates we must look for in the
materials themselves which compose it. A quartz crystal is formed by the
forces united in it, and inherent in the silicon and oxygen. The forces
which shape an oak tree we must look for in a roundabout way in the
germ in the mother and father plants. The
form of the oak is preserved through propagation from forefathers to
p. 25
descendants. There are
inner determining forces innate
in all that is living. It was a crude view of nature which held that
lower animals, even fishes, could evolve out of mud. The form of the
living passes itself on by means of
heredity.
The manner in which a living being develops depends on what father and
mother beings it has sprung from or, in other words, on the
species to which it belongs. The materials of which it is composed change continually; the
species remains during life, and is transmitted to the descendants. Thus the
species is that which conditions the organizing and molding of the materials. This species-forming force will here be called
life-force
(in theosophical literature it is called "Prana"). Just as the mineral
forces express themselves in crystals, so the life-force expresses
itself in the species or form of plant and animal life.
The mineral forces are perceived by man by means of the bodily
senses. And he can only perceive that for which he has such senses.
Without the eye there is no perception of light, without the ear no
perception of sound. The lowest order of organic beings has only a
p. 26
kind of sense of touch. For these there exist only those mineral
forces of which the sense of touch enables them to become aware. In
proportion as the other senses are developed in the higher animals is
the surrounding world richer and more varied for them. It depends,
therefore, on the organs of a being whether that which exists in the
outer world exists also for the being itself, as perception, as
sensation. What is present in the air as a certain motion becomes in man
the sensation of hearing. Man does not perceive the manifestations of
the life-force through the ordinary senses. He
sees the colors of the plants; he
smells their perfume; the life-force remains hidden from
this
form of observation. But the ordinary senses have just as little right
to deny the existence of the life-force as has the man born blind to
deny that colors exist. Colors are there for the person born blind just
as soon as he has been operated upon; in the same way, the life-force,
as creating the various species of plants and animals created by it, is
present to man as an object of perception as soon as the necessary organ
unfolds within him. An entirely new world opens out to man through
p. 27
the unfolding of this organ. He now perceives, not merely the colors, the odors, etc., of the beings, but
these beings themselves. In each plant, in each animal, he perceives, besides the physical form, the
life-filled spirit-form. In order to have a name for this spirit-form let it be called the
ether-body, or
life-body.
To the investigator of spiritual life this matter presents itself in
the following manner: The ether-body is for him not merely a product of
the materials and forces of the physical body, but a real independent
entity which first calls forth these physical materials and forces into
life. One speaks in harmony with spiritual science when one says: a mere
physical body, a crystal for example, has its form by means of the
physical formative forces dwelling within it. A living body does
not have its form by means of
these forces, for in the moment in which life is extinct in it, and it is given over to the physical forces
only,
it falls to pieces. The ether-body is an organism which preserves the
physical body every moment during life from dissolution. In order to
see this body, to perceive it in another
p. 28
being, one requires the awakened "
spiritual eye." Without this, one can accept its existence as a fact on logical grounds; but one can
see
it with the spiritual eye as one sees a color with the physical eye.
One should not take offense at the expression "ether-body." "Ether" here
designates something different from the hypothetical ether of the
physicist. One should regard the thing simply as a name for what is
described here. And just as the physical body of man is constructed in
conformity with its set task, so is it also in conformity with the
ether-body of man. One can understand it also only when one observes it
in relation to the thinking spirit. The ether-body of man differs from
that of plants and animals through being organized so as to serve the
requirements of the thinking spirit. Just as man belongs to the mineral
world through his physical body, he belongs through his ether-body to
the life-world. After death the physical body dissolves into the mineral
world, the ether-body into the life-world. (In theosophical literature
the human ether-body is called "Linga sharira.") By the word "body" is
designated what in any way gives a
p. 29
being "shape" or "form." The word used in this sense must not be
confused with the word body when used to designate physically sensible
bodies. Used in this sense the term body can also be applied to forms
which soul and spirit may assume.
In the life-body we still have something external to man. With the
first stirrings of sensation the inner self responds to the excitations
of the outer world. You may trace what one is justified in calling the
outer world ever so far, but you will not be able to find the sensation.
