Introduction to Man as microcosmos

'Man, know thyself' is the key that sends Man on a quest to understand one's 'self', and by getting to know oneself as a Microcosmos one also realizes how Man is tied up and an integral part and reflection of the Macrocosmos.

Today Man is regarded as having a physical body and consciousness. A comprehensive view requires to study a number of aspects:

Man's four bodily principles of earth, water, air and fire
Man's three subsystems: the nerve-sense, rhytmic, and metabolic-limb subsystems
the combination of these two views, see oa Man: an integrated view
the evolutionary dimension to how the above developed through the previous planetary stages
the holistic functioning of the whole, this includes
- what happens during sleep vs waking life
- what happens in breathing, the blood circulation, metabolism
- what happens in case of illness, and the mis-alignment of bodily principles and/or elemental balance

A symbol of this topic is the figure 25920 as a symbol of the cosmic breathing pattern in Man and the cosmos.

Aspects

Mappings

the organs to the planetary spheres and etheric formative forces
the parts of the human physical body to the zodiac signs
the seven lotus flowers or chakras to the planets
nerves (see eg Nerve-sense subsystem#1924-01-12-GA233A)
- the number of spinal vertebrae to the monthly cycle of the moon
- the twelve celebral nerves and their relationship to the twelve months of the year

Rhythms

daily <-> etheric breathing of the Earth <-> Man breathing in and out the astral body and I (and spirit-self link with angel)
yearly <-> earth's course with Sun and seasons and solstices <-> alchemy of nature's kingdoms in Man (and life-spirit link with archangel)
life <-> one breath of the macrocosmos averaging 72 years <-> one human life (and spirit-man link with archai)

Inspirational quotes

Rumi

Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you. Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.

1924-01-12-GA233A

And now we come to something taught in this school that is of the very greatest interest. It was taught by reference to facts of external anatomy, but a deeply spiritual truth was indicated. It was said to the pupil:
“Behold, Man is a Microcosm; he imitates in his organism what takes place in the great structure of the Universe.”
Nor was Man regarded as a microcosm, as a little world, only in respect of the processes that go on within him. What shows itself plastically in man, in plastic forms and structures, was referred back to processes in the external world.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.101 depicts the first three main study areas on this site. Together they make up the foundation for the spiritual scientific worldview, making up one logical whole as they are completely inter-related as shown below.

See Schema FMC00.336 for a narrative on how they relate.

Schema FMC00.336 (is an old pencil drawing that) provides a map for the territory of a lifelong study, and maps to the structure of this site.

(1) It starts with (in brown-grey) the trigger: Man's most important questions that live in our soul: the three with arrows, and the 'meaning of life?' below.

(2) This leads to 'Man: know thyself' which leads to the study of Man as microcosm and (an integral part of, and relationship with, the) macrocosm. This is studied on this site in the area Man - the human being (in red)

(3) This study really requires an understanding of evolution (in blue): evolution of both Man as the microcosm, and the macrocosm or great Cosmos. This is the second great area of study on this site: Evolution

(4) Clearly as spiritual beings are the make up of both microcosm and macrocosm, it is they who evolve, and it their evolution that make up the evolution of Man and the cosmos. Hence spiritual hierarchies (in green) is the next great area of study. As Rudolf Steiner points out regularly "all is beings" - see also Cosmic fractal.

(5) The framework of the Body of Knowledge and insight, thus developed, also allows to re-frame the question 'meaning of life', as that question depends fully on the frame of reference, and the meaning one gives to the words 'meaning' and 'life'. The answer is Free Man Creator, see Meaning of Free Man Creator. However the answer alone, without the journey and context, and frame of reference thus developed, will not be meaningful.

(6) It is this study that fills heart and soul with the conscious responsibility to act in the world, and to have the strength of will to put Initiation as a personal priority in our life, to make best use of this incarnation and 'lead the best life possible'.

Schema FMC00.288 is a high level representation of

above: evolution of macrocosmos (solar system) and microcosmos (in this case Man's perspective as one of the spiritual hierarchies in development) - and especially the descent where Man received from the spiritual hierarchies, and the ascent in which Man starts to contribute and create, see Free Man Creator.
middle: the current situation with the cycle of reincarnation and descent into a human physical body (incarnate life, showing the seven year phases) and the life between death and a new birth, spent in the astral world and spirit world
below: our life of Earth is characterized by the daily cycle which is essential for understanding how Man 'functions' in terms of I-consciousness, sensory experience and incorporating life experiences between the different bodily principles (physical and etheric bodies, astral body and Human 'I').

Notes:

for a full systematic coverages with references, see 25920
see also Schema FMC00.327 on IAO
this is based on a very early schema of 2013, still to be extended with embedded schema numbers and enriched (eg above with FMC00.055). .

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

Introduction

Throughout Rudolf Steiner's twenty years of lecturing, the theme of the connection between Man and the cosmos represents a common thread. Man is an integral part of the cosmos, and also a reflection of the macrocosmos. Examples are lecture cycles such as:

GA201 - Man Hieroglyph of the Universe

The original title of GA201 was 'Der Mensch in Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos 1: Entsprechung zwischen Mikrokosmos und Makrokosmos Der Mensch - Eine Heiroglyphe des Weltenalls')

The GA201 lecture cycle takes a special place in this context because in these lectures, Steiner mentions covers a very wide and comprehensive scope and also mentions key topics which are really novelties in terms of spiritual science. For example he mentions counterspace, annihilation of substance, but also goes into the two astronomies (solar and lunar), etc. In fact a very larger number of spiritual scientific topics are being concatenated in these sixteen lectures. Many of which are like 'essentials', eg the Jehovah-Lucifer topic, the Grail-Parsifal polarity, etc.

The GA201 lectures touch on these 'topics' allmost as cryptic keys, that are not fully explained 'on the spot', but are rather all individual captions for further deeper study, as many of these (but not all were elaborated in other places in the GA). Put differently one could say Rudolf Steiner lectures at a higher level here, he lays out a broad array of spiritual scientific matters, allmost implicitly pre-emptsing a deep understanding of many things he covers at a level of higher understanding, without explaining all in detail. This is an interesting quality of the GA201 cycle, and many of the topics can therefore be taken as mystery clues or keys for 'Living with questions'. This site has topic pages with titles that sometimes refer to such literal quotes from Rudolf Steiner in certain lectures:

An illustration is for example the concept coined with the term 'Enlivened images'.
Another example is the 'formation of the heart through the two etheric streams'
The topic of 'two astronomies' is covered on Christ Module 11 - A new physics
For 'annihilation of substance', see oa Matter is destroyed in the brain
For counterspace, see Mathematics of the etheric as a starting point.

The arc of nine cycles GA201-GA209

It is not widely known that GA201 was the start for a huge arc around a central and pivotal topic, in total spanning 124 lectures in nine lecture cycles GA201 to GA209 between April 1920 to December 1921, and a.o. also containing the two famous Cosmosophy cycles GA207 and GA208.

These nine lecture cycles all go under the title 'The Human Being in Relationship with the Cosmos' (Der Mensch in Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos).

With this Rudolf Steiner laid a foundation, but didn't stop there. In fact this broad main subject thread streams through down to later cycles, oa

GA212 The human soul in relation to world evolution'
GA215: Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion
GA218 Spiritual connections in the forming of the human organism'
GA219 Man and the World of the Starts - the spiritual communion of Mankind

Therefore this hugely important topic was really covered in tremenous depth over a period of three years 1920-21-22: from April 1920 (start GA201) to December 1921 (end of GA209) but through to December 1922 (end GA219).