Dying

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Dying is a process that leads an animate living organism to death, as a result of which the body usually begins to decay, to decompose. Mortality (from the Latin: mortalitas) is limited to living beings that, in addition to the physical-material and etheric body, also have at least an astral body, such as animals, or, in addition, also have an I, such as man. Through his I, however, the death of man, which is connected with a radical change of consciousness, is to be evaluated differently than that of the animal. Minerals and plants are subject to destruction, but they are not mortal in the true sense of the word.

In fact, a quiet dying process accompanies the human being from birth or conception throughout his entire earthly life. The only reason why it is not outwardly noticeable is that up to midlife the rebuilding processes predominate and continue to successfully fight against the inevitable decay of the body until the end of life. Man owes his I-consciousness to this lifelong dying process (see below). Seen in this light, death is a lifelong friendly companion of the human being. Only in the very last phase of life do the processes of decay completely gain the upper hand. Then the etheric body begins to detach itself from the physical body from below, from the legs, the blood supply to the extremities decreases and the organ functions gradually cease. The astral body also loosens its connection with the metabolic-limb system. With death, the silver cord that can be perceived clairvoyantly, which connects the astral body with the physical body throughout life, even during sleep, breaks.

Dying processes and consciousness

During the earthly incarnation of man, the dying processes originating in the head and caused by the I and the astral body form the basis of his waking consciousness. Without them, man would not come to the I-experience. During sleep, the resulting destruction is initially largely compensated for by the regenerative activity of the etheric body and the astral forces that build up the rest of the organism. In the further course of life, however, especially after midlife, the destructive forces of death increasingly affect the rest of the organism and finally lead to death.

„Let us study what this trinity of etheric organism, astral organism and I-being actually does in their interaction in the physical head organism of the human being. For it turns out that the activity which is exercised by this trinity on the human head organism is a degrading one. If the human etheric organism alone were to permeate the physical organism, then there would also be a continuous constructive life activity in the physical head organism; the head activity would, so to speak, be completely filled with life. But in this case no physical consciousness would come into being. Physical consciousness only comes about through the intervention of the astral organism in the organisation of the head. And this astral organism is attuned to, organised towards, that which we have already learned: it is organised towards the pre-earthly existence of man. If I may put it this way, the astral organism must, so to speak, regard it as its task not to work this physical organism filled with matter, but to fill this physical organism in its cosmic spirit-forming with its activity, as it did in the pre-earthly existence. This astral organism of the human being is an echo of what the soul has done out of the mysteries of the planetary movements, out of the mysteries of the fixed star constellations, in order to form what I have called in the preceding considerations the cosmic germ of the physical organism. So the activity of the astral organism is not oriented towards the earthly metamorphosis of the physical organism, but towards the cosmic, the spiritual metamorphosis of the physical organism. Therefore the astral organism, by being active in the physical organism, wants to continually spiritualise this physical organism, in so far as it is a brain or head organisation. Yes, in our head organisation our astral organism is continually working to transform this head organisation into the spiritual. It does not come to a real, outwardly visible transformation, it comes to the striving for transformation.

But this striving is continually present. Through the head-organisation of the astral organism, the constructive forces of the human head-organisation, which would bring about fresh, effervescent life, but unconscious life in the human head-organisation, are continually joined by degrading forces, which try to degrade, to destroy the physical organism, in so far as it is a head-organisation, so that a spirit-organism would shine forth from it, for the astral body is accustomed to this from its pre-earthly existence. But the physical organism resists. It cannot be broken down, and it puts up this resistance by the fact that every time the moment is brought about when this physical organism of the head is disintegrated by the activity of the astral organism into the inorganic, into the lifeless, that sleep must occur every time at this moment, and then the powers of the etheric body alone must again be active in the organism of the head.

The alternating process between waking and sleeping can also be characterised by saying that during waking the astral forces continually expose the human head organisation to death. At the moment when - if one may say so - this activity of the degrading astral forces would pass from the latent state into the real state, at that moment sleep occurs. The imaginative consciousness of modern initiatory knowledge can notice this fact in the appearance of the etheric organism of man during waking and during sleep.

