עברית You can say to yourself, ’I am in my forties, but inwardly, in truth, I feel still so old! I must expectantly wait for my fifties to become younger’; then in your fifties you say – ’Yes, it has indeed become a bit better, I’m younger than I was in my thirties...but I’m looking forward to my sixties because the sixties—ach, only there begins the great youngest stuff!—there I can start to become really young, that is, truly human.’
Growing Young in the Community of the School of Spiritual Science
From the Fourth lecture given in the annual global school meeting, 15.2. 2019
Wendelsberg, Sweden
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner
You can say to yourself, ’I am in my forties, but inwardly, in truth, I feel still so old! I must expectantly wait for my fifties to become younger’; then in your fifties you say – ’Yes, it has indeed become a bit better, I’m younger than I was in my thirties...but I’m looking forward to my sixties because the sixties—ach, only there begins the great youngest stuff!—there I can start to become really young, that is, truly human.’
I think we can really experience from one day to the next, from one year to the next and the older people among us can experience it also from decade to decade, that we can feel the growing of something living in and through us. You can have a feeling that a community of people which can be as diverse and spread out in space and time as this one is, can become a real living organism that develops according to its own rhythm, according to its own laws, that this is a living being that is developing; that it’s not something inorganic and artificial, theoretical and intellectual, but has its own life. And if in the beginning you feel yourself in certain way more like a parent who has to grow this child or to be a gardener of the young shoot, eventually you realize that the best gardening and fostering of this unique living plant is to grow together with it; not so much growing “it” but growing together with it. And eventually, after some years, we begin to feel that it grows us. And you continue to grow with it, but now from the other direction. You were growing it in the beginning, as you gave it your life and helped it to enter rightly into its new life, now the roles begin to change. You have noticed maybe, that at a certain point on the path you could say, “oh, my God, now it is growing me”. Now it is mothering and fathering me, and I am growing through and with it.
This experience is very true for our time. We also spoke in the first lecture about biography in our time and about the “Erwartungsstimmung” (mood of expectancy) [1] the feeling one can have in modern life of growing younger and more human the older you become physically, and that you can say to yourself, “I am in my forties, but inwardly, in truth, I feel still so old! I must expectantly wait for my fifties to become younger”; then in your fifties you say – “yes, it has indeed become a bit better, I'm younger than I was in my thirties…but I’m looking forward to my sixties because the sixties – ach, only there begins the great youngest stuff! - there I can start to become really young, that is, truly human”. And you know that the older you are becoming physically, the younger you become spiritually and, as we said in our previous lectures, you approach death with a feeling of approaching birth, of getting ready to be born spiritually, with your whole being now, for the first time in your entire life. The same process can be viewed also in another way.
The more you grow younger in older ages, the more you will be able to move forward by going backward and experience the spiritual side of your younger physical ages! You will be able to go backward and resurrect the unconscious spiritual forces that worked in and on you in your 40’, 30’, 20’ and teenager years, but now on a higher level of consciousness and maturity; and then you will be able to go so far forward-backward that you will experience- of course, to begin with we can only start to feel it, but this feeling is already of the greatest value- the deeply unconscious spiritual forces of your childhood and babyhood, on a conscious level, and when you come to your physical birth you will be truly ready to die, that is, to experience your spiritual birth in the approaching physical death! That is, the more you get physically older and approach the gate of death, the more you experience backward the spiritual force that worked behind your physical youth; then you would be so young and awake- spiritually speaking- when you go through the opening and widening portal of physical death that approaches you, and when you die you will be born as a healthy and kicking spiritual baby in the spiritual world, in order to start and grow there into your full spiritual stature between this death and the coming new physical birth. The moment that you have resurrected all your past physical life backwardly, in the time steam that flows from the future to the past, and have reached your physical birth, you are ready for your spiritual birth, namely, physical death. [2] You become ever younger inwardly and spiritually until you die physically and are born as a spirit baby at death and start your spiritual life as a new born spirit baby; but you were growing this baby all your life as you became younger and younger until your spiritual birth at death.
