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Cosmic 'I' and Human 'I'
Cosmic 'I' and Human 'I'
Rudolf Steiner
the ether (life) body on the ancient Sun, and then a special
development of the same body needed to take place dur-
ing the ancient Indian epoch. No one who really under-
stands should ask such a question, since these are the facts:
Of course, there was preliminary work on the ether body
during the ancient Sun; human beings came to Earth in
possession of an ether body. Nevertheless, this body can
now be formed more finely; the members that humankind
developed later can work on it. The human ether body was
naturally at a relatively high stage when incarnated in an
ancient Indian body, but in this post-Atlantean period, we
work upon our ether body with the “I” we have acquired.
With all that human beings have gained in the meantime,
we work on and refine it. Essentially, it is a refining of the
various members of human nature that takes place in our
post-Atlantean period.
If you now consider the entire evolution what has just
been said, the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the Greco-
Roman, will seem especially important. What we call the
rational, or intellectual, soul had to be worked upon and
brought to a more refined form in the human being. By that
time, however, the “I,” which belongs to the greater evolu-
tionary stream, had already experienced a particularly high
degree of development. Therefore, we can say that, up to
the fourth post-Atlantean period, the Greco-Roman time,
this human “I” had evolved to a certain stage, and it then
had to work on the rational soul, as it does today on the
consciousness soul.
You see, in a certain sense there is now an intimate rela-
tionship between the human “I” and the three members
of human soul nature: the sentient soul, the rational soul,
Cosmic “I” and Human “I” ~ 7
beings develop the spirit self during the Earth period, they
cannot relate to it as they do to the “I.” We can say of our
“I” that we, ourselves, are that; it is really our self. In the
next, sixth post-Atlantean, the spirit self will have reached
expression. Then we will not be able to address this spirit
self as our self; rather, we will say that our “I” has devel-
oped to a certain stage, so that our spirit self can shine into
it, as from higher worlds, as a kind of angel being, which
we are not; it shines into us and takes possession of us. This
is how our spirit self will appear to us; and only on Jupiter
will it appear as our own being, as our “I” is now. This is
how human evolution progresses.
Hence, in the next, the sixth post-Atlantean epoch, we
will feel “drawn upward” toward something that shines
into us. We will not say, “You, spirit self, within me.”
Rather, we will say, “I, participant in a being who shines
into me from upper worlds, who directs and leads me, who,
through the grace of higher beings, has become my guide.
What will come to us only upon Jupiter as our very own, we
shall feel in the sixth epoch as a kind of guide shining upon
us from the higher worlds. And thus it will be later with
the life spirit, or budhi, and with the spirit body, and so on.
Thus, a time will come when human beings will speak of
themselves other than they do today.
How do we speak of ourselves now in the sense of spiri-
tual science? We say: I have three sheaths: my physical body,
my etheric body, and my astral body. Within these I have
my “I,” the essential Earth possession, which is evolving
within these three sheaths. These sheaths are, so to speak,
my lower nature; I have grown beyond it, I look down to
this, my lower nature; and I see where my “I” has become a
Cosmic “I” and Human “I” ~ 9
1 See Rudolf Steiner and Edouard Schuré, The East in the Light
of the West & The Children of Lucifer, Blauvelt, NY: Spiritual
Science Library, 1986.
Cosmic “I” and Human “I” ~ 15