1. Board O Man, know yourself! So resounds the world-word. You hear it soulpowerful, You feel it spiritvastness. Who speaks so worldvastly? Who speaks so feltheartily? Does it act through space distant-radiation In your senses' being-experience? Does it sound through times waveweaves Into your life's evolving stream? Is it you yourself, who in space-Feeling, in experiencing time Creating the Word, feeling foreign Sensing in spaces emptiness of soul, Because you have the force of thinking Losing in the time-destroying stream. Mantram of the 1. Lesson Where on earthly ground, color on color Life is manifest in creation; Where from earthly matter, form on form, The lifeless is given shape; Where sentient Beings, strong in will Warm themselves in joy of existence; Where you, O man, your bodily being derive from earth and air and light. There your true being enters Deep, night-enveloped, cold darkness; You ask in the dark sweeping expanse No longer, who you are and were and will be. For your own being the day grows dimly To the soul's night, to spirit-darkness; And you turn with angst of soul Toward the light that from darkness streams. And out of darkness brightens (the human being is addressed) Your likeness manifesting you, But to the parable also forming you, Earnest spirit-words in worldether Heard by your heart, acting powerfiul To you the Spirit-Messenger, who alone Can light for you the way; Before him the fields of sense widen, Behind him yawn the abyss-depths. And before his dark spirit-fields, Hard by the yawning abyss of being, There his elemental creator word sounds: Behold, I am the only gate to knowledge. The guardian speaks: From the far reaches of spacebeings, Who experience existence in light, From the stages of the course of time, which finds expression in creating, From the depths of heart-felt feeling here in the Self the world is fathomed: There resound in the speech of the soul, There enlightened by spiritual thoughts That from divine healing powers In the World-Shaping-Powers The undulating existential words: O Man, know yourself! But, you must beware of the abyss; Otherwise its beasts will devour You, if you pass by me in haste. Your cosmic age has placed them there In you as enemies of knowledge. Behold the first beast, the crooked back, The bony head, the scrawny body, His skin is all a dullish blue; Your fear of creative spiritual being Begat the monster in your will; Knowledge-bravery alone will overcome it. Behold the second beast, it bares Its teeth in a warped face, scornfully it lies, Yellow with gray spots is its body; Your hate of spiritual revelation Begat this weakling in your feeling; Your fire for knowledge must tame him. Behold the third beast, with cloven muzzle, Its eye is glassy, posture slouching, Dirty-red its form appears to you; Your doubts in spirit-light-violence Begat this ghost within your thinking; Your knowledge-creation must make it yield. Only when you've defeated the three Will wings sprout upon your soul To cross the abyss over, Which separates you from the knowledge fields To which your heart-longing-desires want to salvation-seeking consecrate itself. Rudolf Steiner, 1924 (GA270)