Let’s say, you have really worked hard seventy or eighty years to resurrect forward-backward in this way your youth, adolescent, childhood, babyhood, and that you would truly go back through your mother’s womb to thelife in the spiritual world before birth. Then indeed, you would be able to approach in full consciousness also your physical death and experience your entry into the spiritual worlds as a spiritual birth! Because when we are born physically, let’s face it, we are pretty old. We come from long centuries of life between the last death and this birth, in which we prepared the karma that awaits us in our coming earthly life. When you bring all this karma, which when you’re born is still waiting for you, it is still heavy on you, you are so terribly old despite all the wonderful natural spiritual forces of childhood. The youthful spiritual forces of the child aren’t his presently active forces, but part of his previous life in the spiritual world before birth and in his previous earthly lives, working together with the highest spiritual forces of all the hierarchies. It’s not yet what he himself created on the earth in this lifetime. It belongs to the past. You can see it today and will see it more in the future on the faces and in the eyes of the new born babies, many of them are so mature and bright, that they know very well what they have before them in this lifetime, they saw it very clearly in the pre-life vision in the etheric world just before conception, and many of them will not forget it so completely as we have done in our time; and they would feel the fact weighing on them, that they have brought so much karma to work through.
Only slowly we grow into and can face this karma, we have to experience and suffer this karma until we are 49, but, indeed, as I showed in the first lecture, in the most inward sense, you may still have to come to terms with the spiritualized essence of your karma in the third moon node in the age of 56. The more you resolve your past karma, the more you make peace with your karma, the more you can heal some of it, the more you understand that some of it you will have to continue to carry through the gate of death, the younger you become, and lighter (spiritually-morally speaking it means becoming heavier) you become, and the more you approach the blessed youth of old age. And then after 63 the Nirvana plane experience awaits you in your 60' and the Paranirvana plane after 70...
So, if you will bear with me in the coming years, I will continue to broadcast from the Nirvana plan every now and then, and I think you will feel that it is assuming a new form, that there’s a new feeling about, coming from someone who is speaking from a higher point of view- which I think is pretty natural, it’s not forced; it is the natural spiritual result of the further development and refinement of all the previous work. When you complete the 9x7 years cycle, rounding off the development of the members of the whole human constitution in our age, you progress further, as Rudolf Steiner said, beyond the limits of the solar system and enter, spiritually, qualitatively, speaking, in your soul experience, the cosmic regions of the fixed stars, the zodiac, from which you can look down and survey earthly life as a whole from a higher perspective. [3] Therefore, after the age of 63, what is possible to you, if you have developed your youthful forces through your entire life, in spirit, soul and body, as I described in my first lecture, you may indeed experience a growing measure of intensification and qualitative, exponential acceleration, of the essence extracted from the fruits and seeds cultivated and harvested during the last 42 years of anthroposophical work, which now, strongly spiritualized, can be born to new life on a higher level.
You would then feel also as I feel that this is actually a grace of karma that we can grow and become more mature and therefore younger in the life of the global community of the school of spiritual science and the true anthroposophical movement. And this makes the fact of longer physical lifespan into a real gift. [4] Because people who are not maturing in a creative way, not becoming spiritually younger when they become physically older, this longer lifespan for them is experienced as an unsettling purgatory, with its torments of purification; and if people don’t develop spiritually, the longer their physical life becomes, the more meaningless or painful this purification and suffering can become. And many people who invested their forces in remaining physically young, when they experience the pain of getting old, prefer to end their life voluntarily when it becomes physically unbearable or unworthy, from their totally materialistic point of view. This is the other side of this longer life; we all know this side too as we see it everywhere among family and acquaintances. But I want to emphasize the creative, positive, side of longer physical life that is given to humanity nowadays and how we can really make it fruitful not in the physical materialistic way, of seeking more amusements, consumption and earth destroying tourism the older we become. Because for people who love the spiritual life on the earth and love humanity, nature and the earth and have a mission to fulfil here, physical life will become longer because they will passionately wish to be able to do more work here, and the time of the life between death and rebirth will grow shorter, because they will begin to do part of the work during physical life that previously could be accomplished only after death.
