Accepting the premise of reincarnation and karma might be easier for us than imagining that spiritual beings inhabit the world outside our senses. Spiritual science, however, teaches us that these beings are a profound reality. One way to open ourselves to this idea is by reviewing what we already know: we are spiritual beings who live in physical bodies for a time and enter the spiritual world when we die. We reside there between our death and subsequent rebirth. Furthermore, we know that when we go to sleep, our astral and ego bodies leave our physical and etheric bodies behind as they enter the spiritual world. What do we find when we go there?
The Buddhist and Hindu deva, Islam’s malaikah, Judaism’s malachim or mal’akh, and the Christian angel are all names for a hierarchy of beings acknowledged within the core tenets of these religions. Devas or angels, who are the beings belonging to the closest realm above us, do not incarnate into physical bodies. What little we’ve heard about them outside of our religious texts is often sensationalized or trivialized or romanticized, so that even if we are willing to open our minds to the idea of angels, our references may include movies like It’s a Wonderful Life with James Stewart or pictures of beings with harps, halos and wings. Are we curious to know more?
If we can make the leap to imagine that we are not alone in the spiritual world, what do we encounter in spiritual science when we contemplate the realm of malachim? What is our relationship to this realm of beings? And, more specifically, what is meant by the term guardian angel?
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
When we wake from sleep, we pass over into the world of animals, plants, minerals – the three kingdoms of Nature belonging to the world of sense. When we fall asleep, we pass beyond the world of sense, we are transported into the realm of the first rank of Beings above man – the Angels. And from the time of falling asleep until waking, we are connected with the Being who is allotted to us as our own Angel, just as through our eyes and ears we are connected with the three kingdoms of Nature here in the world of sense. Even if at first we have no consciousness of this connection with the world of the Angels, it is nevertheless there. This connection extends into our astral body.
If, living in our astral body during sleep, we were suddenly to wake up, we should contact the world of the Angels, in the first place the Angel who is connected with our own life just as here in the earthly world we are in contact with animals, plants, and minerals.
Now even in the earthly world, in the world of sense, if a man is attentive and deliberately trains his thinking, he sees much more than when he is unobservant and hasty. His connection with the three kingdoms of Nature can be intimate or superficial. And it is the same with regard to the world of spiritual Beings. But in the world of spiritual Beings, different conditions prevail.
A man whose thoughts are entirely engrossed in the material world, who never desires to rise above it or to acquaint himself with moral ideas extending beyond the merely utilitarian, who has no desire to experience true human love, who in his waking life has no devotion to the Divine-Spiritual world – on falling asleep, such a man has no forces which enable him to come into contact with his Angel. Whenever we fall asleep, this Angel is waiting as it were for the idealistic feelings and thoughts which come with us, and the more we bring, the more intimate becomes our relation to the Angel while we are asleep. And so throughout our life, by means of what we cultivate over and above material interests, we garner, in our waking life, forces whereby our relation to the Angel becomes more and more intimate.
But the idealistic thoughts and feelings, the pure human love, the spiritual feelings which have arisen in our waking life and have united us with our Angel, these accompany us when we pass through death. And the more idealistic thoughts and feelings, human love and piety we have brought to our Angel, the clearer does our consciousness become.
Excerpt from: Cosmic Forces in Man, Lecture II: The Soul of Man, November 27, 1921, Oslo
None of us would actively wish to have our consciousness diminished… at least not permanently. Fortunately, most of us do bring some of the right elements into our sleep at night. We may want to do more. Though we can find many paths toward the divine, following the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path is one means by which we can prepare ourselves to live in harmony with our guardian angel’s intentions. The eight endeavors are: right conceptions, right resolves, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right aspiriation, right recollection and right contemplation.*
We have enormous freedom in this regard. The choices we make now, however, have far-reaching consequences, which we will explore in future posts. We will also continue to study the vast richness of our cosmos filled with beings other than ourselves with whom we live and learn.
*For more information on Noble Eightfold Path https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eightfold-Path