Transcend the Physical Body
Excerpted from Rudolf Steiner’s lecture titled “The Mission of the Earth“
All philosophising begins with wonder, because in reality man approaches the phenomena of existence as a being who comes into the world of the senses from a super-sensible world and finds that the things of the sense-world do not tally with what he perceived in the super-sensible world. Wonder arises in him when the form in which the things of sense are made manifest, can only be explained by knowledge he once possessed in a super-sensible world. And so wonder points to the connection of man with the super-sensible world, to something belonging to a sphere he can only enter when he transcends the world in which his physical body encloses him. This is one indication of the fact that here, in this physical world, there is a continual urge within the human being to reach out beyond himself. A man who can only remain shut up in himself, who is not driven by wonder beyond the field of the “I,” of the ordinary Ego, remains one who cannot reach beyond himself, who sees the sun rise and set without a thought and with complete unconcern. This is the kind of existence led by uncivilised peoples.
A second power which releases the human being from the ordinary world, leading him at once away from material perception into super-sensible insight, is Compassion, Fellow-feeling (Of this, too, I have spoken). Those who go heedlessly through the world do not regard compassion as having any great mystery about it; but to the thoughtful, compassion is a great and mysterious secret. When we look at a being only from outside, impressions come from him to our senses and intellect; with the awakening of compassion we pass beyond the sphere of these impressions. We share in what is taking place in his innermost nature, and transcending the sphere of our own “I”, we pass over into his world. In other words: we are set free from ourselves, we break through the barriers of ordinary existence in the physical body and reach over into the other being. Here, already, is the Supersensible — for neither the operations of the senses nor of the reasoning mind can carry us into the sphere of another’s soul. The fact that compassion exists in the world bears witness that even in the world of sense we can be set free from, can pass out beyond ourselves and enter into the world of another being. If a man is incapable of compassion, there is a moral defect, a moral lack in him. If at the moment when he should get free from himself and pass over into the other being, feeling, not his own pain or joy but the pain or joy of that other — if at that moment his feelings fade and die away, then something is lacking in his moral life. The human being on Earth, if he is to reach the stature of full and complete manhood, must be able to pass out beyond his own earthly life, he must be able to live in another, not only in himself.
Conscience is a third power whereby the human being transcends what he is in the physical body. In ordinary life he will desire this or that; according to his impulses or needs he will pursue what is pleasing and thrust aside what is displeasing to him. But in many such actions he will be his own critic, in that his conscience, the voice of his conscience sounds a note of correction. Final satisfaction or dissatisfaction with what he has done also depends upon how the voice of conscience has spoken. This in itself is a proof that “conscience” is a power whereby the human being is led out beyond the sphere of his impulses, his likes and dislikes.
Wonder and Amazement, Compassion or Fellow-feeling, Conscience — these are the three powers by means of which the human being, even while in the physical body, transcends his own limitations, for through these powers, influences which cannot find entrance into the human soul by way of the intellect and the senses, ray into physical life.
It is easy to understand that these three powers can only unfold through incarnations in a body of flesh. Man must, as it were, be kept separate by a body of flesh from what pours into his life of soul from another sphere. If a body of flesh did not separate him from the spiritual world and present the outer world to him as a sense-world, he would be incapable of wonder. It is the material body which enables wonder at the things of the world of sense to arise in man, compelling him to seek for the Spirit. Compassion could not unfold if the one human being were not separated from the other, if men were to live an undivided existence in which a single flow of spiritual life pervaded the consciousness of them all, if each soul were not separated from other souls by the impenetrable sheath provided by the physical body. And conscience could not be experienced as a spiritual force sending its voice into man’s world of natural urges, passions and desires, if the material body did not hanker after things against which warning must be given by another power. And so the human being must be incarnated in a physical body in order that he may be able to experience wonder, compassion and conscience.
In our time, people concern themselves little with such secrets, although they are profoundly enlightening.