During the first weeks I'd like you to observe the following:
A morning meditation that consists of the following.
One raises one's feeling to the higher self. It's less a matter of
telling oneself something theoretically about the higher self, and
more of feeling in a very vivid way that one has a higher nature in
one. One imagines that the ordinary self surrounds this higher nature
like a shell, so that the latter is present in the lower self like its
kernel. After developing such a feeling one says the following
prayerfully (not aloud, but in thought) to the "higher
self":
More radiant than the sun
Purer than snow
Subtler than the ether
Is the Self
The Spirit of my heart
I am this Self
This Self am I.
As one says this to oneself quite exactly no other idea should mix in.
One should only feel that one's soul-gaze is directed towards the
higher self. One gradually feels a wonderful strengthening going out
from the above words. One feels as if one were lifted out of oneself,
and eventually as if one had gotten wings. This is the beginning on
which one then builds further. This should last 2–3 minutes.
One immerses oneself completely in the first sentence of Light on
The Path: "Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable
of tears." One gives no other thought access to one's soul. One
unites oneself completely with this thought. Its meaning must then
dawn upon one in a flash. This will certainly happen one day if one is
patient. Then there must be complete quiet in the soul for several
minutes. One must be blind and deaf for all outer sense impressions
and for all memory pictures Again 2–3 minutes.
Next comes devotional attention to the highest divine things that one
reveres. The mood is the important thing here. Fervent looking up and
longing for union with these divine things.
Before going to sleep in the evening do a short retrospect of the
day's experiences. Completeness is of less importance than the judging
of oneself as if one were a different person. One should learn from
oneself. Life should increasingly become a lesson. One begins with the
evening and goes forward to the morning.
One gradually notices that one's dream life takes on a more regular
character. The spiritual world flows into this at first. Meditation is
the occult key for this. One should get a notebook and briefly write
down characteristic dreams in the morning. Thereby, one gets practice
in retaining what flows to one from higher worlds. That's the first
elementary method to later get to bringing spiritual experiences
through, that is, that they break through into bright day
consciousness. Dreams that are only reminiscences from daily life or
that are based on heart disturbances, headaches or other bodily
conditions are only of value if they're clothed in a symbolical form,
for instance if the thumping heart appears as a cooking oven, or the
painful brain as a dome into which animals creep, etc. Only the
symbolism is of value here and not the dream's content. For the
symbolic form is initially used by the spiritual world to introduce us
to the forces of higher worlds. That's why one must pay attention to
the fine points of this symbolism. In your case — according to
your capacities — it'll also be good if you compare the dreams
that you become aware of with the experiences of the next day. For
your dreams may soon take on a portentous character. If this happens
we'll say some more about how this thing can be made productive for
your spiritual life. Please give these indications a try and tell me
how things are going in about eight days.
Number 2
Meditation Morning:
AUM
Elevation to the higher self via the formula:
More radiant than the sun
Purer than snow
Subtler than the ether
Is the Self
The Spirit of my heart
I am this Self
This Self am I.
Contemplative meditation in Light On the Path.
14 days: Before the eyes can see they must be incapable of tears.
No man desires to see that light which illumines the spaceless soul until pain and sorrow and despair have driven him away from the life of ordinary humanity. First he wears out pleasure; then he wears out pain — till, at last, his eyes become incapable of tears.
Tears, as I have said, may be called the moisture of life. The soul must have laid aside the emotions of humanity, must have secured a balance which cannot be shaken by misfortune, before its eyes can open upon the super-human world.
14 days: Before the ear can hear it must have lost its sensitiveness.
The voice of the Masters is always in the world; but only those hear it whose ears are no longer receptive of the sounds which affect the personal life. Laughter no longer lightens the heart, anger may no longer enrage it, tender words bring it no balm. For that within, to which the ears are as an outer gateway, is an unshaken place of peace in itself which no person can disturb.
If you have the power to face your own soul in the darkness and silence, you will have conquered the physical or animal self which dwells in sensation only.
14 days: Before the voice can speak in the presence of masters it must
have lost the power to wound.
For the voice to have lost the power to wound, a man must have reached that point where he sees himself only as one of the vast multitudes that live; one of the sands washed hither and thither by the sea of vibratory existence. It is said that every grain of sand in the ocean bed does, in its turn, get washed up on to the shore and lie for a moment in the sunshine. So with human beings, they are driven hither and thither by a great force, and each, in his turn, finds the sunrays on him. When a man is able to regard his own life as part of a whole like this he will no longer struggle in order to obtain anything for himself. This is the surrender of personal rights. The ordinary man expects, not to take equal fortunes with the rest of the world, but in some points, about which he cares, to fare better than the others. The disciple does not expect this. Therefore, though he be, like Epictetus, a chained slave, he has no word to say about it. He knows that the wheel of life turns ceaselessly. Burne Jones has shown it in his marvelous picture — the wheel turns, and on it are bound the rich and the poor, the great and the small — each has his moment of good fortune when the wheel brings him uppermost — the King rises and falls, the poet is feted and forgotten, the slave is happy and afterwards discarded. Each in his turn is crushed as the wheel turns on. The disciple knows that this is so, and though it is his duty to make the utmost of the life that is his, he neither complains of it nor is elated by it, nor does he complain against the better fortune of others. All alike, as he well knows, are but learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist and the reformer who endeavor by sheer force to re-arrange circumstances which arise out of the forces of human nature itself. This is but kicking against the pricks; a waste of life and energy.
In realizing this a man surrenders his imagined individual rights, of whatever sort. That takes away one keen sting which is common to all ordinary men.
14 days: Before the soul can stand in the presence of masters its feet
must be washed in the heart's blood.
"To be able to stand is to have confidence"; and to have confidence means that the disciple is sure of himself, that he has surrendered his emotions, his very self, even his humanity; that he is incapable of fear and unconscious of pain; that his whole consciousness is centered in the divine life, which is expressed symbolically by the term "the Masters"; that he has neither eyes, nor ears, nor speech, nor power, save in and for the divine ray on which his highest sense has touched. Then is he fearless, free from suffering, free from anxiety or dismay; his soul stands without shrinking or desire of postponement, in the full blaze of the divine light which penetrates through and through his being. Then he has come into his inheritance and can claim his kinship with the teachers of men; he is upright, he has raised his head, he breathes the same air that they do.
But before it is in any way possible for him to do this, the feet of the soul must be washed in the blood of the heart.
The sacrifice, or surrender of the heart of man, and its emotions, is the first of the rules; it involves the "attaining of an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotion." This is done by the stoic philosopher; he, too, stands aside and looks equably upon his own sufferings, as well as on those of others.
In the same way that "tears" in the language of occultists expresses the soul of emotion, not its material appearance, so blood expresses, not that blood which is an essential of physical life, but the vital creative principle in man's nature, which drives him into human life in order to experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow. When he has let the blood flow from the heart he stands before the Masters as a pure spirit which no longer wishes to incarnate for the sake of emotion and experience. Through great cycles of time successive incarnations in gross matter may yet be his lot; but he no longer desires them, the crude wish to live has departed from him. When he takes upon him man's form in the flesh he does it in the pursuit of a divine object, to accomplish the work of "the Masters," and for no other end. He looks neither for pleasure nor pain, asks for no heaven, and fears no hell; yet he has entered upon a great inheritance which is not so much a compensation for these things surrendered, as a state which simply blots out the memory of them. He lives now not in the world, but with it; his horizon has extended itself to the width of the whole universe.
Devotional attention to an absolutely revereable ideal.
Evening: Day's retrospect. Begin with the last experiences and actions
in the evening and ascent to a.m.
Number 3
On awakening in the morning and before any other impressions have gone
through the soul one directs one's attention away from all sense
impressions and memories of everyday life. One tries to free oneself
from all worries, concerns, etc.
Once one has produced this with stillness of the soul one lets...
More radiant than the sun
Purer than snow
Subtler than the ether
Is the Self
The Spirit of my heart
I am this Self
This Self am I.
...live in the soul for 5 minutes. What follows in the next five minutes
is:
Concentration on the point between and somewhat behind the eyebrows
with meditation on: I am.
Concentration on the inside of the larynx and meditation on: It
thinks.
Concentration on both arms and hands and meditation on: She
feels.
The hands can be folded here or the right hand is folded over the
left. After some time one feels as if the hands want to move apart on
their own. But one must by no means produce this through
self-deception.
Concentration on the body's whole surface and meditation on: He
wills.
Then follows concentration on the pit of the stomach with meditation
on: Divine Life.
All of this is followed by 5 minutes of reverential immersion in one's
own divine ideal.
Evening retrospect as before.
Number 4
Retain the preceding exercise and add the following at the place where
"He wills" streams over the whole body. Create streams
from the body's surface and draw them to the body's surface and draw
them to the heart as the center. One should do the whole thing slowly
as one quietly rests one's consciousness on the happenings.
During this process meditate on the words from
Light on the Path:
Seek out the way.
Then I ask you to rest quietly with the whole feeling in your heart
while meditating on: Seek the way by retreating within.
Then one guides the stream back towards the body's surface while
meditating one: Seek the way by advancing boldly without.
You'll soon be able to perceive the indicated rays as real warmth
streams.
These exercises prepare for the union on one's personality (microcosm)
with the great world and its secrete (macrocosm), just as the
exercises given before prepare for the awakening of one's
individuality.
Later on, a man will have a much more intimate connection with the
world's lawfulnesses than now. An esoteric pupil anticipates this
intimacy in this development The head with its brain is only a
transition organ for knowledge. The organ that will look deeply and
powerfully into the world has its germ in the present heart. To become
an organ for cognition the heart must be transformed in many ways. But
this heart is the source and fount of a future human stage. When the
heart becomes its organ, cognition will be warm and intimate as only
the feelings of love and compassion are today. But the feelings will
struggle out of the dullness and darkness in which they just grope
today and through to the brightness and clarity that only the finest,
most logical concepts of the head have today. A real pupil is
preparing himself for such things. And it's only a correct preparation
if he does it with the indicated sentiment in his soul. These
sentiments are the mother of the perspective that he needs. I ask you
to note that we'll only attain what we should attain through our
meditation and concentration exercises if we do them permeated by the
great, sublime goals in bright, complete clarity.
I ask you to always look at and do the exercises in this sense.
Thereby you fit yourself into the community of spirits in current
incarnations who are supposed to be come seers and helpers of the
futures. We can do no better for the world's further development than
to develop ourselves. But we must do that. And once we've seen the
truth about our own being and the connection of this being with the
world we don't doubt for a moment that we must do this. But this can
only gradually be known. It's a child of will and patience.
Please try to connect the various indications given this winter with
"Before the eyes can see ... ear can hear ... voice can
speak ... the soul can stand" in
Light on the Path.
You'll find these four sentences contain a great deal, and that the
most important theosophical teachings about the world and
self-knowledge will gradually appear before your soul intuitively if
you live in these sentences completely. These sentences are not just
sentences, but forces that awaken truth and strength and life when one
devotes oneself to them.
Please write me about every four weeks or as often as you like if
something special happens in your spiritual life in the way of
progress, ideas gained, etc. My answers may then lead you further.
Peace.
Number 5
Morning: Quiet
In pure rays of light
Gleams the Godhead of the world
In pure love for all beings
Radiates the godliness of my soul
I rest in the Godhead of the world
I will find myself in the Godhead of the world.
Five minutes [for exercise above].
Growing plant: 5 minutes
Withering plant: 5 minutes.
Devotional attention to your own divine ideal.
Evening: Devotional attention.
Retrospect of day's experiences. Pictorially. From the rear to the
front.
Number 6
Berlin, 1903 or 1904
There's a nice remark by Hegel: The deepest thought is united with the
figure of Christ, with the historical and outer one, and that's the
great thing about the Christian religion, that for all of its
profundity it's easy to understand in an outer way, and yet also
challenges one to get into it more deeply. Thus it's for every stage
of development and also satisfies the highest demands.