As I said before, I really hope that karma will bless us with the graceful opportunity to continue to work together for some more years and enjoy as a growing younger community this blessing of spiritually longer and ever more creative and younger life; and this will also become an experience of how the beings of spiritual science and the being of Anthroposophia are also growing younger and younger in us and through us. And then, when the community grows younger, which means that if the older people- who joined this work when they were in the middle of life or even later- will really become younger inwardly, then they can meet truly young souls who also happen to be physically young. Of course, only spiritually young souls in young bodies will find their way to the really young becoming older people, and not those very common old souls in young bodies! – we have seen around us in the last 40 years so many of these very old, tired souls in young physical bodies. These so called “young” people are so old, that they are only interested to find shelter, security and sometimes good jobs, to be orderly- that is, “olderly”- organized, for example, in “youth sections” of established terribly old organizations, or in other “youth programs” programmed by physically old, old souls for physical young old souls! Nothing can be older and attract many older souls than an organized youth enterprise, whatever its name.
True spiritual life, however, is all about becoming younger no matter if you are physically older or younger, and if you do become younger inwardly, than naturally, truly young souls that happen to be also in young physical bodies, will hear the young resonance and music through your voice and life, resounding through all these old shrivelling and wrinkling bodies. And then young souls in all physical ages, can recognize and meet each other as creative, enthusiastic, spiritually passionate young souls. And generation will begin to speak creatively with the next generation on the same spiritual level because both generations will be composed of truly young souls – not physically, but spiritually speaking – and they will begin to fulfil the greatest hope of future humanity. This is the great hope of the present Michaelic age and humanity in our time, that can perhaps begin to be realized, in this lifetime or not, it doesn’t matter, let it be the next one if so it must be; but one day it will certainly be realized. This will be a fulfilment of one of the oldest prophecies of humanity, you can find it also in the Bible, that a time will come in which the best harvest gathered in the spiritual life of the previous generation will pass over, transformed and potentised, to fructify the young forces of the next one, and so on; not only in external life, in natural science and technology, but in the spiritual, moral, cognitive sense, we will begin to realize qualitative, exponential growth curves; in which a positive stream of becoming and development will be created, flowing from one generation to the next and to the third and to the fourth, in an unbroken, positively snowballing, exponentially accelerating way.
This was as you know the hope expressed by Rudolf Steiner after the Christmas Foundation Conference, when he said that if this spiritually youngest impulse will be understood and actualized, the anthroposophical society will grow younger and younger, more creative, open, joyful movement, through the whole 20th century, and then will reach an intensive culmination and new beginning at the end of the century and the beginning of the 21st century. This means, dear friends, that the power of growth that we can experience now in our work, was planted as a seed in the earth as a real option in 1924. It was really there, cosmically and karmically speaking, and all the required arrangements have been made. Rudolf Steiner as a representative of the Michaelic stream on earth, truly envisioned the possibility of an organically growing, younger becoming, developing and maturing anthroposophical movement through the whole century, with a powerful culmination at its end, starting a new impulse for the 21st century. Everything was there- only the human hearts destined to hear it, remained closed, and did not want to hear the call calling at the end of each part of the Foundation Stone mediation, “May human beings hear it!”.
But why cannot we imagine ourselves right now, as if we are standing right there in the Christmas Foundation Conference of 1923-1924 , or at Rudolf Steiner’s funeral in April 1925, and say to ourselves: “why, wouldn’t we after all wish to start to do just that right now in 2019? Why not, for a change? The destined human hearts gave a negative answer in 1924. Can we perhaps for a change try to give a positive answer now, almost a whole century later?” The question is, simply put, this: will some souls will be found, that in this century will take the step not taken after the Christmas Foundation Conference in 1923-4 and after Rudolf Steiner’s death in March 30, 1925? In 1924-5 all stood still, and no positive progress was made in the physical world in the coming crucial years of the 20’, 30’ and 40’ of last century, nor later. But cannot we do it right here and now, in this century, in this organic, self-intensifying, and accelerating manner, that Rudolf Steiner hoped for the 20th century? If we decide to do it now, we can still create this growing, unbroken, self-intensifying stream throughout the first half of the 21st century, organically developing and becoming younger and younger, from one decade to the next, from one generation to the next; it will become spiritually younger and younger, as a stream, as the real anthroposophical community with the school of spiritual science as its living centre. While in each year and decade new souls join it, grow younger in this life-giving stream, drink together from this Michaelic Christ fountain of youth (which is called “Vidar” in its esoteric name as we shall see in the next lecture), make in turn the stream younger, and pass it on in a younger, more creative, freer, more loving and living form to the next generation of active and creative young Michaelic fighters. Then the whole stream becomes gradually and organically ever younger; and as things snowball for the bad and through the costumery inertia get old and worse with time, which is the way of all unredeemed and unresurrected flesh, and the way all spiritual movements have gone until now on the earth, we may create for the first time in human evolution the opposite, a positive creative growth upwards.
