The higher wisdom works from out of the spiritual world deep into the bodily part of man, so that man is able by its means to form his brain out of spirit. It is rightly said that even the wisest may learn from a child, for in the child is working the wisdom which does not pass later into consciousness. Through that wisdom man has something like telephonic connection with the spiritual beings in whose world he lives between death and re-birth. From that world there is something still streaming into the aura of a child, which is, as an individual being, immediately under the guidance of the entire spiritual world to which it belongs. Spiritual forces from that world continue to flow into a child. They cease so to flow at the point of time to which memory goes back. It is these forces which enable a child to bring itself into a definite relation to gravitation. They form the larynx, and so mould the brain that it becomes a living instrument for the expression of thought, feeling and will.
What is present in childhood to a supreme degree, so that the individual is then working out of a self which is still in direct connection with higher worlds, continues to some extent even in later years, although the conditions change in the manner indicated above. If at a later stage of life we feel that we did something years before which we are only now able to understand, it is just because we previously let ourselves be guided by higher wisdom, and only after the lapse of years have we attained to an understanding of the reasons of our conduct.
From all this we can feel that, immediately after birth, we had not escaped so very far from the world in which we were before entering upon physical existence, and that we can never really escape from it wholly. Our share in higher spirituality enters our physical life and accompanies us throughout it. We often feel that what is within us is not only a higher self which is gradually being evolved, but is something higher which is there already, and is the motive cause of our so often developing beyond ourselves.
All ideals and artistic creations which man is able to produce, as well as all the natural healing forces in his own body, by means of which he is continually able to adjust the injuries that befall him in life,—all these powers do not proceed from ordinary intellect, but from those deeper forces which in our earliest years are at work on our equilibrium in space, on the formation of our larynx and on the brain. For these same forces are still at work in man in later years. When sickness attacks us, it is often said that external forces cannot help us, but that our organism must develop the healing powers latent within it: by this is meant that there is a profoundly wise activity present in humanity. Moreover, it is from the same source that proceed these best forces whereby knowledge of the spiritual world is attained, i.e., true clairvoyance.
The question now suggests itself, why do the higher forces which have been described work upon human nature only during early childhood? One-half of the answer may be easily given as follows: If those higher forces went on working in the same way, man would be always a child. He would not attain the full ego-consciousness. From within his own being must proceed the motive power which previously worked on him from without. But there is a more important reason, which explains still more about the mysteries of human life than what has just been said, and that is the following:
It is possible to learn through occult science, that the human body, as it exists at its present stage of evolution, must be regarded as having arrived at its present form under different circumstances. It is known to the occultist that this evolution was effected by means of the working of various forces on the sum-total of man’s being; certain forces worked on the physical body, others on the etheric, others on the astral body. Human nature has arrived at its present form through the action of those beings whom we call the Luciferic and Ahrimanic. By their means it has, in a certain way, become worse than it need have been if those forces only had been active within it which proceed from the spiritual rulers of the cosmos who desire to evolve man along straight lines. The causes of sorrow, disease and even of death are to be sought in the fact that, besides the beings who are evolving man in a straight line forwards, there are also ruling the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits, who are continually crossing the line of straightforward, progressive development.
There is something in what man brings into existence at birth, which is better than what he can make out of it in later life. This is so, because the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces have but little influence over man during early childhood; they are virtually only operative in what man makes out of himself by his conscious life. If he were to retain in full force beyond early childhood that part of his being which is better than the rest, he would be unable to endure its influence, because his whole being is weakened by the opposite forces of Lucifer and Ahriman. Man’s organism in the physical world is so constituted that it is only when he is, so to speak, as soft and pliable as a child, that he can endure within him those direct forces of the spiritual world which operate within him during early childhood. He would be shattered, if during his later life there were still directly working in him those forces which underlie the faculty of equilibrium in space, and the formation of the larynx and the brain. Those forces are so tremendous that, if they were to go on working, our organism would pine away under the influence of their holiness. Man must only have recourse to such forces for the purpose of that kind of activity which brings him into conscious connection with the supersensible world.
But out of this there arises a thought which is of great significance, if rightly understood. It is expressed in the New Testament in the words “Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” What then becomes manifest as man’s highest ideal, if what has just been said be rightly received? Surely this,—the drawing ever nearer and nearer to what we may call a conscious relation to the forces which work in man unknown to him during early childhood. Only it must be borne in mind that man would collapse under the power of those forces, if they were at once to operate in his conscious life. For this reason, careful preparation is necessary for the attainment of those faculties which induce the perception of supersensible worlds. The object of such preparation is to qualify man to bear what he is unable to bear in ordinary life.
Now the passing of the individual through successive incarnations is of importance for the collective evolution of the human race. The latter has advanced through successive lives in the past, and is still advancing, and parallel with it the earth too is moving forwards in its evolution. The time will come when the earth will have reached the end of its career. Then the earthly planet will fall away as a physical entity from the sum-total of human souls, just as the human body falls away from the spirit at death, when, in order to continue living, the soul enters the spiritual realm which is adapted for it between death and re-birth. When once this is realized, it must appear as man’s highest ideal to have progressed far enough at earthly death, to be able to reap all possible benefits which may be obtained from earthly life.