Rays of light stream into the eye, penetrating till they reach the
retina. There they call forth chemical processes (in the so-called
visual-purple); the effect of this stimulus is passed on through the
optic nerve to the brain; there further physical processes arise. Could
one observe these one would see more physical processes, just as
elsewhere in the physical world. If I am able to observe the ether-body,
I will see how the physical-brain process is at the same time a
life-process. But the sensation of blue color which the recipient of the
rays of light has, I can find nowhere in this manner. It arises only
within the soul of the
p. 30
recipient. If, therefore, the being of the recipient consisted only
of the physical body and the ether-body, sensation could not exist. The
activity by which sensation becomes a fact differs essentially from the
operations of the life-force. By that activity an inner experience is
called forth from these operations. Without this activity there would be
a mere life-process, such as one observes in plants. If one tries to
picture how a human being receives impacts from all sides, one must
think of him at the same time as the source of the above-mentioned
activity which streams out toward every point from which he received
these impacts. Sensations respond in all directions to the impacts. This
fountain of activity is to be called the
sentient-soul.
(It is the same as that which in theosophical literature is called
"Kama.") This sentient-soul is just as real as the physical body. If a
man stand before me and I disregard his sentient-soul by thinking of him
as merely a physical body, it is exactly as if I were to call up in my
mind, instead of a painting—merely the canvas.
A similar statement has to be made in
p. 31
regard to perceiving the sentient-soul as was previously made in
reference to the ether-body. The bodily organs are "blind" to it. And
blind to it is also the organ by which life as life can be perceived.
But just as the ether-body is seen by means of this organ, the inner
world of sensation itself can be seen through a still higher organ. A
man then not only senses the impressions of the physical and life
worlds, but he
beholds the
sensations themselves. Before a man with such an organ the world of the
sensations of another being is spread out like an open and, for him, a
legible book. One must distinguish between experiencing one's own
sensation world and looking at the sensation world of another. Every man
of course can see into his own sensation world; only the
seer with the opened "spiritual eye" can
see
the sensation world of another. Unless a man be a seer he knows the
sensation world only as an "inner" one, only as the peculiar hidden
experiences of his own soul; with the opened "spiritual eye" there
shines out before the external spiritual gaze what otherwise lives only
in the "inner" being of another.
p. 32
The sentient-soul depends, as regards its activity, on the ether-body
because it draws from it that which it will cause to gleam forth as
sensation. And since the ether-body is the life within the physical
body, the sentient-soul is indirectly dependent on the latter. Only with
correctly-functioning and well-constructed eyes are correct color
sensations possible. It is in this way that the corporality affects the
sentient-soul. The latter is thus determined and limited in its
efficaciousness by the body. It lives therefore within the limitations
fixed for it by the corporality. The
body
accordingly is built up of mineral materials, is vitalized by the
ether-body, and itself limits the sentient-soul. He, therefore, who has
the above-mentioned organ for "seeing" the sentient-soul, sees it
limited by the body. But the limits of the sentient-soul do not coincide
with those of the physical body. The soul extends somewhat beyond it.
By this one sees that it proves itself more powerful than the physical
body. But the force through which its limits are set proceeds from the
physical body. So that between the physical body and the ether-body on
the one hand,
p. 33
and the sentient-soul on the other, there inserts itself another distinct member of the human constitution. This is the
soul-body,
or sentient body. (It is called in theosophical literature "astral
shape," or "Kama Rupa;" "Rupa" signifies form or shape.) One can also
say: a part of the ether-body is finer than the rest, and this finer
part of the ether-body forms a unity with the
sentient-soul,
whereas the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body.
Nevertheless, the sentient-soul extends, as has been said, beyond the
soul-body.
What is here called sensation is only a part of the soul being. (The
expression sentient-soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.)
Connected with sensations are the feelings of desire and aversion,
impulses, instincts, passions. All this bears the same character of
individualized life as do the sensations, and is, like them, dependent
on the corporality.
Just as the sentient-soul enters into mutual action and reaction with
the body, so does it also with thinking, with the spirit. Thought,
among other things, is of immediate service to it. Man forms thoughts
about his sensations.
p. 34
[paragraph continues]
In this way he enlightens himself regarding the outside world. The
child that has burnt itself thinks it over, and reaches the thought
"fire burns." Also man does not follow blindly his impulses, instincts,
passions; his thought over them brings about the opportunity by which he
can gratify them. What one calls material civilization moves entirely
in this direction. It consists in the services which thinking renders to
the sentient-soul. Immeasureable quantities of thought-power are
directed to this end. It is thought-power that has built ships,
railways, telegraphs, telephones; and by far the greatest proportion of
all this serves only to satisfy the needs of the sentient-soul.