We haven’t seen this miracle yet in the external spiritual life in human evolution, and the external history of anthroposophy certainly followed the old inertia as all others spiritual movements and religions before it. But perhaps we are tired of repeating this dead end endlessly? Perhaps we may finally wish to say, “enough is enough”, and take the trouble to start a positive momentum moving upstream, for a change? If we do, we will see the beginning of it in our own work and life already during the first third of this century. A living movement of ordinary mortals, doing esoteric things in an exoteric manner for the first time in human evolution, as is expected from mortals in this age of Michael. Creating a living communal being, composed of strong independent individualities, that is actually developing from one generation to the next and carrying an intensifying spiritual stream from one decade to the next, from one generation to the next, in such a way that one can really experience that it is really growing, metamorphosing – consciously – on the earth. Of course, it’s the highest ideal for all the future modern Michaelic movement but remember that this movement alone can and must lead this positive stream for the benefit of humanity as a whole, to pioneer this hopeful future potential.
As I said, one day it will be achieved, I cannot tell you now if it will happen until the middle of this century, I cannot predict this in 2019, but observing the progress of our work say since 2009, in the last 10 years, I can see some positive signs in this direction. But if we would not accomplish this now- then we shall try again and again and then yet again, because we can always start afresh and anew in each time. But one day we will have to succeed, so why not start today? As long as we honestly try, seriously try, then this honest trying is already the new, unachieved new step, a true germinating success. To try and predict now exactly to what extent this ideal may be fulfilled, is not fruitful; some of it is also not only in our hands, world karma has it’s say as well, but what matters most now is to do it here and now and expect the greatest results. If we try this for a long enough time, we can gain the conviction that it is really possible. And this is actually all that we need; we need to experience this positive measure of success, of positive development, healing, transformation and growing human creativity and maturity in and through the being of youngest being of Anthroposophia.
Think about it in also in this way. If we will be allowed to continue to develop what we are doing in recent years, let’s say in the next 10 years, and if it is taken together with what was achieved in the last 10 years, it will make a time of 20 years of continuous growth, unbroken, positive organic development. This is not an insignificant thing in our time! Until today, real Anthroposophy didn’t have this grace, to grow continuously on the earth for more than 21 years; furthermore, this short time of development was accomplished solely by Rudolf Steiner, not by ordinary humans. If we succeeded in doing it for more than 21 years together, this will be already a world record and most significant new step in the evolution of humanity. We must feel the greatness of this option and chance, we must be incredibly humble, honest and sincere about it, and above all, we must feel how fortunate we may choose to become, if we take this chance and make it real, and then our enthusiasm and will for work and sacrifice will know no limits.
Notes
[1] Gelebte Erwartung, is the name of Ernst Lehrs autobiography (Mellinger Verlag, 1979)
[2] The time stream that flows from the future to the past is the astral stream of becoming, that governs all development and evolution in the physical world. We live in this stream in the astral world after death, when we experience our past backward. (About the two streams of time, see also GA 115, 4.11. 1910)
[3] GA 239, 25.5 1924.
[4] It is important to emphasize again, as we did in the third lecture, that because the impulse of the Christmas Foundation Conference didn’t find souls that would want to receive it, Rudolf Steiner’s “genuinely new beginning of life” in his 63-4 year could not continue, and he had to take his leave from the physical world in the moment that this new life just started.