My Life Today
My karma prevents me from becoming clairvoyant in this incarnation, but what I learn by forming a logical concept of the spiritual world through reading, studying & meditating I shall carry up into the (my) spiritual life when I leave this life.
There is so much in my life – and there seemingly always has been, either by choice or circumstance – that keeps me away from the concentrated pursuance of personal experience and knowledge of higher worlds via clairvoyance.
In our current set of circumstances my wife and my life is consumed with the 24-7 care of her ailing mother of 84 years who 14 months ago (at the time of this writing) suffered a heart attack and now requires this focused care. (Through much labor of love through her own knowledge and learning, my wife has been able to heal residual problems e.g. purpling of her toes that the “doctors” claimed would eventually have to be amputated which are now pink and healthy)
In the beginning I used our situation as an excuse for my “not finding the time” to practice the exercises necessary to acquire (any degree of) clairvoyance. I now realize, however, that it is my karma in this life to pursue “higher experience” within myself through concentrated study and meditation and prayer.
In particular, I take deeply into my soul the following precepts offered by Dr. Steiner:
You have done more for your real occult development if you have succeeded in transforming a single deep-rooted trait than if you have acquired unlimited external knowledge. GA97
For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character. GA 10
And so, I have taken that deep look inside myself and, regardless of the difficulty of being honest about what I see, have identified several deep-rooted traits that must be “killed” (ref. Mabel Collins’ The Light on the Path) and am working diligently to do just that. This result of this effort is defined in the second precept above – the perfection of my character.
I share this not to boast in any way, for I am a man of 62 years. I have wasted my youth in the pursuit of vain, materialistic endeavors that postponed my awakening to the necessity of seeking self-knowledge. However, one must not look backward for everything, every experience in life is intimately connected – and stems from – the principle of “cause and effect,” i.e. the law of karma.
Karma is not as is so often thought, some form of punishment for wrongs. Rather, it is the gift that provides us the opportunity to correct those parts of our (higher) Self that are lacking so that we may gain an increasing purification of our souls. Life is the work of the soul. Through it, through our choices, experience and knowledge, we either benefit our soul and help it to reach greater heights, or burden it with an increasing density of materialism, egoism and selfishness that will ultimately drag it on a downward spiral into the abyss.