Thought-force permeates the sentient-soul in a similar way to that in
which the life-force permeates the physical body. Life-force connects
the physical body with forefathers and descendants, and thus brings it
under a system of laws with which the purely mineral body is in no way
concerned. In the same way thought-force brings the soul under a system
of laws to which it does not belong as mere sentient-soul. Through the
sentient-soul man is related to the animals.
p. 35
[paragraph continues]
In animals, also, we observe the presence of sensations, impulses,
instincts, and passions. But the animal obeys these immediately. They do
not, in its case, become interwoven with independent
thoughts,
transcending the immediate experiences. This is also the case to a
certain extent with undeveloped human beings. The mere sentient-soul is
therefore different from the evolved higher member of the soul which
brings thinking into its service. This soul that is served by thought
will be designated the intellectual-soul. One could call it also the
emotional thought-soul. (Theosophical literature calls it "Kama manas.")
The intellectual-soul permeates the sentient-soul. He who has the
organ for "seeing" the soul sees, therefore, the intellectual-soul as a
separate entity, distinct from the mere sentient-soul.
By thinking man is raised above and beyond his own personal life. He
acquires something that extends beyond his soul. He comes to take for
granted his conviction that the laws of thought are in conformity with
the laws of the world. And he feels at home in
p. 36
the world because this conformity exists. This conformity is one of
the important facts through which man learns to know his own nature. Man
searches in his soul for truth; and through this truth it is not only
the soul that speaks, but the things of the world. That which is
recognized as truth by means of thought has an
independent significance,
which refers to the things of the world, and not merely to one's own
soul. My delight in the starry heavens is part of my own inner being;
the thoughts which I form for myself about the courses of the heavenly
bodies have the same significance for the thinking of every other person
as they have for mine. It would be absurd to speak of
my delight were I not in existence; but it is not in the same way absurd to speak of my thoughts, even
without reference to myself. For the truth which I think to-day was true yesterday also, and will be
true
to-morrow, although I concern myself with it only to-day. If a piece of
knowledge gives me joy, the joy has significance just so long as it
lives in me. The
truth of the knowledge has its significance quite independently of the joy. By grasping the truth the
p. 37
soul connects itself with something that carries its worth in itself.
And this worth does not vanish with the feeling in the soul any more
than it arose with it. What is really truth neither arises nor passes
away; it has a significance which cannot be destroyed. This is not
contradicted by the fact that certain human "truths" have a value which
is transitory, inasmuch as they are recognized after a certain period as
partial or complete errors. For man must say to himself that truth
after all exists in itself, although
his
conceptions are only transient forms of manifestation of the eternal
truth. Even he who says, like Lessing, that he contents himself with the
eternal striving toward truth because the full pure truth can, after
all, only exist for a God, does not deny the eternity of truth, but
establishes it by such an utterance. For only that which has an eternal
significance in itself can call forth an eternal striving after it. Were
truth not in itself independent, if it acquired its worth and
significance through the feelings of the human soul,
then it could not be the
one common goal for all mankind. One concedes
p. 38
its
independent being by the very fact that one wishes to strive after it.
And as it is with the truth, so it is with the
truly good.
The moral good is independent of inclinations and passions, inasmuch as
it does not allow itself to be commanded by them, but commands them.
Likes and dislikes, desire and loathing belong to the personal soul of
man. Duty stands higher than likes and dislikes. Duty may stand so high
in the eyes of a man that he will sacrifice his life for its sake. And a
man stands the higher the more he has ennobled his inclinations, his
likes and dislikes, so that, without compulsion or subjection, they
themselves obey the recognized duty. The moral good has, like truth, its
eternal value in itself, and does not receive it from the
sentient-soul.
In causing the self-existent true and good to come to life in his
inner being, man raises himself above the mere sentient-soul. The
eternal spirit shines into this soul. A light is kindled in it which is
imperishable. In so far as the soul lives in this light, it is a
participant of the eternal. It unites its own existence with an eternal
existence. What the soul
p. 39
carries within itself of the true and the good is
immortal in it. That which shines forth in the soul as eternal is to be called here
consciousness-soul.
consciousness
can be spoken of even in connection with the lower soul stirrings. The
most ordinary everyday sensation is a matter of consciousness. To this
extent animals also have consciousness. The kernel of human
consciousness, that is,
the soul within the soul, is here meant by
consciousness-soul.