The fact that the Christian religion is understandable to every stage
of consciousness is clear through the history of its development. It
must be the task of spiritual science in general to show that this
religion invites one to penetrate the deepest teachings of wisdom that
mankind has. Theosophy is not a religion but an instrument for
understanding religions. It's related to religion in about the same
way that our mathematical theory is related to ancient math books. One
can understand mathematics out of one's own intellectual forces and
the laws of space without referring to Euclid's geometry book. But
when one has taken in geometric teachings one will treasure that old
book all the more, that first placed these laws before the human
spirit. That's the way it is with theosophy. Its sources are not in
documents and aren't based on tradition. Its sources are in the real
spiritual worlds; that's where one must find them and grasp them in
that one develops one's spiritual forces, whereas one grasps
mathematics as one tries to develop one's intellectual forces. The
intellect that enables us to grasp the laws of the sense world is
carried by an organ, the grain. We also need corresponding organs to
grasp the laws of spiritual worlds. How did our physical organs
develop? When outer forces worked on them, sun forces, sound forces.
That's how the eyes and ears developed out of neutral, dull organs
that did not permit a penetration of the sense world at first and only
opened slowly. Our spiritual organs will also open when the right
forces work on them.
Now which forces storm in our spiritual organs that are still dull?
During the day forces press into a modern's astral body that work
against his development, and that even kill organs he had before he
got his bright day consciousness. A man used to perceive astral
impressions indirectly. The surrounding world spoke to him through
pictures, through the astral world's form of expression. Living,
differentiated pictures, colors float around free in space as an
expression of pleasure and displeasure, sympathy and antipathy. Then
thee colors laid themselves around the surface of things and objects
received firm contours. This happened when man's physical body became
even firmer and more differentiated. When his eyes opened completely
to physical light, when maya's veil placed itself before the spiritual
world, man's astral body received impressions from the surroundings
via the physical and etheric bodies and transmitted them to the ego,
from where they entered men's consciousness. Thereby he became
continuously active. But what worked on him in this way wasn't
plastic, formative forces that corresponded to his own nature; it was
forces that consumed and killed him to awaken his ego-consciousness.
Only at night when he dived down into the rhythmic spiritual world
that was homogeneous to him did he strengthen himself anew so that he
could send forces to the etheric and physical bodies again. The life
of the single ego, ego-consciousness arose from the conflict of
impressions, from the killing of the astral organs that worked
unconsciously in man before. Death out of life, life out of death. The
snake's circle was closed. Now the forces that rekindled life in the
dead remnants of previous astral organs and molded them plastically
had to come out of this awakened ego-consciousness.
Mankind moves toward this goal, it's guided towards it by its
teachers, leaders and great initiates, whose symbol is the snake. It's
an education towards spiritual activity, and therefore it's a long and
difficult one. Great initiates could make the task easier for
themselves and men if they would elaborate the astral body when it's
free at night, so that they imprinted astral organs into them, worked
on them from outside. But that would be a working within the dream
consciousness of a man, an intervention into his sphere of freedom.
Man's highest principle, the will, would never develop. Man is led
step by step. There was an initiation in wisdom, one in feeling, and
one in willing. Real Christianity is the integration of all initiation
stages. The initiation of antiquity was the annunciation, the
preparation. Man slowly and gradually emancipated himself from gurus.
Initiation at first took place in a complete trance consciousness, but
there was a way to imprint a memory of what had happened outside the
physical body, into the latter. That's why it was necessary to
separate the etheric body, the carrier of memory, and also the astral
body. Both of them dived down into the sea of wisdom, into
mahadeva, into the light of Osiris. This initiation took place
in the deepest secrecy and seclusion. No breath of the outer world was
permitted to push in between. The man was as if dead to the outer
world, the delicate seeds were cultivated away from blinding daylight.
Then initiation stepped out of the darkness of the mysteries into the
brightest daylight. The initiation of all mankind took place
historically — symbolically to begin with — at the stage
of feeling in a great, mighty personality, the carrier of the highest
unifying principle, of the Word, that expresses the hidden Father,
that is his manifestation, that since it took on human form it became
the son of man and could be the representative for all mankind, the
unifying band for all I's: In Christ, the spirit of life, the eternal
unifying one. This event was so powerful that it could go on working
in every human being who lived by it, right into the appearance of
stigmata, right into the most excruciating pains. Feeling was shaken
to its depths. An intensity of feeling arose that had never flooded
the world in such mighty waves before. The sacrifice of the I had
taken place for all in the initiation on the cross of divine love. The
physical expression of the I, the blood, had flowed in love for
mankind and it worked in such a way that thousands pressed to this
initiation, to this death and let their blood stream out in love, in
enthusiasm for mankind. How much blood flowed out in this way was
never sufficiently emphasized, people are no longer aware of it, not
even in theosophical circles. But the waves of enthusiasm that flowed
down in this blood and ascended have fulfilled their task. They've
become mighty impulse givers. They have made men ripe for an
initiation of will.
And this is Christ's legacy.
Number 7
Hamburg, 3-3-'06
Anyone who wants to become an esoteric in the theosophical sense must
train his thought life so that every thought is thought through
sufficiently. Short thinking is the sign of a materialist.
Theosophical esoterics must not fall into comfortable thinking. Take
the thought of social democracy: Change the circumstances and a man
will have better living and working conditions — that's a belief
of materialism, short and deceiving. This belief is very paralyzing
for every study of social life. Now how can a theosophist free himself
from this materialistic belief that existence and even morality would
improve if one would just improve outer conditions? Let's begin with
the reflection that every change has to be made by human beings and
that therefore every condition that's brought about for the social
order arises from human thoughts and feelings. Once one has this
thought firmly in mind one can free oneself from the materialistic
view that everything is brought about by external conditions.
A budding esoteric should gather proofs that no improvement of the
world occurs through the creation of better outer conditions.
Theosophy tells us that the social order is created by men and that
it's the result of human thoughts and feelings. So one should
cultivate thoughts and feelings and not change the social order. An
esoteric asks: Where does this condition that's worthy of being
changed come from? And if the condition is not veiled by nature he
sees that the condition was brought about by the thoughts and will
impulses of men who lived before him. So conditions are the way they
are now because men made them that way through their inadequate
thoughts and feelings. Spiritual science wants to implement a mighty
education of our innermost soul forces so that the social life will
shape itself out of other thoughts and feelings. What this means is
that spiritual science has no patented recipe about how this or that
is supposed to be done on this or that post, it doesn't judge anyone,
but it's very confident that everyone will arrive at a right judgment
if he's permeated by the fundamental truths. One such truth is that
poverty, misery and suffering are nothing but the result of egoism.
One should look upon this as a law of nature. A man is egotistical as
soon as he lives in accordance with the principle: I must be
remunerated personally, I must be paid for the work that I do. An
esoteric must ask himself whether work is really what sustains life.
Work is of no importance if it isn't directed wisely. What serves men
can only be produced and made through the wisdom that men put into it.
One who doesn't understand this and who sins against it even slightly,
sins against the social thinking of the present time.
Reflection on this in all of its possible phases strengthens thinking.
A social democrat who reflects on how to create work to get rid of
joblessness is thinking antisocially in the highest degree. Instead
the main thing is that work should only be used for human beings, to
create valuable produce. In a social community the work impulse must
lie in devotion for the whole, and never in a man's personality. It
follows from this that real social progress is only possible if I work
for the good of the whole. In other words: The work I do mustn't be
for myself. Social progress is completely dependent on the acceptance
of this statement, that one doesn't want to get paid personally for
one's work. A man owes work to the social community. Conversely, a man
must restrict his existence to what the social community gives him.
The counterpart to such social thinking must also be followed exactly.
You know the example that a seamstress works for little pay and that
social democrats tell the workers: You're being exploited. But now the
seamstress goes out and buys a cheap dress to go dancing on Sunday.
She asks for a cheap dress. But why is the dress cheap? Because
another worker was exploited. So in the end, who's exploiting the
worker? Certainly the seamstress who wears a cheap dress to go dancing
on Sunday. One who can think clearly here already gets away from the
distinction between rich and poor, for this has nothing to do with
wealth and poverty. Therefore the foundations must first be created so
that in future men will work hard and devotedly without thinking of
personal advantage.
Suppose that someone invents a remedy and wants to patent it right
away. This shows that he was thinking of a personal advantage and that
he isn't filled with love for all mankind. For if men's health was the
most important thing for him he would be anxious to report what's in
the remedy and how it's made. And something else would happen —
he'd be convinced that the remedy that was made with his sentiments
was the better one.
Here we've come to a statement that's very important in esotericism:
Ways of ennobling the soul must be arrived at. One who uses his
thinking to attain beneficial progress must first see to it that human
souls are ennobled.
Therewith we'll place the Rosicrucian verse at the end:
From that power that all beings binds
The man frees himself who self-mastery finds.
Number 8
Hamburg, 4-18-'06
Archetypal Self from whom we have proceeded
Primal Self who lives in all things
To you, you higher Self, we return.
To this we add the verse that expresses how this primal Self works on
man, how it appears to men:
Truth, wisdom, immeasurablity, O God,
Bliss, eternity, beauty,
Peace blessedness, undividedness
On me
Peace, peace, peace.
The nature of the Trinity is expressed in the first part, and at the
end the way in which this Trinity sinks down into a man's soul.
Mantra:
Primal Self from which everything proceeded
To which everything returns
Primal Self that lives in me
Towards you I strive.
AUM-peace, peace, peace, AUM.
Everything proceeded from this higher Self, even human bodies. We
should not think that there's anything lowly or of little value in the
world. Everything is divine. Even a grain of sand is something that
came from the Godhead. In minerals we see the thoughts of the Godhead
that have become form. The Godhead's thought comes to expression in
all mineral forms.
Aside from form the Godhead also poured out its life in plants.
In addition to their life the Godhead has also poured feeling into
animals and man's form and lower soul. Everything around us is an
expression of God's power.
A man's body is the most perfect thing that the Godhead created for
him. Man's body is the most perfect form that the Gods developed. It's
an instrument through which man's soul looks out into the world. The
human body is equipped in a wonderful way. Man's body is supposed to
be a sacred temple for his soul. But the soul is not yet perfected.
It's just beginning to develop. Man's body makes no mistakes; it's the
imperfect soul that's constantly making them. Passions, desires, and
drives live in it, and it uses the body to satisfy these desires.
But just as there are senses in man's body through which the soul
looks out into the world, so organs will also gradually develop in the
soul that will make it ever more perfect. Such organs are already
developing in the soul.
We find a mighty drive in the animal kingdom that's independent of
sense organs. If one brings a foreign pair of butterflies to Germany
and releases the male in Frankfurt and the female say in Magdeburg,
the two will reunite without fail. They do this with special organs
that are even finer than sense organs. If we meet a total stranger
whom we feel a great sympathy for, as happens between man and wife and
also between friends, then this is a sign that these people belong
together and that they have soul organs that tell them this and bring
them together.
Men will develop such soul organs ever more as they purify their
astral body and ennoble their other bodies. It's quite important to
consider which foods are good for or harmful to higher development. Not
everyone is in a position to pick out the foods that are favorable for
his occult development. Sometimes it's better to renounce things that
promote us inwardly. But it's nevertheless true that some foods have
qualities that do not help men. A man must develop certain organs for
his higher development. To this end certain concentrations are done in
yoga exercises. When a man concentrates on a point between the eyes at
the root of the nose with the thought "I am" he develops
the organ that we call the two-petaled lotus flower and that makes him
into an "I". An animal can't say "I" to
himself. When man's forebrain developed, the organ of the I was put
into man's head at the root of the nose. The I lives there in man. But
in animals the I is outside in front of the head and not in the skull.