During waking, the etheric body, which penetrates the physical body of the human being as a spiritual activity, becomes more and more undifferentiated for the head organisation. In the awake human being, therefore, we have before us an etheric organism which is strongly differentiated internally and equipped with complicated formations in those parts of the physical organism where the lungs, the liver, the stomach, and the limbs are located. There the etheric organism is many-structured within the waking life. In the head organisation, on the other hand, during the waking life, the longer the waking life lasts, the more undifferentiated and undifferentiated the etheric body becomes. In the end it simply becomes like a uniform cloud in the head, because the constructive forces which are otherwise in this etheric organism lose their significance and the degrading forces of the astral organism have a primary effect on the head organisation in the waking state. In sleep it is quite different. There, with the imaginative consciousness, one sees how this differentiation, the manifold division of the etheric organism, shoots into the etheric head organisation. The etheric organism of the head is divided in the same way as the rest of the etheric organism during the waking state. During sleep the vital forces, the creative forces, the formative forces of the etheric organism awaken for the head, and the head becomes an unconscious but very lively organisation. Thus you see that man - in earthly existence from a waking consciousness - continually carries latent death in his head organisation. The tendency to die is perpetually present in the head organisation. The astral organism continually wants to transform the head organisation into the spiritual. It wants to make it a planetary organ of movement, wants to make it an image of the constellations; it is a perpetual destroyer of the physical head organisation.

If one were to know this fact in present-day science, one would find it quite impossible to fall into materialism. For what do those people have to say who want to interpret the total human organisation materialistically? They say: The organic processes also take place in the head; they take place there as organic life processes, as life processes take place in the liver or in the stomach, so also in the brain, and this taking place of the life processes in the brain lives itself out as thought, as soul activity. - But this is complete nonsense compared to the facts. For we do not think by it, we do not experience the soul in ordinary consciousness by the fact that constructive life processes take place, but by the fact that our nervous system is continually in the state of being broken down, that death is continually sitting within us. To have a waking soul-life in ordinary consciousness is not to develop organic processes, but to kill them. Organic processes must first die within themselves, they must make room for the soul, if they want to develop in ordinary consciousness. If one were to understand this correctly, one would have to say: The life of the soul can certainly not emerge from the organic processes, because these organic processes must first come into the situation of dying. They must first withdraw from the head organisation if the soul is to be active in it.

This is the true state of affairs with regard to the interaction of the human soul organisation and the human physical organisation. But this true fact also shows how man, when he is born, immediately carries in his head organisation the disposition to death, to dying. Through supersensible knowledge we learn to understand that dying continually wants to happen in us and is only continually overcome through sleep. The one-time dying, the dying in the physical sense, is only a summation, a stronger process in comparison with the continuous, if I may say so, atomistically small dying processes that take place continuously in the waking consciousness. As long as we have the physical organism, it defends itself against destruction, which is brought about by the astral organism. That is the way it is with the head organisation.“ (Lit.:GA 215, p. 145ff)

„This physical process that takes place in the human head is a necessary concomitant of the human experience of the I. If this process is disturbed, that is, if a vital process overgrows this pure physical process in the human being, then the I also becomes paralysed in consciousness in a certain way. If this process is disturbed, that is, if a vital process overgrows this pure physical process in the human being, then in a certain way the I is also paralysed in consciousness. And everything that happens to the human being, everything that causes him to become feeble-minded and the like, is based on and must be recognised from what has happened as purely physical processes in the human being. Of course, there can also be other organic causes.

So that which is initiated from the human head and radiates from there through the whole organism is the purely physical process which pours into the whole organism at the moment when death occurs. This moment is always present in the human head, at least starting from it in a centralising way. It is only paralysed by the vitalisation process from the other organism. The human being actually carries within himself continually the forces which also bring him to die, and he would not be an I if he did not carry within himself the forces of dying.“ (Lit.:GA 313, p. 40)

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.
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