The consciousness-soul is accordingly differentiated from the
intellectual-soul as yet another distinct member of the human soul. The
intellectual-soul is still entangled in the sensations, the impulses,
the passions, etc. Everyone knows how at first a man holds that to be
true which he, owing to his feelings, prefers. Only
that truth, however, is
permanent which has freed itself from
all
taint of such feelings as sympathy and antipathy. The truth is true,
even if all personal feelings revolt against it. The part of the soul in
which
this truth lives will be called consciousness-soul.
So that even as one had to distinguish three members in the body, one has also to distinguish
p. 40
three in the soul;
sentient-soul,
intellectual-soul,
consciousness-soul. And just as the corporality works from below upward with a
limiting effect on the soul, so the spiritual works from above downward into it,
expanding
it. For the more the soul fills itself with the True and the Good, the
wider and the more comprehensive becomes the eternal in it. To him who
is able to "see" the soul, the splendor which goes out from a human
being, because his eternal is expanding, is just as much a reality as
the light which streams out from a flame is real to the physical eye.
For the "seer" the corporeal man is only a part of the
whole man.
The body as the coarsest structure lies within others, which
interpenetrate both it and each other. The ether-body fills the physical
body as a double form; extending beyond this on all sides is to be seen
the soul-body (astral shape). And beyond this, again, extends the
sentient-soul, then the intellectual-soul, which grows the larger the
more it receives into itself of the True and the Good. For this True and
Good cause the expansion of the intellectual-soul. A man living only
and entirely according to his
p. 41
inclinations, his likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual-soul
whose limits coincide with those of his sentient-soul. These
organizations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a
cloud, are called the
human aura.
In the course of the childhood of a human being, there comes a moment
in which, for the first time, he feels himself to be an independent
being distinct from the whole of the rest of the world. For persons with
finely-strung natures it is a significant experience. The poet Jean
Paul says in his autobiography, "I shall never forget the event which
took place within me, hitherto narrated to no one, and of which I can
give place and time, when I stood present at the birth of my
self-consciousness. As a very small child I stood at the door of the
house one morning, looking toward the wood pile on my left, when
suddenly the inner revelation 'I am an I' came to me like a flash of
lightning from heaven and has remained shining ever since. In that
moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and forever. Any
deception of memory is hardly to be conceived as possible here, for no
narrations by outsiders could have
p. 42
introduced additions to an occurrence which took place in the holy of
holies of a human being, and of which the novelty alone gave permanence
to such everyday surroundings." It is known that little children say to
themselves, "Charles is good," "Mary wishes to have this." They speak
of themselves as if of others because they have not yet become conscious
of their independent existence, because the consciousness of the self
is not yet born in them. Through self-consciousness man describes
himself as an independent being, separate from all others, as "I." In
his "I" man brings together all that he experiences as a being in body
and soul. Body and soul are the carriers of the ego or "I;" in them it
acts. Just as the physical body has its center in the brain, so has the
soul its center in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impacts from
without; feelings manifest themselves as the effects of the outer
world; the will relates itself to the outside world in that it realizes
itself in external actions. The ego as the peculiar and essential being
of man remains quite invisible. Excellently, therefore, does Jean Paul
call a man's recognition of his ego
p. 43
an "occurrence taking place only in the veiled holy of holies of a
man," for with his "I" man is quite alone. And this "I" is the man
himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He
may, therefore, describe his body and his soul as the "
sheaths" or "
veils" within which he lives; and he may describe them as his
tools
through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to
regard these tools ever more and more as the servants of his ego. The
little word "I" (German
ich) as it is used, for example, in the
English and German languages, is a name which differs from all other
names. Anyone who reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of
this name will find that it forms an avenue to the understanding of the
human being in the deeper sense. Any other name can be applied to its
corresponding object by all men in the same way. Anybody can call a
table "table" or a chair "chair," but this is not so with the name I. No
one can use it in referring to another person; each one can call only
himself "I." Never can the name "I" reach my ears from outside when it
refers to
me. Only from
p. 44
within, only through itself, can the soul refer to itself as "I."
When the human being therefore says "I" to himself, something begins to
speak in him that has nothing to do with anyone of the worlds from which
the "sheaths" so far mentioned are taken.