In animals it lives in the astral world. For instance all dogs have an
ego in the astral world. In dogs a red stream from the astral plane
streams in at the place where we have the organ of the I, and in a dog
this ego becomes manifest in lower desires. In man the I streams out
of this place.
But it isn't enough that the organ of the ego is developed in man. So
that the higher self can stream into him to make him into a higher
being, we find the organ for this where a vertical line from the top
of the head crosses a horizontal line through the root of the nose, or
a little above it. This organ is the pineal gland. Man makes a
connection with the divine self in the world through the pineal gland.
A third higher organ, the 16-petaled lotus flower, lies in man's
larynx, and a fourth organ, the 12-petaled lotus is in the heart
region. A man must choose his foods wisely so that these organs can
develop in the right way. What's good for his inner development is
what's connected with an animal's life process, namely, milk and
what's made from it, and in plants what grows towards the sun above
the ground.
A plant is an inverted man. When the sun was still united with the
earth a plant's flowers stuck into the sun and its roots turned
outwards. After the sun left the earth plants turned around and
chastely turned their flow towards the sun with their roots in the
earth. An animal is a half inverted plant, and man is a completely
inverted plant since he turns all the organs that a plant turns
towards the sun, away from it. Man's root, head or brain, is turned
towards the sun. Plant, animal and man together form a cross.
Subterranean plant parts that are turned away from the sun aren't good
for occult development, whereas everything that grows upward is good
for men, especially fruit and grain that a plant gives us without us
having to destroy it. Beans, lentils and other leguminous fruit
pollute the etheric body (nitrogen). Milk is good for men because it's
connected with an animal's life process and animals give it
voluntarily. Whereas meat obtained by killing animals is bad for
occult development, and so are all salts.
The higher self can enter a man if he prepares himself through a
selfless life and through purification of his body. It's not enough to
retreat within. The higher self is not in man at first but outside in
nature and in his older brothers, the masters and leaders of mankind.
From there it must go into him. Then he's overcome by the peace that's
higher than all reason. That's what the formula: Truth, wisdom,
immeasurability, O God ... refers to.
A man is always destroying living things. He kills when he breathes.
No living creature could exist on earth if only men who exhale carbon
dioxide lived on it. The gas that a man exhales pollutes the
atmosphere. It is lethal for all living things. Plants exhale oxygen
and thereby enable live things to exist.
When the earth was still at the old Moon stage there was no human
kingdom such as the one we have. The whole Moon was a kind of a plant
being like a peat bog, soft and alive. The beings who are now men
developed out of this plant-mineral earth. This plant porridge also
contained present plants and animals. There was an intermediate
kingdom between these two: animal-plants had sensation. There was a
plant kingdom on old Moon, higher than the present mineral kingdom, an
animal-plant kingdom of sentient plants, and a kingdom of man-animals,
higher than the present animal kingdom and lower than the present
human kingdom.
Creatures on this old Moon mainly lived in a nitrogen atmosphere. The
Moon was surrounded by it, and it perished from an excess of nitrogen.
The mushrooms that now still live on a more plantlike soil are
remnants of the animal-plant kingdom that was present on old Moon.
Since they contain much nitrogen they're not good for occult
development. Parasitic mistletoe is another remnant of that kingdom.
After old Moon had perished from its atmosphere everything went
through a pralaya, re-emerged, and present earth evolution
began. Then after awhile everything that wasn't favorable for further
evolution split off and formed the present moon. Other kingdoms
developed out of the Moon kingdoms on earth. So that present plants
could arise, one part of the plant-mineral kingdom had to be pushed
down a stage, and the present mineral kingdom gradually arose through
consolidation and hardening of the same. Men had not been able to
perceive the world objectively on old Moon, but now that the
plant-mineral kingdom had descended and the present mineral kingdom
formed gradually it became objectively visible. It was only through
the solidification that it could now reflect light and there was a
world that became visible for physical eyes. This is what the biblical
story about the creation of light refers to. All heavenly bodies that
can be seen in a telescope have solidified to the mineral stage. But
there are many more heavenly bodies than those we can see minerally.
Plants not only live from the mineral world, but also from the light
that is reflected by the mineral kingdom. And just as plants live from
this light, so men and animals live on the oxygen that plants exhale.
The animal-plants of old Moon went down a step on one side and up a
step on the other side. That's why animals can live from plants'
oxygen. Physically oxygen is what otherwise lives in a plant as its
etheric body.
Men-animals also split into two kingdoms, into the two sexes. This
split gives rise to the human love that initially is still physical.
Man can lift himself into the Gods' realm through this love. They
lived from men's physical love just as men and animals live from the
oxygen that plants emanate, and as plants live from light that's
radiated back from the mineral kingdom. The nectar and ambrosia that
the Gods feed on is the love of men and women. Man's ascent takes
place through the overcoming of physical love, the regulation of the
breathing process, and the development of kundalini light. First the
overcoming of physical love. A separation of the previously unisexual
man into two sexes was necessary so that the intellect could develop
in man. Man was split into a higher spiritual nature and a lower
animal one. It's an ascent when a man overcomes the forces of physical
love and transforms them into higher, more spiritual forces through
his own inner soul force. Secondly, a man who wants to develop higher
must give up the forces that he takes from plants. Man uses up the
vital oxygen that plants exhale through his breathing process. The
breath becomes purer through rhythmization of the breathing process
and inner soul work, so that what a man exhales contains less carbon
dioxide. Then the air around him isn't used up as fast, and he doesn't
take away so much oxygen or vital substance from other living beings.
To attain this as much as possible Indian yogis withdraw into caves,
where they breathe as little oxygen as possible. They can do that
because their breath is so pure from soul work that they can live a
long time without intake of outer air. The more spiritualized a man is
the longer he can live in his own air and the less carbon dioxide he
exhales.
The breath of a materialist ruins much more air than that of
an idealist. Modern materialists can't live without a continual supply
of fresh air. A man out in the country brings a certain rhythm into
his life through his life with nature. Thereby the air that he exhales
becomes better, whereas the city air gets full of poison through men's
immorality. Plants stream out pure air, oxygen. They're pure,
selfless, without desire, and that's why a man feels good among
plants. But a continual supply of fresh air actually has an
unfavorable effect on occult development, because one thereby takes
too much life from plants. An esoteric learns to control his breathing
process, and thereby he can have moments when he doesn't participate
in the destructive process that's brought about by breathing. Thirdly
a man learns to radiate back the light that the mineral kingdom
reflects. He develops kundalini light and radiates it into the world,
thereby giving light back to it — the light of the human
kingdom. A man doesn't know what an important instrument he has in his
organism. He knows the rest of the world better than he knows himself.
He can in fact develop wonderful capacities.
A man has an organ in himself that fills with air when he inhales and
loses this air when he exhales. It fills up with outside air right
into its finest branches on inhalation. But spirit lives in the air
around us. When a man inhales he breathes spirit in, and when he
exhales he puts some of the spirit that lives in him into the exhaled
air. The spirit develops in him ever more and also outside in the
world through the rhythmicized, spirit-filled breath. The spiritual
man's growth is promoted through breathing in and out. The most important
thing is the spirit that a man puts into his exhaled breath. The
spirit is built up by thoughts. A man builds up and streams out his
spirit through every thought that he gives along with the exhalation.
Man didn't always have an organ to inhale air. Beings breathed fire
instead of air on old Moon. Just as we breathe oxygen in and out, so
they breathed fire in and cold out. Future men will no longer breathe
air. Just as a man prepares his warmth by feeding his warmth organ,
the heart, with the blood circulation, through air streaming in from
outside, so he will later have an inner air organ through which his
organism will be supplied with what we now take in from the
atmosphere. A man prepares his own warmth, that on old Moon had been
directly sucked in from the environment by the beings there. A man will
be able to elaborate the used up air in his interior. Later on he'll
no longer live in an outer air. On Jupiter he'll live in light and
inhale light just as we inhale air now and inhaled warmth on old Moon.
Overcoming of physical love or development of astral body and
transformation into spirit self, ennoblement of animal kingdom ...
wisdom
Rhythmization of breathing or development of the etheric body and
transformation into life spirit, elevation of the plant kingdom ...
beauty
Radiation of kundalini or development of physical body, transformation
into spirit man, elevation of mineral kingdom ...
power
When all of this has happened the mineral kingdom will pass over into
a kind of plant kingdom, then the latter into an animal kingdom, etc.
until the next round.
Number 10
München, 11-1-'06
Asuras remain behind on old Saturn. Satanic fire spirits on old Sun.
The regent of fire spirits is Christ. Luciferic spirits fell behind on
old Moon. Lucifer was at work in the Lemurian epoch, could be included
in earth evolution, and worked as a liberator by giving men
independence and enthusiasm for wisdom. Satanic Gods of hindrances
began their work in the Atlantean epoch. Asuras are starting to work
in the post-Atlantean epoch. They're the worst of the three and they
mainly work into sexual life in the physical body. The many sexual
aberrations today are to be ascribed to this strong influx. All forces
of hindrances try to hold onto currently existing things that are
still imperfect, carry them out and intensify them. Lucifers gave
independence, egoity with egoism. Egoism, error and animal love are
the first expressions of egoity, wisdom and highest spiritual love. We
must bring about the respective transformations. The separation of the
sexes took place in the third root race, it'll be overcome in the
sixth root race; this must be prepared for in the sixth sub-race.
Man's productive forces are becoming transformed. The productive force
as such is the most sacred thing that we have, because it's directly
divine. The more divine what we pull into the dirt is, the greater the
sin. Later on the heart and larynx will be the productive organs in
us. Just as the Word became flesh in Christ Jesus, so the flesh must
become word when Christendom becomes perfected. That's the mystery of
the Holy Grail, the holy love lance, the fertilizing sunlight that'll
unite with Eva again. Rosicrucians' occult brotherhood is the seminary
in which a human material must be educated for the coming age. A
particularly bright light must always arise in especially dark times.
Christ was born in the Oriphiel age. When Oriphiel rules again the
spiritual light that was brought by Christian Rosenkreutz and is now
being spread must have generated a host of clairvoyant men who are
pioneers working consciously towards a goal. This will produce a
separation into good and evil races. The fifth root race will perish
through evil. Good and evil are still relatively undifferentiated and
it's hard to see who's evil or good behind the flesh. When the forces
of the masters and of the men who join them with their whole strength
and will, and when the forces of the Gods of hindrances, Mammon,
Satan, Asuras and their human followers intervene ever more mightily
into human life and earth evolution, then good will develop into a
divine good, and evil into a terrible Antichrist. Then every one of us
needs world helpers and all the strength that he can only gain through
the overcoming of suffering and evil. It's the aim of Theosophy and
Rosicrucianism to summon men to this battle via such knowledge and to
give them peace in the battle.
Number 11
München, 11-6-'06
A=past
U=present
M=future
Occult training leads a man to freedom. He becomes the master of
various beings who continually go in and out of his bodies by becoming
their companion. These are phantoms in the physical body, ghosts in
the etheric body, demons in the astral body and spirits in the ego. To
learn to rule them a man must form a firm framework in the etheric
body, just as there's a skeleton in the physical body. This framework
for the etheric body is a pentagram with thinking in the head point,
feeling in the arms and willing in the legs. One must also form a
framework for the astral body, namely a hexagram with the head and
heart points, two ears and two arms.
To arrive at this one must apply the following four principles: Learn
to be silent and you'll get power; give up power and you'll get will;
give up will and you'll get feeling; give up feeling and you'll get
knowledge.
These are four stages to which a man ascends. Every suppression gives
a certain power. If a man knows the spirits and beings who
continuously rule and enslave him he no longer needs to be their
slave. The first thing that a pupil must learn and do is pay attention
to himself.
