I

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Seal of the fourth mystery drama by Rudolf Steiner.

I (Middle High German: ich, Old High German: ih, Gothic: ik, German: Ich, Greek: ἐγώ / Latin: ego; from Indo-European: *eĝom "eĝ[ō]"; Hebrew: אָנֹ֖כִי ânochî, anokhi or אֲנִי âni[1] ) is in Modern English the personal pronoun with which every person can only refer to himself. In the deeper spiritual sense, however, it does not merely denote the earthly embodied personality, but the divine spark (Hebrew: נִיצוֹץ Nitzotz) in man, the spiritual core of man's being, his actual I-being. In the Indian theosophical tradition it is approximately called kama-manas. However, by this is more understood the lower self, the ego, hardened in egoism, that lives primarily in the intellectual- or mind soul. With reference to Solomon, the I is also called Itiel (Hebrew: יתיאל "God is with me[2]; possessor of power") according to Rudolf Steiner (Lit.:GA 116, p. 83). Man's higher self, his spirit self, is the astral body consciously transformed by the I.

Awareness of one's own I is promoted in particular by the fourth subsidiary exercise, positivity. Rudolf Steiner shows a meditative way to experience the I-body or thought body in (Lit.:GA 16, p. 55ff).

Foundations

The I as such cannot be grasped as existing somehow and somewhere, but can only be experienced in its direct creative activity, through which it primarily creates itself constantly anew. Through his bodily shells, man is a creature of higher powers, but through his I he is a free creator of himself.

„The only reason why we can never be rid of our own I lies in the absolute freedom of our being, by virtue of which the I in us cannot be a thing, a thing capable of objective determination. Hence it comes about that our I can never be comprehended as a middle member in a series of conceptions, but always steps in front of each series again as the first member, which holds the whole series of conceptions: that the acting I, although determined in each individual case, is at the same time not determined, because it escapes from every objective determination, and can only be determined by itself, thus being at the same time the determined and the determining.“

– Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling: Philosophical Writings, First Volume, p. 168

When man incarnates on Earth, he forms the I-organisation (also called I-bearer or I-body) as the highest of the four fundamental members of man's being and as the source of I-consciousness. In the I-experience, the human being feels himself as an indivisible wholeness, as an individuality or monad, which forms the determining centre of his earthly embodied personality and from here not only directs the soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing, but also gradually spiritualises his bodily members and thereby integrates them into his immortal individuality. First the astral body is transformed into the spirit self - the I has become creative in the soul-astral and has thereby ascended to the higher I. Later the I learns to transform also the etheric body into the life spirit and finally even the physical body into the spirit man. Its creative power is then also fully consciously active in the living and in the physical.

The Veiled Sanctuary of the Soul

Fifth apocalyptic seal: The woman, clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, the unveiled Isis.

Rudolf Steiner also calls the I the "veiled sanctuary of the soul".

„For great spirits, the moment when they experience the "I" in themselves for the first time in their lives, when they become aware of it for the first time, is something significant. Jean Paul tells this story about himself. As a small boy he once stood by a barn in the courtyard; there he experienced his "I" for the first time. And this moment was so clear and solemn to him that he says of it: "I looked into my innermost being as into the veiled sanctuary. Human beings have developed through many races, and until the Atlantean period they all conceived of themselves in this objective way; it was only during the Atlantean race that man developed to the point where he could say "I" to himself. The ancient Jews put this into a doctrine.

Man has passed through the kingdoms of nature. The I-consciousness finally merged in him. The astral, etheric and physical body and the I together form the Pythagorean square. And Judaism added to this the divine self, which comes down to us from above, in contrast to the I from below. Thus the square had become a pentagon. This is how Judaism perceived the Lord of its people, and something sacred, therefore, was to pronounce the "name". While other names, such as Elohim or Adonai became more and more popular, only the anointed priest in the Holy of Holies was allowed to pronounce the name "Yahweh". It was in the time of Solomon that ancient Judaism came to the holiness of the name of Yahweh, to this "I" that can dwell in man. We must take Yahweh's call to man as one that wanted man himself to be made a temple of the holy God. Now we have received a new conception of the Godhead, namely: to make the God who is hidden in the breast of man, in the deepest sanctuary of the human self, the moral God. The human body thus became a great symbol of the Holy of Holies.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 143f)

A symbolic expression for the human body in which the I can live in the Holy of Holies is, for example, Noah's Ark as a preliminary stage and then Solomon's Temple with the Ark of the Covenant, which is kept in the Holy of Holies.

„... when man has brought himself to this stage of development, then his self-consciousness speaks to him in a quite different, in a new way. We then look into the veiled sanctuary of our inner being in a completely new way. Man then perceives himself as a member of the spiritual world. He then perceives himself as something pure and sublime above all sensuality, because he has put aside pleasure and suffering in the sensual sense. Then he hears a self-consciousness within him which speaks to him in the same way as mathematical truths speak to him without interest, but speak to him in the same way as mathematical truths speak in another sense. Mathematical truths are true with a sense of eternity. What comes before us in the nonsensical language of mathematics is true, independent of time and space. And independent of time and space, that speaks to us in our inner being which then appears before our soul when it has purified itself upwards to the pleasure and suffering of spiritual things. Then the eternal speaks to us with its meaning of eternity.“ (Lit.:GA 52, p. 201f)

The fifth seal from the Apocalypse of John gives an imaginative picture of this: the woman clothed with the sun, giving birth to a child, the moon at her feet.

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ אֲנִי âni probably corresponds largely to the lower ego and אָנֹ֖כִי, ânokî to the divine I. However, as in most ancient languages, in [[w:Hebrew|]] the I is often not written on its own, but added to the prefix or suffix for grammatical marking of the 1st person to the verb. âni is the origin of the prefix [[w:Aleph|]], which is used to indicate that I am the doer in it; the suffix ni, also derived from âni, indicates that I am the passive object of the action, such as in the Psalms referring to Christ's word on the cross: Hebrew: אֵלִ֣י אֵ֭לִי לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי Psalms 22:1 Greek: ἐλώι ἐλώι λεμὰ σαβαχθανί "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani" (My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me) (Matthew 27:46). Also significant is the Aleph prefix in the name of God that Moses hears from the burning bush: אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה "ähejäh 'aschär 'ähejäh" (I am the I-am) (Exodus 3:14); הְיֶ֖ה , "hejäh denotes "being" par excellence and becomes I-ness through the Aleph prefix." [1]
  2. ↑ cf. Strong's Concordance „Ithiel“
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