The I becomes ever more and more ruler of body and soul. This also
comes to visible expression in the aura. The more the I is lord over
body and soul, the more numerous and complex are its members, and the
more varied and rich are the colors of the aura. This effect of the I on
the aura can be seen by the "seeing" person. The I itself is invisible,
even to him. This remains truly within the "veiled holy of holies of a
man." But the I absorbs into itself the rays of the light which flames
forth in a man as eternal light. As he gathers together the experiences
of body and soul in the I, he also causes the thoughts of truth and
goodness to stream into the I. The phenomena of the senses reveal
themselves to the I from the one side, the
spirit
reveals itself from the other. Body and soul yield themselves up to the
I in order to serve it; but the I yields itself up to the spirit in
order that
p. 45
it may be filled by it. The I lives in body and soul; but the spirit
lives in the I. And what there is of spirit in the I is eternal. For the
I receives its nature and significance from that with which it is bound
up. Inasmuch as it lives in the physical body, it is subject to the
laws of the mineral world; through its ether-body to the laws of
propagation and growth; by virtue of the sentient and intellectual souls
to the laws of the soul world; in so far as it receives the spiritual
into itself it is subject to the laws of the spirit. That which the
mineral laws and the life laws construct comes into being and vanishes;
but the spirit has nothing to do with becoming and perishing.
The I lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation of the I
belongs to the consciousness-soul, one must nevertheless say that this
I, raying out from it, fills the whole of the soul, and through the soul
affects the body. And in the I the spirit is alive. It rays into it and
lives in it as in a "sheath" or veil, just as the I lives in its
sheaths, the body and the soul. The spirit develops the I from within,
outward; the mineral world develops it from without, inward. The spirit
forming
p. 46
an I and living as I will be called
spirit-self,
because it manifests as the I, or ego, or "self" of man. ("Spirit-self"
signifies the same as that which in theosophical literature is called
"Higher manas." The Sanscrit word "manas" is related to the English word
"man," and the German word "Mensch," and signifies the human being in
so far as he is a spiritual being.) The difference between the
"spirit-self" and the "consciousness-soul" can be made clear in the
following way. The consciousness-soul is the bearer of the self-existent
truth which is independent of all antipathy and sympathy, the
spirit-self bears within it the
same
truth, but taken up into and enclosed by the I, individualized by the
latter and absorbed into the independent being of the man. It is through
the eternal truth becoming thus individualized and bound up into one
being with the I, that the I itself attains to eternity.
The spirit-self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the I,
just as from the other side sensations are a revelation of the physical
world within the I. In that which is red, green, light, dark, hard,
soft, warm, cold, one
p. 47
recognizes the revelations of the corporal world; in what is true and
good, the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense in
which the revelation of the corporal world is called
sensation, let the revelation of the spiritual be called
intuition.
Even the most simple thought contains intuition, for one cannot touch
it with the hands or see it with the eyes; one must receive its
revelation from the spirit through the I. If an undeveloped and a
developed man look at a plant, there lives in the I of the one something
quite different from that which is in the ego of the other. And yet the
sensations of both are called forth by the same object. The difference
lies in this, that the one can make far more perfect thoughts about the
object than the other can. If objects revealed themselves through
sensation alone, there could be no progress in spiritual development.
Even the savage is affected by nature, but the laws of nature reveal
themselves only to the thoughts, fructified by intuition, of the more
highly developed man. The excitations from the outer world are felt even
by the child as incentives to the will; but the commandments of
p. 48
the morally good disclose themselves to him in the course of his
development only as he learns to live in the spirit and understand its
revelations.
Just as there could be no color sensations without physical eyes,
there could be no intuitions without the higher thinking of the
spirit-self. And as little as sensation creates the plant on which the
color appears, does intuition create the spiritual realities about which
it is merely giving information.
The I of man, which comes to life in the soul, draws in messages from
above, from the spirit world through intuitions, just as through
sensations it draws in messages from the physical world. By doing this
it makes the spirit world the individualized life of its own soul, even
as it does the physical world by means of the senses. The soul, or the I
flaming forth in it, opens its portals on two sides, toward the
corporal and toward the spiritual. Now as just the physical world can
only give information about itself to the ego, because it builds out of
physical materials and forces a body in which the conscious soul can
live and possess organs for perceiving the corporal world outside
p. 49
itself, so the spiritual world builds, with its spiritual materials
and spiritual forces, a spirit-body in which the I can live and through
intuitions perceive the spiritual. (It is evident that the expression
spirit-body
contains a contradiction, according to the literal meaning of the word.