Number 12
Köln, 12-1-'06
One of the most important guidelines that the masters of wisdom and of
the harmony of feelings communicate to pupils through a teacher is:
Learn to be silent and you'll get power; give up power and you'll get
will; give up will and you'll get feeling; give up feeling and you'll
get knowledge. An esoteric must place these occult propositions before
his soul in all work and action, and then some day he'll experience
that the four verses are true. One should note that the various forces
can only be attained in sequence, so that one can never attain
knowledge first and maybe then feeling and then will, and then power.
For will arises from the renunciation of power, etc. We'll give an
example from the life of a very rich Briton, Laurence Oliphant, who
lived in the middle of the last century. He and his wife had a noble
love for their poorer neighbors and moved by this feeling they gave
most of what they had to them; and then they migrated to New York.
There they made enough money to go to Mt Tabor near Haifa. Here a
strange phenomena arose. Oliphant began to write some very interesting
and strange books about Genesis that were some of the strangest things
that were written about the Bible at the time. But he could only have
these thoughts with the help of his wife. After she died Oliphant
could only keep on working for a short time, and then the inspiration
of his deceased wife no longer reached the physical plane. So this is
an example of the validity of the second part of the verse just
mentioned.
We're always surrounded by five ether streams in the world around us
on earth. They're called earth, water, fire, air and thought ethers.
These etheric streams are also active in man: earth ether from the
head to the right foot, from there water ether to the left hand, from
there fire ether to the right hand, from there air ether to the left
foot, and then thought ether back to the head. This is the occultist's
sacred pentagram, the symbol of man. Its point is directed upwards,
which indicates that the spirit streams to man from the heights. The
pentagram is present in many flowers and other things in nature. The
sign of black magic is a pentagram with one point at the bottom,
through which magicians attract bad forces from the earth and send
them out of the two top horns into the environment by means of their
bad will in order to use soul and nature forces for their own
egotistical, evil purposes.
The cross sections of the five etheric streams and their connections
with color, taste, and body regions are as follows:
earth ether, square with only the corners distinct, yellow, sweet,
bones and muscles;
water ether, crescent moon at fifth day, white, tart, digestion;
fire ether, equilateral triangle, red, hot, blood;
air ether, circle, green, sour, nerves;
thought (akasha) ether, two intersecting spirals —
one is distinct, dark blue, bitter, lymph vessel system.
Number 13
Berlin, 12-18-'06
Today we'll try to get a little closer to the nature of the three
Logoi. Many Theosophists speak about these things before they know
much theosophy. This can only bring confusion and harm. If the higher
consciousness isn't awakened in a man, he can't really form an idea
about the three Logoi. And yet one can prepare the soul for right
vision in the future by making the right pictures. All spiritual
things make an imprint on the physical world also. So we'll look at
the things in the physical world that correspond to these high forces.
People usually say that a man has five senses. Occultism only names
three, namely smell, sight and hearing. Taste and the warmth sense lie
between these. When I smell something I take very fine particles of
the particular substance into my nose. Therefore in smell I perceive
matter itself. But when I see with my eyes I only perceive an image of
the object that's produced by a chemical process in the eye. Taste is
a sense in between smell and sight. Although I take parts of the
object into myself when I taste it, I don't perceive these parts
directly as in smell, for I must first subject them to a chemical
process to taste them. In hearing I perceive air vibrations and no
objects. I also perceive particular oscillations when I feel warmth,
but then my whole body perceives, whereas in hearing the perception of
oscillations takes place in an organ that's especially developed for
this.
The three Logoi are related to these three senses. The third Logos is
so selfless that he lets his being resound through the world. The
second streams himself out in pictures. The first Logos lets his own
body stream out. That is the highest grade of selflessness, when one
can let one's own essence flow out.
At the beginning of the world the first Logos began to let his being
stream out; a fragrance filled world space. Let the world aroma be the
first Logos. All material things originated from his body. He is the
aroma of the world. Then the second Logos began to stream out and he
wove pictures and forms into the world aroma. The world began to take
on form; light and colors lit up. Then the third Logos sounded through
the developing world. World aroma flowed in space, wonderful forms lit
up, and the sounds of the third Logos surged through this shimmering,
fragrant world.
Thus we can look upon the whole world around us as an outflow of the
three Logoi and thereby gradually press forward to their true nature.
Now a Logos does not work by himself — the three live and weave
completely in each other so that each of the three also expresses
himself in the other two. But we can't perceive the effects of the
three equally well, because they stream out at different times.
When our chain of planets first saw the light the streaming out of the
third Logos began. And his sound will only die out when our planet
chain will have reached the end of its development. But the waves of
the two other Logoi didn't first stream out at the beginning of our
world chain, they came over to us from previous world evolutions. The
flow waves of these two have a longer duration than those of the third
Logos. But before our planetary chain reached its goal on the Sun, the
streaming of the second had ended, and a new outstreaming began. This
new outstreaming is what really belongs to our planetary system at
which we too are working. Long before the new radiation of the second
Logos had fully streamed out it prepared itself. It was such
preparatory streams that brought Buddha, Zoroaster, Hermes and other
founders of religion into the world. When the light of the second
Logos shone in a preparatory way for the last time, it shone the
brightest, and that was in Christ Jesus. When it shines again now it's
the second Logos himself who radiates out his being anew.
The flow wave of the first Logos is even longer than that of the
second one. When the second Logos has already been flowing along for
some time, the first one's radiation is just dying away and begins his
new outraying, that then only really belongs to our planetary chain.
Thus the third Logos becomes the most clearly perceptible to us. He
sounds loud and clear, and if we want to characterize his nature we
say that he has a clear, vocalic sound: A.
The first and second Logoi also sound along in the third one, the first
and third radiate as pictures in the second Logos, and the second and
third Logoi stream out their aroma in the first Logos. But to begin
with only the interactions of the first and second are discernable in
the third Logos for us. Now if we can hear the clear, loud A of
the third Logos, the sound of the second Logos can also be heard in
there.
Since our second Logos
is still developing, his tone still sounds dull and yet vocalically
full, like U. Our first Logos who only arises in the future
sounds along like a quiet, humming undertone as a dully consonantic
M. Thus we have the sound of the most sublime powers expressed
in AUM. That's the goal towards which we are all striving: to
participate in the essence of these very sacred world forces. A human
soul only has value for world evolution to the extent that it
participates in these powers: AUM
1st Logos
2nd Logos
3rd Logos
aroma
sight
hearing
substance
image
movement
Old Moon
Old Sun
Old Saturn
The third Logos, sound, is entirely on the physical plane. We can
generate sounds and take them in. Later on a man will be able to place
the pictures of the outer world he receives via his eyes outside again
as forms via his pineal gland and blood that he'll then have under
control. He'll generate oxygen himself and convert the blue blood that
goes to the heart into red blood without the use of outside air. And
he'll give it for the creation of pictures and forms. When he's become
still more selfless he'll be able to give out his own substances and
create beings out of it by means of the pituitary gland and place them
outside.
Number 14
Stuttgart, 1-20-'07
In a retrospect let's place ourselves into what was experienced in
such a way that we rightly feel the difference between the soul
experience and the real experience in the outer world. The relation
between the memory of a landscape and the direct perception of the
same with open eyes is the same relation as between memory and
retrospect.
Memory gradually disappears in an initiate and is replaced by direct
perception of what one wants to remember. One must place a picture of
the day's experiences before one, quite exactly and clearly of all
details, blouse, face, etc., and so look at the happenings in a
picture, how people spoke, what was done, etc. It's very important to
recall the little experiences that didn't interest one so much, that
are hard for one to remember, because this generates inner forces.
Imaginative force is created via the ability to imagine pictures. The
clarity of the pictures is the important thing and not the
completeness of the experiences. No muscle must be tensed in all of
this work. Just as light first created the outer eyes, and the body
was stimulated from outside to form other organs, so the astral body's
organs are formed through the imagining of pictures.
In the subsidiary exercises we must begin with thinking, and persist
until the proper feeling sets in; we must then pour this into our body
and do this exercise for a month or more before passing on to the
second one, etc. The pouring in gives the astral body consistency, a
firm shape, backbone. The more uninteresting the object the better it
is for the exercise, for then it's hard to stay focused on it for five
minutes. The second is initiative in actions. It must be an action
that one must force oneself to do. Thirdly the overcoming of pleasure
and displeasure, that is, one should feel joy or sorrow but not let
oneself by controlled by them. Fourthly, look for positivity in
everything. Fifthly, open-mindedness with regard to all experiences.
Sixthly, repeat all five exercises rhythmically. Do each of the
subsidiary exercises until one can pour the feeling arising from it
into the body and experience it. Only then go on to the next month.
The meditation that was given to you as your first morning work was
intended to be an awakener of forces.
A lily is the visible expression of a word that was once spoken by the
creator. Much depends on which words and vowels one speaks, which
thoughts and feelings one sends out, because they will become visible
during the Jupiter Venus, etc., earth conditions. The mineral, plant
and animal kingdoms here on earth are likewise the expression of what
Moon dwellers once said and thought. That's why mantras and the words
of meditations have the letter sequence and the word sounds that they
do, because they only have their effect in that particular sequence.
What we do and create will be visible on Jupiter, for instance Koeln
Cathedral will be visible as a larger formation, Raphael's paintings
will surround Jupiter like clouds or a mirage. Our music will resound
as music of the spheres over there on Jupiter.
In our exercises we must think that the Gods have something like this
in mind for us; that's the purpose of the exercises, and the formula
"In the spirit lay the germ of my body ..." explains
this to us. The old adepts expressed this briefly in the sacred word
AUM. A is the past that sounds loud and clear. U
is a dull vowel and represents the present. It has something of the
clarity of the past and of the freedom of action of the present in it.
M is the indefiniteness of the future, to which every vowel or
this or that action can still add something. A correct retrospect
awakens a great force in the soul, that a man needs once he can ascend
to the astral plane. Thought control is supposed to lead to mastery of
thoughts. Initiative in actions is supposed to give rise to an urge
for activity and work that that one hadn't felt otherwise. Meditation
should be the first work of the day in the morning.
Number 15
Berlin, 1-29-'07
Let's make it clear to ourselves what's really brought about by
meditation. Streams of spiritual life are always flowing through the
world. These streams can't flow into us when we're thinking about
everyday things. But our meditation words are like portals that are to
lead us into the spiritual world. They have the strength to open up
our soul so that the thoughts of our great leaders, the masters of
wisdom and of the harmony of feelings can stream into us. For this to
happen the deepest quiet must reign in us. We must realize that
meditation is a very intimate soul activity. So we should let the
meditation words given to us by our teacher live in our soul right
after we wake up and before other thoughts have gone through our soul.
But we shouldn't look upon them as stuff to speculate on and
philosophize about; we should think as little as possible about their
meaning and significance. We have enough time for reflection the rest
of the day. We should hold that off completely while meditating. We
shouldn't repeat the words meaninglessly but should be clear that the
words open our soul to the instreaming of divine beings, just as a
flower opens and lets in sunlight. High spiritual beings whom we call
masters stream down to us. We should realize that it's mainly they who
guide us and are near to us in meditation. We should also know that
they walk on earth incarnated in a physical body. Thus we should let
the meditation words live in our soul without pondering about them;
rather we should try to grasp the words' spiritual content with our
feelings and to permeate ourselves completely with it. The power of
these words doesn't just lie in the thoughts, but also in their rhythm
and sound. We should listen to this, and if we shut out all sensorial
things we can say that we should revel in the sound of the words. Then
the spiritual world sounds into us. Since so much depends on the sound
of the words one can't translate a meditation formula into a foreign
language without further ado. The mediation formulas we received in
the German language were brought down from the spiritual world
directly for us. Every formula has the greatest effect in the original
language. When an East Indian wants to give the highest expression to
his reverence for the Godhead who reveals himself in three Logoi, he
summarizes his feeling in three times three words that describe the
activity of the three Logoi:
But the whole wealth of spiritual strength is only reproduced if the
words are said in Sanskrit, the original language. Then one hears how
even the air resonates:
The same applies to the Lord's Prayer. Spoken in German, practically
the only thing that's effective is the underlying thought. The Latin
Pater noster has a better effect, but the whole power and fullness
only come to expression in the original Aramaic.
