Last time I spoke about initiation and about self-education. And I said that in ancient times the pupils were chosen, whereas in our present time the human being chooses himself. Now it is the case that I usually limit my videos to about twenty minutes, because I do not really find this medium suitable for longer expositions. The disadvantage, however, is that one can then only say very little, and that what one says can easily take on a somewhat extreme character.

Because actually, something essential belongs to the statement that the human being chooses himself. Namely this: that a human being only comes to choose himself because his previous history has led him to that point. It is not the case that a person simply, out of nothing, suddenly decides to want to become an initiate. That always has a past. And even when someone overestimates himself, impulses still lie in the past that become effective in the present. That too is a kind of being chosen. Only this being chosen does not come from outside, but from within—although this inner element is, of course, in turn more or less shaped by what is external. All of this would actually have to be thought through very thoroughly and also discussed. I did not do that last time, of course. I simply said: one chooses oneself. And that really still needed to be supplemented.

It is also the case that one can choose oneself quite earnestly, one can begin with meditation—and then, for example, it does not succeed. That too again has to do with the past, with what this person has already done in earlier times. One usually does not know this; most of the time one does not know it at all. But it shows itself in what takes place during meditation. One can say that one actually has no say in whether one can enter the spiritual world. Whether one is admitted there depends on many things—and least of all on what the human being himself wants. That also still had to be said.

Now, when we look at self-education, and when I say that one must learn to look at one’s moral weaknesses, then I do not mean that one simply goes through the events of the day or of the year. It is not about those individual events, but about trying to look behind the events and to recognize where the moral weakness actually lies.

Because it is not about everyday details, but about what the human being essentially is, and about the extent to which the conscience points out that there are still certain deficiencies. When, for example, one looks back in the evening and realizes that once again one has not done one’s administration, although one has been intending to do it for days or weeks—one keeps saying to oneself: I must do this—and one does not do it, one does not do it, one does not do it. Is that, in itself, a moral weakness? One cannot really say that so simply. But what lies underneath it and leads to not doing it—that is something else. And that is precisely what one would have to look at.

One might now say: yes, then I would have to start fantasizing, because I do not actually know why I am not doing it. But I do not believe that. I think that every human being knows very well—if he or she only looks carefully—what weakness lies underneath. One can list many things, but ultimately each person can recognize this for himself and know what it actually is, why the omission of an action arises out of a moral weakness.

When one makes progress in this—and this progress consists in learning to see ever more precisely where these moral weaknesses lie—then there comes a moment when one can do something new, and also should do something new. Then it is no longer enough to remain with mere observation and perhaps to correct one thing or another. Then one begins to ask: how is it actually possible that I am two human beings?

I am the human being whom I observe—the weak human being who has so much to correct. But at the same time I am evidently also the human being who knows that these are weaknesses, who knows what kind of weaknesses they are, and who can also know how they can be corrected. For me, this is actually the best proof that the human being is not only the human being who walks around in the body, but that there is another human being who is not in agreement with what the first human being does—at least not always.

Often this second human being is even the sharpest critic. And I know: this second human being is also myself. But it is not the same self that I observe and in which I ascertain all these weaknesses. That is surely a clear indication that I am also a human being who is at home in the moral world. For otherwise I could not recognize all this at all, and I would not know how I could become a more moral human being.

This, then, is the next step on the path toward initiation: that in the exercises of self-education one does not remain with mere observation, but that one learns, as it were, to turn around and to become conscious of that other being which knows all this and can also do it.

Now it is interesting that the idealist philosopher Fichte described exactly this. Rudolf Steiner takes this up in his lectures and shows how incredibly clearly the I appears in Fichte. Fichte does not only find the ordinary self, but also that self which is capable of development. This self is the observer. He accompanies us, he is always present. We only do not know it, because we do not extend our consciousness to that self which is at home in the conscience.

It is an extraordinarily important step on the path of self-development that one does not merely look at one’s weaknesses and attempt to overcome them through observation, but that one looks back toward the one who seemingly knows all this and can also do it. That is an active being, a working being. It observes—and at the same time it is the being that is capable of transforming what it observes into capacities.

If we think of Waldorf education, then there is this peculiar phenomenon that certain learning contents are not conveyed continuously one after another, but that pauses are always inserted. Why? Because these pauses are precisely there so that what has been learned—whether facts or skills—can be transformed through the activity of the observer, of this second human being who is, of course, also present in the child. In this way these learning contents can be transformed into lasting capacities.

And in this sense we can still be like children later in life. We can learn many things; we can learn to look at our moral weaknesses. But ultimately it is a matter of recognizing this higher human being and learning to look out of this recognition. In this higher human being, the spiritual world lives.