It is only to be used in order to direct attention to what, in the
spiritual regions, corresponds to the body of man in the physical.)
Just as within the physical world each human body is built up as a
separate being, so is the spirit-body within the spirit world. In the
spirit world there is for man an inner and an outer, just as there is in
the physical world. As man takes in the materials of the physical world
around him and assimilates them within his physical body, so does he
take the spiritual from the
spiritual
environment and make it into his own. The spiritual is the eternal
nourishment of man. And as man is born of the physical world, he is also
born of the spirit through the eternal laws of the True and the Good.
He is separated from the spirit world outside of him, as he is separated
from the whole physical world, as
p. 50
an independent being. This independent spiritual being will be called
spirit-man. (It is the same as that which is called
Atma in theosophical literature.)
If we examine the human physical body, we find the same materials and
forces in it as we find outside it in the rest of the physical world.
It is the same with the spirit-man. In it pulsate the elements of the
external spirit world. In it the forces of the rest of the spirit world
are active. As a being within the physical skin becomes a self-contained
entity, living and feeling, so also in the spirit world. The spiritual
skin which separates the spirit man from the uniform spirit world makes
him an independent being within it, living a life within himself and
perceiving intuitively the spiritual content of the world. This
"spiritual skin" will be called
spirit-sheath. (In theosophical literature it is called
auric sheath.)
It must be kept clearly in mind that the spiritual skin expands
continually with the advancing human evolution, so that the spiritual
individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of enlargement to an
unlimited extent.
p. 51
The spirit-man
lives within this spirit-sheath. It is built up by the
spiritual life-force
in the same way as is the physical body by the physical life-force. In a
similar way to that in which one speaks of an ether-body one must
therefore speak of an ether-spirit in reference to the spirit-man. Let
this ether-spirit be called
life-spirit. The spiritual being of man therefore is composed of three parts,
spirit-man,
life-spirit, and
spirit-self.
(Atma, budhi, manas are the corresponding expressions in theosophical
literature. For Budhi is the separated special life-spirit which is
formed by the
spiritual life-force, or Budhi.)
For him who is a "seer" in the spiritual regions, this spiritual
being of man is a perceptible reality as the higher, truly spiritual
part of the
aura. He
"sees" the spirit-man as life-spirit within the spirit-sheath, and he
"sees" how this "life-spirit" grows continually larger by taking in
spiritual nourishment from the
spiritual
external world. Further, he sees how the spirit-sheath continually
increases, widens out through what is brought into it, and how the
spirit-man becomes ever
p. 52
larger and larger. For the difference between the spiritual and the
physical being of man is that the latter has a limited size while the
former can grow to an unlimited extent. Whatever of spiritual
nourishment is absorbed has an eternal worth. The human aura is
accordingly composed of two interpenetrating parts. Color and form are
given to the one by the physical existence of man, and to the other by
his spiritual existence. The ego forms the separation between them in
this way that, while the physical after its own manner
gives itself to building up a body which allows a soul to live and expand in it, and the ego
gives itself
to allowing to live and develop in it the spirit which now for its part
permeates the soul and gives it the goal in the spirit world. Through
the body the soul is enclosed in the physical; through the spirit-man
there grow wings for its moving in the spiritual world.
In order to comprehend the
whole
man, one must think of him as formed of the components above mentioned.
The body builds itself up out of the world of physical matter in such a
way that the construction is adapted
p. 53
to the requirements of the thinking ego. It is penetrated with
life-force, and thereby becomes the ether or life-body. As such it opens
itself through the sense organs toward the outer world and becomes the
soul-body. This the sentient-soul permeates and becomes one with. The
sentient-soul does not merely receive the impacts of the outer world as
sensations. It has its own inner life which it fructifies through
thinking on the one hand, as it does through sensations on the other. In
this way it becomes the intellectual-soul. It is able to do this by
opening itself up to intuitions from above, as it does to sensations
from below. Thus it becomes the consciousness-soul. This is possible to
it because the spirit world builds into it the organ of intuition, just
as the physical body builds in it the sense organs. As the senses
transmit sensations by means of the soul-body, the spirit transmits to
it intuitions through the organ of intuition. The spirit-man is
therefore linked into a unity with the consciousness-soul, just as the
physical body is with the sentient-soul in the soul-body.