So we should hear our way entirely into the sound of the words. With
the word schoepfen (create, also means to scoop, drink) we
should have an idea that's as graphic as possible, as if one were
dipping out of one vessel into another. All of our thoughts should be
as pictorial and as full of content as possible. While meditating the
meditation words should receive inner life, but we should exclude all
spatial ideas and cling entirely to our senses. For there's spatial
perception on the physical plane but not in the astral world. But the
color, light, sound, aroma and so on that are connected with the
senses are also present in the astral world. That's why in meditation
we should try to awaken a sensory idea that's as clear and full of
content as possible. Spiritual beings express their nature in colors,
sounds, aromas and everything that the senses perceive, and they flow
into us when we connect ourselves with sensations. The first Logos
streams on as a directly perceptible aroma. A being of a higher or
lower nature lives in every odor. Very high, god beings live in
incense; they draw us up directly to God. The lowest kind of beings
are incarnated in musk scent. People who know about such things use
musk for sensual attraction. Spiritual beings also live in sounds and
colors, "In pure rays of light ..." One should get a
bright, luminous mental image, one should see and feel how luminous
streams flow down to one. Every meditation formula is equipped with
strength to awaken slumbering forces. But if one always longs for new
exercises one destroys the exercise's force and doesn't get its fruit.
In some elementary esoteric schools a pupil is told to think nothing
but glass, glass, glass for 15 minutes every day, for instance. If he
succeeds in really keeping all other thoughts out of his soul during
this time, then his soul becomes quite empty and pure, and the forces
slumbering in it awaken, if other influences aren't too strong. But
our meditation formulas contain great spiritual forces; they are
portals to the spiritual world. The exercises get ever simpler the
more a pupil progresses.
We should never let a feeling of regret arise when we let the pictures
of the day pass by us in reverse order. We shouldn't wish that we had
been better, we should want to get better. We should think: I couldn't
do otherwise back then, but now I can do it better and I will do it
better in future. With every experience we should ask: Did I do it
right; couldn't I have done it better? We should look at ourselves as
a stranger, as if we looked at and criticized ourselves from outside.
It's very important to be able to remember little details in our daily
life. A general who won a big battle has a picture of it before his
eyes that evening. But he forgot how he put his boots on and took them
off again. If we see ourselves walking down a street we should try to
remember how the rows of house ran, which store windows we passed, the
people we met, how they and we looked. Then we see ourself going into
a store and we recall which sales lady came towards us, what she had
on, how she spoke, moved, etc. We must make a big effort to recall
such details, and this strengthens the soul's forces.
With practice one can get to the point where the whole day's life runs
through the soul, clear as wall paintings with all details in five
minutes. This exercise is useless for someone who runs through the day
superficially and just registers the events colorlessly. If a man
walks a stretch and wants to bring this back he can stand still and try
to remember what's behind him. Or he can turn around and look at where
he's gone. If a period of time has passed we can initially only recall
this with our memory and can't look back at the period of time that
has elapsed. But this looking back that we only know in connection
with space is also possible in time, and we learn to do it by trying
to let the last day pass before us as clearly as possible in
perceptible pictures. No event of the past is entirely gone, they're
all there in the Akashic record. This is the only way one learns to
read it. Initially one only sees things that concern oneself from
this, and gradually also other things. That's why the evening
retrospect is such an important, indispensable exercise.
An esoteric will gradually notice that his memory is worsening, until
it disappears, but it will be replaced by the ability to see the past
directly.
The subsidiary exercises strengthen the pupil's soul character, bring
it into the right form, and make the results of meditation good. If
one chooses a match for the first exercise one has to make a real
effort to think about this at least five times every day. It's this
effort that awakens the soul's forces. What does a match look like?
What kinds of matches exist? How are they made? For what are they
used? Where are they stored? What harm can they do? etc. After awhile
one will get a feeling of inner certainty and firmness after the
exercise. One should pour this into one's head and spinal cord, as if
it were water.
Initiative in actions is the second exercise. One chooses actions that
one wouldn't have done otherwise and one does them every day at a
particular time. Simple exercises that one has to force oneself to do
are the most effective to start with. Here again one soon notices a
feeling of firmness and the urge to be active. One should pour this
feeling like water down from the head to the heart to incorporate it
completely.
In the third period one begins to put an end to all fluctuations in
one's soul life. All rejoicing up to heaven — saddened to death
must disappear. No pain should depress one, no joy should bring one
outside of oneself. Fear, excitement and lack of composure must
disappear. Thereby a feeling of quiet equanimity becomes noticeable
like an inner warmth. One concentrates this feeling in the heart and
lets it radiate from there into hands and feet, and then towards the
head. After the third period one develops what one calls positivity in
one's soul. One also tries to see the good and beautiful in the worst,
ugliest and most terrible things, as the Persian legend about Christ
tells us. One day one will have a feeling of inner bliss. One
concentrates this in the heart, lets it radiate to the head and then
out through the eyes.
In the fifth period one practices never letting one's future be
determined by the past. One must become entirely unbiased, take in
everything, open one's soul. If someone says to one: The church
steeple turned last night, one shouldn't laugh at him but should
think: Maybe there's a law of nature that I don't know yet. Then one
will soon get the feeling that something is streaming into one from
the space outside. One sucks this in through eyes, ears and the whole
skin, as it were. Then in the sixth period all five exercises should
be done at once, to give a harmonious blend. One should also try not
to take too much time in doing the morning meditation and the evening
review.
One who wants to become a real esoteric should realize that he attains
something now that all men will attain later. And he must be clearly
aware that great tasks will be given him someday, that he'll be used
for the further development of mankind in the future. This thought,
this goal must live in him entirely, otherwise he's not an esoteric in
the true sense. And if he develops himself into the future like this
his eyes will also be opened about the past, and then the present
becomes understandable out of the future and past. Thereby past,
present and future become harmoniously united. The great masters put
this into the sacred syllable AUM. That's one of many
interpretations that can be given to this syllable. When we speak this
syllable the great masters are here with us and the air resounds with
the spiritual power of these sounds: AUM
From notes B: Mercury staff/snake of evil and of good that guides man in the overcoming of evil through his own power through knowledge (Mercury).
Asuras are spirits of the very greatest egoism who remained behind
during Saturn evolution. They want to condense matter and compress it
ever more so that it can't be spiritualized and brought back to its
original condition. They're the dregs of the planetary evolution that
goes form Saturn to Vulcan. The asuras inhabit the moon and from there
they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the eighth
sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal
— the Christ. All those who strive towards the eighth sphere
will eventually live on a moon.
AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi. The evil beings who want to tear men away from the Godhead can't stand it. AUM must be spoken with the awareness:
Primal Self from which everything came
Primal Self to which everything returns:
Primal Self that lives in me
Towards you I strive.
Peace-peace-peace = AUM.
A is atma, U is buddhi, M is the wisdom that directs the higher self to AUM.
Number 16
Hamburg, 2-11-'07
Most people don't know much more about the word Logos than that it
consists of five letters. What they say about these high beings, the
three Logoi is often just dilettantish talk. A comprehensive,
preparatory understanding is necessary to look into the world of the
three Logoi. But men often think that they can understand the very
highest things right away. "In the beginning was the Logos, and
the Logos was with God, and the Logos was a God. Everything was made
by the same, and without it nothing that was made came into
being." If we let this opening of John's Gospel reverberate in
our soul, we get an inkling that something very high is being referred
to.
How is the present sun related to the Sun condition that preceded the
Moon condition? An advancement has taken place. The present fixed-star
sun was previously the planet Sun. The best forces and beings
separated from the planet sun, and those that were less highly
developed went on with the Moon and then with our earth. Every planet
eventually becomes a fixed star.
Our earth is an ensouled being with lower and higher beings on it.
When a planet develops into a fixed star the beings who are embodied
on it also go higher. The best forces and beings of old Sun became the
fixed-star sun. When our earth has gone through the Jupiter condition,
and as Venus is almost a sun, the human being will be similar to the
sublime beings who now live on the sun. And then what does a sun
become? When a sun has attained maturity a zodiac forms. Zodiacs also
arise and perish. Even more mighty and sublime beings work down from a
zodiac than from a sun. The sun that shines down on us now will
someday shine down as the stars of a new zodiac. The spirit beings of
this new zodiac will be creative souls, creative beings at the highest
stage of development. If we look at human development we also see
organs that are standing at the end of their development and are
withering, and others like the heart will be a voluntary muscle in
future, and the larynx will creatively speak out human descendents
with the word. This will begin when the earth planet becomes a fixed
star and then a zodiac. Beings who went through worlds before the
earth was Saturn sounded down the creative word when the earth was at
the beginning of its evolution. "In the beginning was the
word" should be taken quite literally. At the end of evolution
man will be a being who creates through the word. He arose from a
creative Logos and he'll later be a creative logos himself.
The creative word is the third Logos of the Trinity. He's the world
sound that resounds through the world. A higher, more sublime power is
the creative light. Man will also be a shining light later. Warmth
that's raised to a higher level becomes light. In the future man won't
just be sound — he'll become a radiant, shining being that is
light. The creative light is creative for our world as the second
Logos. The world aroma goes through the cosmos as the highest
revelation; it's a higher principle of creation than world sound and
world light. World sound is the third Logos, world light is the second
Logos and the universe's aroma is the first, most creative and highest
Logos. In folk sagas we have the opposite, bad aroma of the devil,
that indicates that he's the destructive being of the world. In
occultism one calls the eternal part of man that goes through all
evolutions his personal, spirit aroma.
Number 17
Kassel, 6-27-'07
A pupil should remember the basic principle: I can wait patiently.
Impatient striving doesn't bring one forwards. Whatever one does will
bear fruit in the future. The great masters have promised us this. The
pupil should meditate on the first formula every morning. First he
should discard every worry and thought. A man comes out of the astral
world and feels restored. He will feel quiet. Then the first
meditation. Don't think what the words mean, but let them flow into
one. They contain the highest forces, for they aren't arbitrarily put
together, but with the greatest wisdom. Meditate everything
pictorially. The retrospect last. Look back at every little detail
from the end to the beginning. Memory is the bridge on which we're led
to the invisible Akashic record. In the retrospect we have streets,
fields, flowers, rocks, etc. recalled through memory or we could
really look back at them with our eyes. This takes place in the
previous time order. But there's also another kind of looking back: as
if time periods were in space. So-called memory is lost, but something
higher is gained. In higher worlds everything runs from end to
beginning; the pupil goes backwards to prepare for this. Regrets are
egoism, so the retrospect should be without them.
Number 18
Stuttgart, 9-15-'07
It's very important for moderns to get a strong dose of esoteric life.
Plagues, epidemics and wars would rage among men in a terrible way if
the wise masters hadn't decided to give mankind a deepening in the
spiritual realm.
There have always been three kinds of esoterics who were developed in
initiation schools: initiates, clairvoyants and adepts. In ancient
times it often happened that initiates had a full understanding of
spiritual truths and laws, although they weren't clairvoyant. Others
in the same brotherhood were clairvoyant but couldn't understand what
they saw, so the initiates explained it to them. Today there's less of
a separation between clairvoyance and initiation. Whereas adepts were
able to put what the clairvoyant saw and initiates explained to
practical use. Adeptship must retreat almost entirely today. Our
egotistical age can't make proper use of such high capacities. The
highest adepts often only work into peoples' fates twice in two
hundred years. Their strength is saved for special occasions. For men
aren't yet mature enough for certain things. It would only have a
harmful effect if one wanted to give them out. Even you, my brothers
and sisters, couldn't receive some of the highest truths. If I would
tell you such a truth this room would be empty in a few minutes. Even
people who have reached a certain stage in esoteric training can't
stand certain truths. And yet these are the very highest truths, and
your training will eventually enable to you to receive them. But one
who receives them too soon loses all support in life. Imagine that a
narrow plank is laid over a deep abyss. How many of you would be able
to walk over it without getting dizzy? Certainly not all. But if
someone painted a path as wide as this plank on the floor of a room it
would be easy to walk along the strip without going off to the left or
right. And yet he's doing the same thing he'd have to do to walk the
plank or strip on the ground. The strip's continuation is the physical
world, the world of the senses. It gives men certainty, since it
continually corrects wrong thoughts, feelings, etc. Now imagine that
the physical world's barriers had fallen so that a man really floats
in air without outer support. This is an experience that everyone must
go through at some point.
You all know that the heart is just at the beginning of its
development and that it will later be a very important organ One
doesn't have to accept this on faith for simple observation and
reflection lets one see this. It's the greatest riddle for modern
scientists that the involuntary heart muscle is transversely striped
just like the voluntary muscles this tells us that the heart will be a
voluntary muscle in the future.
We speak of reincarnation and the law of karma. One can tell oneself:
I don't believe in reincarnation, but I can assume that it exists.
I'll act as if my assumption is true and wait to see what comes of it.
A man who thinks and acts like this will make amazing discoveries. In
everything that happens to him he'll think: I caused this in a past
life and now bear the consequences of my own deeds. If such a man
unconsciously did something foolish and he's punished for it, he'll
think: I'll make myself aware of this foolishness, so that I can see
that I was the one who brought on these ugly consequences. This is the
real meaning of: Whoever hits you on the right cheek, turn the other
one to him also.
Anyone who succeeds in looking for the cause of everything that hits
him in himself has accomplished a great deal. One who does this will
soon notice that it brings him forward, that he begins to loosen
karmic chains and increasingly gets control of his life. Such a man
treads his life's path freely and surely. One can verify all
theosophical teachings in the same way. So let's all try to bring ever
more spirituality into life and make the light and life that the great
masters stream into us alive. You should all realize that the battles
theosophy and especially esotericism will have to fight with the outer
world will get ever bigger. There it's a matter of standing fast and
being silent, my sisters and brothers, and stand fast, as you look at
your goal and at the great masters who stand by us.
Number 19
Hannover, 9-25-'07
Three occult things are important for occult development: the lamp of
Hermes Trismegistos with three flames, the thrice folded mantle of
Apollonius, the staff of the masters that's divided into three parts.
The three flames through which one must become familiar with the
teachings are thinking, feeling and willing (get into teachings with
thinking and feeling and don't just do will exercises).
The mantle is the skin that one is supposed to leave. Stepping out is
the second folding of the mantle and turning back towards the body is
the third one. Tripartite staff.
Number 20
Berlin, 10-18-'07
In November 1879 Michael conquered the spirit of hindrances, Mammon,
on the astral plane. The battle must still be fought out on the
physical plane. Michael will fight with the spirit of darkness for
another 400 years. We pupils of the school are called upon to spread
light and spiritual life during this time. Mammon, the spirit of
hindrances and darkness, has countless helpers who are often
incorporated in bacteria and bacilli; all perversities and sins are
from him.
Oriphiel gets his forces from Saturn: he ruled until about 109 A.D.
Anael (Ananiel) — Venus: ruled until about Constantine's time;
catacombs, martyrs, great devotion.
Zachariel — Jupiter: folk migrations, breakup of Visigoths.
Raphael — Mercury: ca. 817–1171 A.D.
Samael — Mars: crusades, bellicose religiosity
Gabriel — Moon: ca. 1525–1879 A.D.
Number 21
Berlin, 10-23-'07
The rejection of spiritual wisdom is a sin against the Holy Spirit.
Gabriel transformed men's brains and an organ developed in the
forehead that should be used. If no spiritual content flowed into it
this part of the brain would wither, giving rise to infectious
diseases and pestilence. Spiritual science was kept secret under
Gabriel. This science is suppose to stream out into the open under
Michael. Brains are already worked on in the mother's body. When we
look at an outside object it sends light (through Michael) into our
eyes, and this creates a mirror image in the brain. The resulting
mental image enables us to perceive the object consciously. In
meditation we have to create the mental image without an outer object.
Through the pictures that we create for ourselves the force of what
we've made a picture of can stream into us. We can create such
imaginations more easily through the forces that we take into us in
esoteric classes. We should take in such teachings with hearty
feelings.
Saturn forces work on the sense organs. The terrible degenerations
that we see in sexual things will get much worse when Saturn rules the
earth 400 years from now. It's a matter of training warriors to combat
sensual things. We're called upon to train ourselves so that we can
fight this battle. Michael needs hosts of helpers to fight out on the
physical plane what he's already overcome on the astral plane. That's
the great task that we have to fulfill.
Number 22
Hamburg, 10-26-'07
The right hand is created out of confidence and is meant for work. The
left hand is created out of love and is made for blessing. The right
foot is formed out of certainty, the left one out of steadfastness.
The heart is the center of the human body.
i — is the center of a being, means inclination
a — means reverence, devotion
ä — reverence, somewhat weakened
o — embracing the beings
u — is to rest in them
Each of the seven cyclical archangels reign for a certain period.
Their opponents are Mammon's hosts who throw hindrances in their way.
Masters must fight against all kinds of hindrances also.
The period in which Anael reigns is the age of love; before him is
Oriphiel who brings the wrath of the Gods. In the Oriphiel age Christ
Jesus will walk on earth again, but in a very, very different form.
We're supposed to prepare for this time. We'll reincarnate sooner to
work in the Oriphiel age.
In the Bible Gabriel is the proclaimer of birth; it's Gabriel who
prepares the developing human being. He's the preparer and Michael is
the one who lets if flow out.
Man is interwoven, divided up and cut into pieces in the whole cosmos.
That's what the saga of Dionysos means. He was cut into pieces, but
Zeus swallowed the heart and gave rise to the younger Dionysos.
Number 23
Berlin, 11-1-'07
In pure thoughts you find the self that can maintain itself.
Pure thoughts are ones that don't refer to perceptible things, but to
basic theosophical teachings about man's make-up, existence between
death and life, earth evolution, etc. Pure thoughts give man sure
inner support, whereas purely material thinking leads to instability
and nervousness. Meditation leads to a loosening of the astral from
the etheric and of this from the physical body. This loosening can be
dangerous unless pure, logical thinking is practiced. The way of
looking at things on the astral and devachanic planes is quite
different from the one on the physical plane, so that one can easily
get confused there; only thinking logic remains the same; one should
cultivate this. Thereby certainty is gained in outer and inner life.
Strong people will only listen to their inner voice, whereas weak
people will always listen to others' advice.
If you convert the thoughts to a picture you'll experience creating wisdom. (Jachin and Boaz)
The pure thought should change into a picture, create a picture. For
example, one can imagine how a plant turns its flower to the sun and
that man is an inverted plant. Imagine how the fine substance of a
plant is gradually converted into flesh and thereby took in passions
and desires. Man should not try to become plantlike and spiritual
again and to free himself from all the slags of the astral body, until
it's gotten to the point where it becomes creative through the word
that it utters.
Another exercise that makes abstract ideas into mobile and living
pictures is to imagine the old Moon as a kind of peat of living
spinach containing woody bark that corresponds to our present mountain
chains. Likewise imagine the old Sun as being full of life and
spiritual development. Then more recently the sun left the earth-moon
so that men wouldn't spiritualize too fast, and then the moon left so
they wouldn't rigidify and scleroticize. Thereby an equilibrium was
attained. Everything that was created by the Godhead was first there
as a picture, just as a painter has a spiritual picture in his mind's
eye before he puts it on canvas.
If you condense feeling to light you'll reveal the forming force.
If for instance one feels that the sun is spirit and creative joy, and
the moon is something cold, coarse, contracting and scleroticized,
then the latter will produce a light phenomenon that goes from orange
to red into brown, whereas in the sun the feeling condenses to a light
phenomenon that goes from blue through violet to reddish violet. If
this phenomenon becomes ever more intense the beings who are the
bearers of this light appear in the colors and take on forms and
shapes.
If you concretize will to beings you'll create in world existence.
Once man's will — that's now impure and little developed —
has become stronger, he'll be able to create with it. If he can think
himself into the future condition of the earth and work with the world
directors, his will helps to bring about this new condition and is
co-creative in world existence. If all men didn't want our earth to
become Jupiter, it couldn't happen — although this would be
black magic. This is just mentioned to show how mighty and powerful
man's will is and will become.
These four mantras correspond to pure thinking, Imagination,
Inspiration and Intuition.
Number 24
Basel, 11-23-'07
The world aroma that goes through the whole universe is the Father's
revelation, is the original substance. We call it odor today. Odor is
something we don't become aware of much yet; taste has become
disclosed to us a little bit more.
The world of light; that's the Son, the force of life.
World sound, the sound that reverberates and weaves through the world,
is the revelation of the Spirit, the form.
In i we have the center to which the etheric
body strives
a is complete reverence and devotion ae is shy reverence o is like embracing, enclosing u is resting, being ensheathed.
The East Indian path soon goes up into the astral world. A pupil is
very helpless there at first, which is why he needs a guru to tell him
what to do, because the pupil can't correct his mistakes due to
contradictory precepts in the astral world.
There's only an inner orienting in the astral world, for instance the
colors of objects flame out of objects or beings there, and stream,
flow, resound through space after they've become detached from
things.. These colors, odors and sounds then enliven others.
One must learn to experience the separation of color from a flower,
one must think that the color is floating free I space. This
experience leads into the astral world. The experience of odor as
world aroma leads to the Father. Imagination is the separation of
color from the object, which is why it's so very important for an
esoteric.
Number 25
München, 12-5-'07
The mood of one's soul before and after an esoteric class must be
quite different. It's not at all important whether a soul always
remembers what it experienced in an esoteric class, but it must have
the feeling that it took something with it. Just as one knows one's
name, so one must bear what one received in an esoteric class in one's
soul. One knows one's name when one is asked for it, even if one
doesn't always repeat it to oneself. Likewise the stream of esoteric
life must always rest in one's soul. Then esoteric life will deepen
our soul ever more, and that's necessary for the coming time.
Our whole civilization has its origin in the spiritual world. That's
where plans are made that govern our life on the physical plane. Down
here we only see how one event after another takes place according to
physical laws, but the great spiritual causes are hidden from us. It's
events on higher planes of our existence that bring about physical
events. Let's make this quite clear through an example.
An especially important event took place on the astral plane in
November 1879. Since then esoteric life has taken on a quite different
direction. The esoteric stream that lived in mankind since the
14th century was replaced by a new one. Previously all
occult life took place very quietly and hidden from the outer world
under the direction of the archangel Gabriel
("annunciation").
Something quite similar to a birth took place on the astral plane in
1879. What had slowly ripened since the 14th century could
now be carried into the world in a freer way, even though only for a
few people. For Gabriel's rule was followed by that of the archangel
Michael. He's the radiant sun that lets esoteric wisdom shine out into
a small host of people. Materialism is included in the divine plan of
creation and it has a purpose in the whole world. But the time has now
come for the esoteric sun to shine brightly under Michael's radiant
direction. For materialism's dark forces are increasing.
Michael's radiant rule will be followed by a dark, terrible age that
starts about 2300. Together with Michael, a dark God has begun his
rule — the God Mammon. For occultism Mammon isn't just the God
of money. He's the leader of all base, black forces. And his hosts
attack men's bodies and souls to corrode and ruin them. There's a lot
of talk about bacterial today, and they influence a lot of things. In
future they'll increase in a terrifying way, and many human bodies
will waste away from terrible diseases and plagues. The brand of sin
will be stamped on men's bodies for all to see. Another archangel
— Oriphiel — will rule then. He must come to shake men up
to their true vocation through terrible tortures. So that this can
happen in the right way a small group of people must be prepared today
to spread esoteric life in the black age 400–600 years from now.
