The new heart thought and the rediscovered center of man
The new heart thinking is based on the center of man, on his heart region, which is not accessible to the adversary powers, but only to the Christ, the macrocosmic I, which is essentially one with the real I of man.
“People who had been an inspired thought-being in the previous earth life, that is, who had been Michael-servants, felt urged to such voluntary Michael-community when they came back to earth life at the end of the nineteenth century. They now regarded their old thought-inspirer as the sage in the higher thought-being.
Whoever knows how to pay attention to such things could know what a turnaround took place in the last third of the nineteenth century with regard to the thought life of man. Before, man could only feel how thoughts were formed out of his being; from the indicated period on, he can rise above his being; he can direct the sense into the spiritual; there Michael meets him, and he proves to be an ancient relative of all thought-weaving. He frees the thoughts from the realm of the head; he clears the way for them to the heart; he releases the enthusiasm from the mind, so that man can live in spiritual devotion to everything that can be experienced in the light of thought.
The Michael Age has dawned. Hearts begin to have thoughts; enthusiasm no longer flows from mere mystical darkness, but from thought-borne clarity of soul. To understand this is to receive Michael into one’s mind. Thoughts which today seek to grasp the spiritual must come from hearts which beat for Michael as the fiery thought prince of the universe.” (Lit.:GA 26, p. 61f)
To develop heart thinking the right balance must be established
In order to develop the head thinking to the heart thinking, the right balance between the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces must be established. For this the Christ Power is necessary.
“We human beings really stand with our soul life in such a way that this soul life is like a balance beam which must first seek the balance between the Luciferic element on the one side, the Ahrimanic element on the other. Only the Luciferic element lies in our bright head, the Ahrimanic element lies below in the wisdom that pervades our will. In between we have to seek the balance in something which actually does not appear to us at first as being permeated by anything.
How does wisdom come into this middle part of man? As man first stands in the world, he is held by Lucifer according to his head, he is held by Ahriman according to his metabolic wisdom, according to the wisdom of his limbs. But according to the heart – for that which is described there as the middle state of consciousness, that is just as dependent on our heart organization with the human rhythm, read about it in my book “Of Soul Riddles”, how our intellectuality is connected with the head -, into this sphere of our existence must gradually come as great an order as it has come into the head-wisdom through the head-logic, as it comes into all that we know in an Ahrimanic way through mathematics, geometry, in general through this outwardly rational observation of nature. Through what does the inner logic, the inner wisdom, orientation ability come into this middle part of our human being? Through the Christ impulse, through that which has passed into the earth culture through the Mystery of Golgotha.
There is a spiritual-scientific anatomy which shows us what head culture is, which shows us what metabolic culture is, which also shows us what that sphere of organization is which lies between the two, and what this needs. It belongs to our human being, the permeation with the Christ-impulse.” (Lit.:GA 194, p. 79f)
The inner world of the soul’s experience will be able to be experienced
In order that the knowledge of the I can be grasped quite consciously, the consciousness soul and with it the intellectual self-thinking must still unfold beyond the intellect soul. This does not work with the natural etheric forces, but with those completely new heart etheric forces created by the activity of the I, which arise through the etherealization of the blood in the heart and radiate up into the head. For this, however, the Ptolemaic system first had to give way to the Copernican system, which quite abstractly places the sun in the center.
The spiritual inspirations are extinguished and give way first to a merely external calculation. But just by this the freedom in thinking is conquered. And only like an abstract mile-pointer the sun now stands in the center as a still misunderstood reference to the sun-like heart-Michael-Christ forces. Only with this free thinking the Michael impulse can connect. The later teachers of the School of Chartres, namely Bernardus Sylvestris and Alanus ab Insulis, already had a clear premonition of this.
Rudolf Steiner pointed this out very clearly. Only through the unification of intellectual self-thinking with the inspired thought-perception of the spiritual external world, that is, of the Aristotelian and the Platonic elements, can the independent spiritual self be unfolded. To contribute to this is the essential task of anthroposophy.
Michael gives the right orientation for recognizing and acting in the outer world. The way to Christ can only be found within and leads to the realization of man’s own supersensible beingness.
“The Christ is accessible to the human soul since the Mystery of Golgotha. And its relation to him need not remain an indefinite, dark-feeling-mystical one; it can become a completely concrete one, to be experienced humanly deeply and clearly. Then, however, what the human soul is to know about its own supersensible being flows over into it from its life together with Christ. The revelation of faith must then be felt in such a way that the living experience of Christ continually flows into it. Life will be able to be christed through the fact that in Christ the being is felt which gives the human soul the view of its own super sensibility.
Thus they will be able to stand side by side: Michael experience and Christ experience. Through Michael, man will find the right way to the supersensible in relation to outer nature. The view of nature will be able to stand next to a spiritual view of the world and of man, in so far as he is a world being, without being falsified in it.
Through the right position towards Christ, man will experience in the living intercourse of the soul with Christ that which he could otherwise receive only as a traditional revelation of faith. The inner world of the soul’s experience will be able to be experienced as a spirit-illuminated one, just as the outer world of nature is experienced as a spirit-borne one.” (Lit.:GA 26, p. 104)
The heart and the holy grail
The heart is the secret mystery place in which the microcosmic human I connects with the macrocosmic Christ-I and just through this consciously ascends to its real I.
“In the temple of the human body there is a holiest of the holy. Many people live in the temple without knowing anything about it. But those who know about it receive the power to purify themselves in such a way that they may enter into this holiest of holies. There is the sacred vessel, which has been prepared through the ages, so that when the time comes, it will be able to contain the blood of Christ, the life of Christ.
When man has entered, he has also found the way to the Holy of Holies in the great earth temple. Many live on earth without knowing it, but when man has found himself in his innermost sanctuary, he will also be allowed to enter there and find the Holy Grail. As if cut from wonderfully glittering crystals, which form symbols and letters, the vessel will show itself to him at first, until he gradually feels the sacred content, so that it shines for him in golden splendor. Into the mystery place of his own heart a man enters, and then a divine being emerges from this place and unites with the God outside, with the Christ being. It lives in the spiritual light which shines into the vessel and thereby sanctifies it.” (Lit.:GA 265, p. 418)