Consciousness-soul and spirit-self form a unity. In this unity the
spirit-man
lives as
p. 54
life-spirit, just as the ether body forms the bodily life-basis for
the soul-body. And as the physical body is enclosed in the physical
skin, so is the spirit-man in the spirit-sheath. The members of the
whole man are as follows:
A. Physical-body.
B. Ether-body.
C. Soul-body.
D. Sentient-soul.
E. Intellectual-soul.
F. Consciousness-soul.
G. Spirit-self.
H. Life-spirit.
I. Spirit-man.
Soul-body (C) and sentient-soul (D) are a unity in the earthly man;
in the same way are consciousness-soul (F) and spirit-self (G) a unity.
Thus there come to be seven parts in the earthly man. The expressions
used in theosophical literature are as follows:
1. Physical-body (Sthula sharira).
2. Ether or life-body (Linga sharira).
3. Sentient-soul-body (Astral body, Kama rupa).
4. Intellectual-soul (Lower manas, Kama manas).
p. 55
5. Spirit-filled Consciousness-soul (Higher manas).
6. Life-spirit (Spiritual-body, Budhi).
7. Spirit-man (Atma).
The "I" flashes forth in the soul, receives the infusion from out the
spirit and thereby becomes the bearer of the spirit-man. Through this,
man participates in the "three worlds," the physical, the soul, and the
spiritual. He takes root in the physical world through his physical
body, ether-body, and soul-body and flowers through the spirit-self,
life-spirit, and spirit-man up into the spiritual world. The
stalk, however, which takes root in the one and flowers in the other, is the soul itself.
One can express this arrangement of the members of man in a
simplified way, but one entirely consistent with the above. Although the
human I flashes forth in the consciousness-soul, it nevertheless
penetrates the whole soul-being. The parts of this soul-being are not as
distinctly separate as are the limbs of the body; they penetrate each
other, in a higher sense. If then, one hold clearly in view the
intellectual-soul and the consciousness-soul
p. 56
as the two members united to form the bearer of the I, and this I as
their kernel, one can divide man into physical body, life-body,
astral-body, and I. The expression astral-body designates here what is
formed by soul-body and sentient-soul together, although the
sentient-soul is in a certain respect energized by the I. When now the I
penetrates itself with spirit-self, this spirit-self comes into
evidence in the transmutation of the astral-body by a force within the
soul. In the astral-body there are primarily active the impulses,
desires, and passions of man, in so far as they are felt by him; the
physical perceptions also take effect in it. Physical perceptions arise
through the soul-body as a member in man which comes to him from the
external world. Impulses, desires, and passions, etc., arise in the
sentient-soul, in so far as it is energized by the soul before the
latter has yielded itself to the spirit. If the I penetrates itself with
spirit-self, the soul proceeds to energize the astral-body with this
spirit-self. This expresses itself in the illumination of the impulses,
desires, and passions by what the I has received from the spirit. The I
has
p. 57
then, through the power it gains as partaker of the spiritual world,
become ruler in the world of impulses, desires, etc. In proportion to
the extent to which it has become this the spirit-self appears in the
astral-body. And the astral-body becomes thereby transmuted. The
astral-body itself then becomes visible as a two-membered body, an
untransmuted and a transmuted. One can therefore designate the
spirit-self, as manifested in man, as transmuted astral-body.
A similar process takes place in a person when he receives the life
spirit into his I. The Life-body then becomes transmuted. It becomes
penetrated with the life-spirit. And the Life-spirit reveals itself in
that the life-body becomes quite other than it was. For this reason one
can also say that life-spirit is transmuted life-body. And if the I
receives the spirit-man, it thereby receives the strong force with which
to penetrate the physical body. Naturally, that part of the physical
body thus transmuted is
not
perceptible to the physical senses. It is, in fact, just that part of
the physical body which has been spiritualized that has become the
spirit-man.
p. 58
The physical body is then present to the physical senses as physical,
and in so far as this physical is spiritualized, it has to be perceived
by spiritual faculties of perception. To the external senses the
physical, even when penetrated by the spiritual, appears to be merely
sensible.
Taking all this as a basis, one can have also the following arrangement of the members of man:
1. Physical-body.
2. Life-body.
3. Astral-body.
4. I, as soul kernel.
5. Spirit-self as transmuted astral-body.
6. Life-spirit " " life-body.
7. Spirit-man " " physical-body.
Theosophy, by Rudolf Steiner, [1910]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm
