The human I
The I/ego Only to ourselves can we say "I" to no one else. The real essence of the I is independent of all external appearances, it is the "inexpressible name of God". With the divine of one kind and essence (B092, German Sermons). In it is the individuality of man, it lives on from one incarnation to the next, the consciousness of oneself (self-consciousness) can only be found in it, not in the physical body, not in the etheric body and not in the astral body. At first, a person can only feel as an independent being, because he is closed in his body from the environment. To a certain extent he is independent from his environment and can think his own thoughts, feel his own feelings and have his own will. If we were not separate from the spiritual world but part of it, we could not experience ourselves as an independent individual. One could then not say "I" to oneself. In this way one can speak of all earth beings, only with a human being of an individual biography. Our ego develops through what we think, feel and want in our life on earth, through what we develop new abilities. The human ego-development is coming from being one with the divine ego. "Man did not feel a human ego in himself, but a divine ego. The divine ego was to him a drop from the sea of the divine." (B161, 27.5.1923). Before the turn of time, man did not experience his ego in his physical body, but spread out in the starry sky. Thus he experienced the thoughts that lived in him as coming from the world. "That which draws from the ocean of thoughts of the world into this vessel of his head is drawn out of the ocean of thoughts of the world." (B161, 27.5.1923). Man did not yet experience himself in such independence as he does today. Only through the ego-birth at the turn of time can man now experience himself as a self-contained, independent ego. Man lived with his ego in connection with the spiritual world. Through the work of Christ in the human body, we now also experience our I during life on earth. This earthly ego depends on the nature of the physical body as his so-called 'mirrored body'. We can see this earth-ego as a reflection, an extract or part of our true self that is in connection with the spiritual world. "... that also the "I" which man addresses as his being in his ordinary life is not the "true I", but the reflection of the "true I" in the physical-sensual world", (B095, chapter: "Of the Astral Body...") The ego is at one with God Himself, it is the innermost core of being of man, the ego makes man individual, "And this ego is man himself. (B013, p.48), the ego in its true extent is to be sought in a higher world, its reflection is our earth ego, which depends on the nature of our body members. Through fate, perceptions and concepts, life on earth brings us to a level of consciousness that is appropriate for our development. "The sensory phenomena reveal themselves to the
from one side, the spirit from the other." (B013, P. 48). Let us practice the abilities of the I to live deliberately in the thought, to bring will into thinking, let us make ourselves mature to live again in the spiritual world as an independent I. The ego is the centre of the human being and the more fully and comprehensively this ego is filled with independent, self-developed abilities, concepts and ideas, the more the human being can also radiate his own individuality to his surroundings. The experience of life and the knowledge about the world make a person more and more an independent individual. We can increase this development by consciously working on it, by meditating on spiritual contents, on which we gain control over our thoughts, tearing the thoughts away from the earthly and living in these bodiless thoughts with our own will. What we have already worked out in the I, we can regard as a part of our I and bring it also as fruit into every new life on earth again. We can find the I within our thinking. "Within the very essence of thinking lies the real I..." (B027, P. 148). If we observe our thinking then we will be able to recognize that only the trains of thought are possible for us - the concepts and perceptions which we have already acquired1. Thus to the contents of our I have made2. The ego-consciousness occurs because in the general consciousness the traces of the thinking activity are buried in the form of the meeting of concept and perception from which individual ideas emerge (B027). This forming of own ideas, for the I-consciousness requires a certain degree of selfish disposition. Only if we want to make what comes to us our own will it become so. The further we progress in ego development, the more self-confident and independent we can be as an entity. If our ego has reached a certain degree of such self-consciousness, then we can go from being a being that receives from others to a being that gives its fellow beings from its own powers. We will then be able to go from being a creature to a creator if we want to. With the becoming aware of a remaining being in the change of inner experiences, the dawning of the ego-feeling begins. Forgetting and remembering is for the ego similar to waking and sleeping for the astral body. The ego takes up a remaining part of something and makes it its possession. All actual activity of the human being starts from the ego. The I is the actual core of the physical body, etheric body and astral body. In it it can experience itself closed off from the outer world, it can mirror itself in the bodies. "And that the opinion of the ordinary consciousness that the I is to be regarded as an absolute being located within the body is to be regarded as a necessary illusion of the immediate soul life. The I - with the whole human being - can be regarded as an entity that experiences its relationship to the objective world within the latter itself, and that receives its experiences as reflections of the imaginary life from the body organisation. The separation of the core of the human being from the organization of the body cannot, by its very nature, be thought of spatially, but must be seen as a relative dynamic detachment", (B195, p. 142). It is the ego that then gradually transforms the other members of the being, the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body into a higher one (see below). But in this way man also needs the earth to be able to embody himself on it. If man would always be in the spiritual world, as he is in sleep or in life between death and the next birth, he would not be separated and independent from the divine beings. We work on our ego by always creating it anew. On the "Oh, man recognize yourself", that is, on self-knowledge. We must always create our consciousness of ourselves anew (B096, 14.6.1908). All the world is spirit and the spirit word wants the development of the I (B123). So our physical body, our etheric body and our astral body are creations of higher spiritual beings, of which the I was also given to us during the development on earth. Today we can bring forth three higher things from the ego: 1. logical, self-confident, controlled thinking; 2. developing pleasure or displeasure into the beautiful, sublime, humorous, if we bring forth something new like joy from the given. 3. the ability to make moral judgement, moral intuition and from this to perform a free new act. (B001, 1.10.1911) To become a creator from nothing, to add to the world a new thing that did not yet exist, which is brought forth from the ego. The ego's create something new, out of nothing, new impacts come to the existing development3. The emergence, or one can also call it the birth of the ego in the respective incarnation, is around the age of 21.
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