One under Michael's rule who feels the urge to participate in
spiritual life is called upon to serve archangel Michael and to learn
under him so that someday he'll be mature enough to also serve the
terrible Oriphiel in the right way. A sacrifice is demanded from those
who want to dedicate themselves to a higher life. One should only want
to receive spiritual life and experience an awakening if one later
wants to use this to put oneself, one's will and everything one has in
the service of mankind only.
In four to six centuries the small group of men who are being prepared
today will serve the God Oriphiel so that mankind can be saved. If in
that age men wanted to be spiritual leaders who hadn't been prepared
to stand fast in all storms and to resist Mammon's hosts, they
wouldn't be able to serve the God Oriphiel in the right way, and
mankind would not be lifted out of their misery. So in order to do it
we must work very earnestly now to fulfill our tasks then.
But when dark powers rage most terribly, the brightest light also
shines. Oriphiel has ruled before. That was the time when Christ
appeared on earth. Bad powers of degeneration and decadence were
ruling everywhere on earth then. And the human race could only be
shaken higher by terrible means. Oriphiel is called the archangel of
wrath, who purifies mankind with a strong hand.
The story in the Bible where Christ swings a scourge to chase the
money changers out of the temple has a deep meaning. Back when things
were darkest on earth, Christ appeared as the savior of mankind.
Oriphiel's reign ended 109 years after Christ's appearance, and he was
replaced by Anael. Then came Zachariel, then Raphael; Samael ruled
during the Renaissance and Gabriel from the 16th century
until 1879. Then Michael began to rule, and circa 2300 Oriphiel, the
terrible archangel of wrath, will be ruling things. And as once
before, spiritual light will shine into darkness brightly and
radiantly. Christ will appear again on earth, although in a different
form than before. We're called upon to receive him and to serve him.
When you, my sisters and brothers, let the spiritual life that streams
into your soul live in you so that it reverberates in your
meditations, you then have the right fruit. You should let what's
received echo in your meditations. While you do that the spiritual
powers of the world stream into you. The world is always flowed
through by spiritual streams that proceed from the great masters of
wisdom and of the harmony of feelings. The masters continuously pour
streams of love and wisdom over humanity, but men's souls aren't
always ready and open to receive them. But meditation words are magic
words that open soul portals so that divine life can move in. That's
why one shouldn't speculate with one's intellect about meditation
words, but should open the soul for forces that are higher than merely
intellectual ones. If one speculates about them with one's intellect
then only forces that are already in one become active. But higher
forces are supposed to awaken. One shouldn't want to solve riddles in
one's meditation words, one should let them solve riddles, for they're
much wiser than the intellect can ever be. That's why one should let
them work on one and take in what they permit to flow into one's soul,
let them live completely in one's soul.
Meditation words were born from the laws of the spiritual world and
didn't arise through speculation. Something special lives in every
vowel. Each of the vowels has a different sound value. And just as the
soul feels the effect of sounds, so it should devote itself to the
pictures that the words mediate to it. In meditation one should try to
think as concretely as possible, and to be as far away as possible
from abstract ideation.
Let's take a meditation formula that most of you know. In the first
line:
In pure rays of light,
one can imagine something like palely gleaming moonlight that represents
the soft light of the Godhead that flows through creation. This mental
image should live quite clearly and intimately in the soul at the
words:
In pure rays of light Gleams the Godhead of the world.
Then come the lines:
In pure love to all beings Radiates the godliness of my soul.
Now one tries to permeate soft moonlight completely with one's love,
to pour it into oneself, so that the mild light begins to radiate
through the warmth of one's love, and in the flood of rays one feels
the Godhead glowing in one's soul. In the following words:
I rest in the Godhead of the world,
one tries to imagine that divine-spirit is flowing all around one. One
can feel as if one were in a lukewarm bath, entirely embedded in divine
substance that envelops one's whole being like a mild bath.
I will find myself In the Godhead of the world
With these words one can think of a distant light tower that radiates
over to one, and can permeate oneself with the feeling that one will
find one's own self in divine things.
But it's not only the pictures that live in the soul during meditation
that draw us towards the divine and open the soul's portals. A deep
wisdom and a high divine life has also been placed into the vowels. It
makes a difference whether this or that vowel resounds in the soul.
Let's take the vowel i. This always expresses a centralizing, a
striving toward the center. The a means something quite
different. It's an expression of an inner worship of the divine. The
i strives towards the center of the universe, whereas the
a(h) remains distant and bows before the Holiest in devotion.
So if we look at our formula:
In den reinen Strahlen des Lichtes
in the first i the soul
strives towards the divine center, in a it retreats devotedly,
and in the second i it hurries towards the divine again. In the
second line we have the ae:
Erglaenzt die Gottheit der Welt.
The ae represents a weakened ah. The worshipful
devotion of the ah changes in ae to shy reverence. In
holy, shy reverence a man doesn't dare to approach God. But in the
following o the soul hurries to embrace the divine completely
with sacred love and intimacy. The o always expresses an
embracing that is full of love. The following line:
In der reinen Liebe zu allen Wesen,
the i again leads the soul directly
into the divine center. Then in ah of
Erstrahlt die Goettlichkeit meiner Seele,
the soul again becomes devotion
completely. And just as the shy reverence of ae in the second
line changed into an intimate embracing of the divine, so in the fourth
line the full, warm worshipping of the ah weakens into a shy
wanting to embrace that hardly dares to touch the Godhead in oe.
In the fifth line,
Ich ruhe in der Gottheit der Welt
the u predominates. This always expresses a resting, a being embedded.
Now the soul has been fused with the divine in blessed quiet. In the last
two lines,
Ich werde mich selbst finden
In der Gottheit der Welt,
the soul is led (i) ever deeper into the center of the world.
This is just one way of understanding the formula, and one small part
of the deep wisdom that rests in it. It would be confusing if I wanted
to tell you all the deep secrets that are hidden in it. There's no
letter and no sign in it that doesn't have a deep, deep meaning.
That's the way the divine word of creation resounded when it once let
the universe arise. You once heard it sounding, but your souls weren't
aware of it yet. At that time you descended from the spirit, and
you'll go back there in full consciousness. Born out of the spirit,
living in an earthly body, you'll return to the divine spirit of the
world through the power of the spirit.
Number 25a
Munich, 1-16-'08
If it was our last esoteric lesson * the great laws of spiritual life revealed in the course of human development, they were the great spiritual powers that guide everything that happens on the physical plan. And which replace each other in their effectiveness, today we want to speak in a somewhat more intimate way of the laws of spiritual life, as it takes place within man himself.
The one in an occult training course is, in a sense, a waiter, a seeker. He is waiting for a new world to uncover him one day except for the one he has otherwise perceived. He is waiting for one day to say to himself, "I see a new world;" I will be able to say to himself; "I will be able to do so." Between all the things I have been able to perceive in the room so far, I see a fullness of spiritual beings that were previously hidden from me. -To make this quite clear to you, you must call the seven states of consciousness that man goes through in the course of his development before the soul. The first state of consciousness that man underwent was a dull, dawny degree of consciousness in which man felt one with the cosmos; We call Saturndasein this state. In the soldon, the level of consciousness decreased, but it became all the brighter for it. When man lived through the man's being, his consciousness was similar to what we experience as the last remnant in our dreams, it was a dull image consciousness. Here on earth we have the bright awareness of the day, which will remain when man rises again to the consciousness of images on Jupiter, so that we then have a bright consciousness of images there. Be. Even two higher states, the inspired and intuitive state of consciousness, will continue to rise to two higher states, the person. So our bright awareness of the day stands in the middle of the dull image consciousness of the moon and the bright image consciousness of Jupiter. And what the esoteric is waiting for to reveal itself to him one day is Jupiter consciousness. It will reach each of you once, at one earlier, at the other later, that depends on your abilities, on the degree of inner maturity.
Now, however, the consciousness of Jupiter in its first germs is already present in every human being. In a very delicate way, the future consciousness is already indicated, man is only unable to interpret it. This is precisely the esoteric life to a large extent that the disciple learns the subtle processes in himself and in his surroundings.
One still the old moon consciousness, in the other the new consciousness of Jupiter is already there, are the feeling of shame and the feeling of fear. In the feeling of shame, where the blood is pushed towards the periphery of the body, there is still one last remnant of the moon consciousness, and in the Feeling of fear, where the blood flows after the heart to find a fixed center, is annoedly announced by Jupiter consciousness. So normal daytime consciousness strikes out after two sides.
Shame---------Standard----------Feeling of anxiety
When we talk about Anything Feeling shame and the pubic blush rising in our faces, we experience something reminiscent of being a moon. Imagine a Modem Man. He could not yet «I» to say to himself, but lived in a dull, dawning image consciousness, embedded in astric forces and Beings with which he felt one and in harmony. Think of it, my sisters and brothers, one day with such a Modem Man the feeling suddenly dawns: I am a «I». I am different from the others, I am an independent being, and all the other beings in my environment look at me. -The whole lunar man would have glowed through from top to bottom a very enormous feeling of shame, he would have disappeared, trying to go down with shame, when he could have felt such a premature feeling of self. So we, my sisters and brothers, too, when a sense of shame arrives, would like to disappear, sink under the ground, dissolve our self-iness, as it were. Imagine how the ancient Modem man was embedded in harmony with the forces and Beings of his surroundings. When an enemy being approached him, he did not think, but he knew instinctively how to avoid it. He acted in a feeling that, if he had been conscious, he could have expressed as follows: I know that the legality of the world is not set up in such a way that this wild beast will now tear me apart, but the harmony of the world is such that it means it. Who must protect me from my enemy.
So directly in harmony with the forces of space felt the old moonman. And if a feeling of self had awakened in him, it would have immediately disturbed this harmony. And the feeling of me actually, as it began to penetrate man on earth, has brought him more and more into disharmony with his surroundings. The Helllistener hears the universe ring out in a mighty harmony, and when he compares the sounds that penetrate from the individual people to him, so Today this gives a discord to all people, more to one, to the other, less so, but it is a discord. And your task is to resolve this discord more and more in harmony in the course of your development. Through the insoence this discord has arisen, but wisely it was set up by the spiritual powers that dominate and guide space. If people had always remained in harmony, they would never have come to self-employment. The discord was used so that man could achieve harmony freely, on his own strength. The self-confident feeling of self had to develop first at the expense of inner harmony. When the time comes when the consciousness of Jupiter lights up, and man again comes back in harmony connection with the forces of the cosmos, then he will save his self-conscious feeling with his self-confidence into the new state of consciousness, so that man then Independent self and yet will be in harmony with space.
We have now seen that the new consciousness of Jupiter is already being announced in the feeling of fear. But whenever a future state begins to occur before time, it is premature and not quite in place. This will be clear to you by an example. If a flower, which by its very nature should bloom in August, is brought to heap in a greenhouse as early as May, it will no longer be able to unfold in August, when its actual flowering period has come; Her powers will be exhausted and she will no longer fit into the conditions she should then get into. And in May, too, as soon as you remove it from the greenhouse, it will have to go to the bottom, because it does not fit into the natural conditions of this time of year. Straadeso it is with the sense of anxiety. It is still out of place today and much less so in the future. What happens when you feel an anxiety? The blood is pressed into the center of man, into the heart, in order to form a fixed center, in order to make man strong against the outside world. It is the innermost power of the I that causes this. This power of copyright Rudolf Steiner estate administration Book: 266a page: 297 I, which acts on the blood, which must become more and more conscious and on Jupiter, man will then be able to consciously direct his blood after the center and become strong. The unnatural and harmful thing about it, however, today is the feeling of fear associated with this blood flow. This must not be allowed to happen in the future, only the forces of the I, without fear, must work there.
In the course of human development, the outside world around us is becoming more and more hostile. More and more you must learn to confront your inner power with the heraving outside world. But fear must disappear. And especially for those who undergo esoteric training, it is necessary, unavoidably, to free himself from all feelings of fear and fear. Only here does fear have a certain justification, where it alerts us to stand strong, but all the unnatural feelings of fear that torment people must disappear altogether. What should happen if man still has feelings of fear and fear, and Jupiter consciousness comes to an end? There, the outside world will face man much, much more hostile and terrible than it is today. A person who does not get used to fear here will fall there from a terrible horror to the other.
In the course of human development, the outside world around us is becoming more and more hostile. More and more you must learn to confront your inner power with the heraving outside world. But fear must disappear. And especially for those who undergo esoteric training, it is necessary, unavoidably, to free himself from all feelings of fear and fear. Only here does fear have a certain justification, where it alerts us to stand strong, but all the unnatural feelings of fear that torment people must disappear altogether. What should happen if man still has feelings of fear and fear, and Jupiter consciousness comes to an end? There, the outside world will face man much, much more hostile and terrible than it is today. A person who does not get used to fear here will fall there from a terrible horror to the other.
In order for man to fully grow up in the face of the evil forces of the future, he must have the innermost power of his self in his hands, he must be able to regulate the blood consciously in such a way. That it makes him strong against evil, but without fear of any kind. He must then have the power that drives the blood inward in his power. But even that other ability to pour the blood from the heart to the periphery must not be lost on it. Because the state of Jupiter will in some way also mean a return to the old moon consciousness. Man will come back into harmony with the great world laws and feel at one with them. He will regain the ability to flow together with the spiritual world powers, but not unconsciously and dawnfully as on the moon, but on Jupiter he will always maintain his bright awareness of the day and self-confident I-feeling and yet live in harmony. With the forces and laws of the world. The discord will then dissolve in harmony. And in order to be able to let oneness flow into the harmony of space, he must consciously learn to let the innermost power of his self radiate from the heart. He must therefore be able to consciously centralize the inner forces of his blood when an enemy confronts him, and he must also be able to radiate them consciously. Then only he will be up to future circumstances.
The one who is striving for an inner development must begin today to gradually get these forces more and more into his power. He does it by consciously learning his breath and moving in. When man draws his breath, the forces of the I enter into activity, which bring him into connection with the forces of the cosmos, those forces that radiate from the heart to the outside. And when man spends his breath and when he abstains from the breath, those forces of the I enter into activity, which push for the center points, after the heart, and there create a fixed center there. Thus, even today, when the disciple consciously does his breathing exercises in this sense, he learns to gradually master the powers of his self. No one can believe, however, that they independently carry out such exercises if they have not yet received instructions on them. Everyone will get them at right time. But even for those who do no such exercises, it is never too early to familidate themselves with the meaning of these exercises and to gain understanding of them. They will then become all the more fruitful for him later. So you, my sisters and brothers, are also to gain more and more understanding for the subtle processes within you and in the world as a whole and gradually grow into the future periods of human development.
* See therefore december 5 1907
Number 25b
Berlin, 1-26-'08
What we aspire to in esoteric life is the attainment of a different, higher state of consciousness than is the one we are in now. We are looking to reach a state that would only occur — with the ordinary course of things — on Jupiter. In a different way, of course, this condition occurs in the occult pupil, who undergoes the development in advance, than in the Jupiter man. Jupiter man will have a very different physical body than we possess today.
There are states in everyday consciousness in all people reminiscent of the moon's state and others in which the state of Jupiter protrudes. When the pubic blush kicks us in the face, we repeat a piece of lunar condition. Why this? On the moon, we didn't have blood yet. But we know that blood is the expression of our self. On the old moon, all the forces that work in our blood today were outside ours. There was not yet a feeling of me in us. If we blush out of shame, we would like to say: Oh I wouldn't be, I soak into the earth. — In doing so, we are pushing the blood outwards, as it were, passing our self off.
Another condition that points to Jupiter is the one that occurs when we feel fright, fear by fading. What is happening? We push our blood for the heart to strengthen our self. We do this instinctively to make ourselves strong, to avert a danger from us. On Jupiter, the heart will become an arbitrary muscle — at will we can amplify our self. For in fact, on Jupiter, events and Beings will confront us in which we have absolutely necessity to strengthen our self-consciousness. But we must seek to reach a state where we protect our self in exactly the same way as with the feeling of anxiety, without having a sense of anxiety.
If we take a deep breath and hold our breath, we recap a piece of lunar condition. If, on the other hand, we leave our breath outside, we have a piece of Jupiter's state in it. This is related to whether the secret student gets exercises in which he has to hold his breath, because in a way he has to go through the moon state, or whether he gets exercises in which he has to leave his breath outside, because he can thus reach the Jupiter state. Everyone has to be treated individually.
We know that the flow of humanity is already splitting in two parts, the one that passes into the good, the moral, and the other that ends into the chilling, evil. Such conditions are already starting to take place, the germs are already present. So everything that is today in machines, instruments in the world and set in motion, on which Jupiter becomes terrible, horrifying demons. Anything that serves only the principle of usefulness will once become such terrible powers. Paralyzed, this can become when we transform the usefulness apparatus into those that, in addition to its usefulness, proclaim above all the beauty, the divine. It is very good that we know this. Otherwise, such powers would tear the Earth apart. We also see how enormously important it is that in the education of the child we surround the same thing with artistic impressions. Art frees up. Even the locomotive must once be converted into a machine that is beautiful. — Our feelings of fear and anxiety are food for other evil beings. We do not have to give rise to such ideas. Because on Jupiter, such demons are surrounded us in far greater numbers than they are now. But for whom there is nothing to fear in this respect, who, like a clever man, keeps his shell pure, so that no flies can accumulate around the dirt. The astral plan is actually a wisdom region; [Also the world of the physical]. It was only by having selfishness descended into them with the individual I that disorder has entered them. A certain piece now in the cosmos has descend on the physical plan at this point in time, as it were as a premature birth. These are the comets. In them we still find the laws of wisdom. Therefore, the wonderful tracks in which they measure the celestial space. And a clash with our Earth's body can therefore only be assumed by materialistic astronomy.
The secret pupil must all know these things — for without knowing he would not get any further; He will one day have to understand this.
Man receives the moon consciousness on Jupiter to Earth consciousness. He approaches spiritualization.
Number 26
Berlin, 2-12-'08
One who understands the working of these numbers
Sees how his world becomes built up. Look for the four as the first number Of all the elements. From it see the three bestir itself Giving you spirit soul body. The Two arise from the sun and the moon. From this grows the Son of Man Who's like nothing in the world. He surpasses all earth kingdoms.
When something was supposed to be given to a Rosicrucian pupil through
which he could elevate himself, then the above verse and figures were
placed before his soul. These figures are nothing abstract but must be
permeated with one's feeling and intellect if one wants to understand
them. If this happens in the right way the pupil experiences truths
that are of the greatest importance for his further development. The
point is the point of life from which all evolution proceeds. All life
proceeds from a unity and goes over into manifoldness. Plurality
springs from unity.
Everything that's around us on earth comes from man. Nature is a
spread out, dismantled man. Mineral, plant and animal are found in
him. All qualities that a man has are found scattered in the kingdoms
of nature. Man is the crown of creation. All existing things come from
man.
In the second row we see how evolution proceeds in large numbers. But
plurality must bring it about that a unity arises again from it. This
happened in the middle of the Atlantean race when man acquired his I.
Man was still relatively simple then. Today he's already much more
complicated.
In the third row we see symbols for earth, water, air and fire. The
first element is contained most purely in carbon today. Man exhales
carbon dioxide; this is taken in by plants and is found solidified in
coal and diamonds.
The second element, water, isn't found on earth in its original
condition — it's what we call oxygen. People used to drink
oxygen like we drink water today. If we only had carbon and oxygen on
earth we'd get old very fast. Oxygen has the ability to let everything
live very rapidly and to constantly renew things.
That's why the third element, air, had to be added. It's the present
nitrogen, which dampens life. Without nitrogen's influence there would
be no consciousness; astrality couldn't become manifest.
The fourth element is fire. Fire plays a big role in occultism. It's
the warmth element. All four elements intermingle. We maintain our own
warmth with the help of fire. Self-consciousness wouldn't be possible
without it. We have the physical expression of our I, blood, through
it. A combustion process takes place. Thereby man has become a being
with self-consciousness, as can be seen from the first symbol in the
fourth row: the sulfur process. The second symbol consists of the
moon, sun and the ego as an appendix. The third symbol signifies the
division of the physical and etheric bodies that were originally
similar; then the physical body condenses and the finer etheric body
remains outside, surrounding it. This is similar to what happens when
salt is dissolved: first there's a milky fluid from which salt
precipitates, leaving the finer water above: the salt process. The
hexagram in the fifth row represents the double nature of man that is
intertwined, and the last upside down Venus is man's "I"
that surpasses all other creatures.
Number 27
Berlin, 2-26-'08
You'll remember the esoteric saying that stood on one of our columns
at the Munchen congress:
In pure thoughts you find the self That can maintain itself.
The truth in this verse makes up a large part of esoteric life. One
can divide everything that a man thinks and feels today into two
areas. By far the most of what men think and feel is stimulated by
outer perceptions. Thoughts and feelings are ignited by things. In
principle it makes no difference whether you see a streetcar and let
your thoughts be stimulated by this or if an astronomer looks through
a telescope and calculates a planet's path on the basis of these
observations with the help of the arc of a circle. All thoughts that
are stimulated from outside hinder the astral body's development. The
astral body is active all night long. All the thoughts that a man
thought during the day come to it. And since these are mostly thoughts
that arose through stimulation from outside, they burden it. Only the
part of the astral body that preserved its harmony through the fact
that it's born out of higher worlds works on the restoration of the
worn out physical and etheric bodies. Only thoughts that aren't
stimulated from outside work as forces in the astral body to promote
and purify it.
Where do these thoughts come from? They come from divine creator
beings. It's very important for an occult pupil to know about the
thoughts of these spiritually creative beings. These beings had the
present world in them as thoughts before they created it. The very
first thing that was in them was will; the will to act was there
first. This stimulated them to have feelings. And from feelings arose
the thought by which they solidified and created things. Thus the
world was built according to thoughts.
Today the carrying out of a human deed occurs in the reverse order.
The thought is there first — stimulated by an outer object; this
arouses a feeling, and only then does a man's will principle step in
to bring about a deed.
All real esoteric life can only develop by taking in the thoughts of
these divine creator spirits, the thoughts before the creation of
things. Most people devote themselves entirely to exoteric life and
try to suppress all esoteric life. Thereby they're holding up human
progress. They're enemies of further development and they rigidify
men. Only esoteric truths promote human evolution.
Now it's a law of occultism that every esoteric truth is used up after
awhile. And mankind's leaders must see to it that a new one is
proclaimed. So what do we need a new truth for, some say. They want to
stop all esoteric progress. It's the task of all true occultists to
see to it that thinking is kept alive and in flux. This is attained by
taking in the thoughts of divine creator beings. These thoughts work
at night in the astral body and work into the etheric body. And when
the work of these thoughts in the astral body becomes ever stronger
and more active with respect to the etheric body, then that moment
approaches that must come sooner or later for every pupil where he
becomes aware of spiritual worlds, where thoughts become impressed in
the etheric body like a seal in wax.
One of these thoughts is in the Rosicrucian verse that we spoke of
last time. Today we'll look at this verse from a somewhat different
viewpoint. We know that Saturn existed first. Its matter wasn't even
gaseous, it was a warmth matter. A man with present-day senses would
not have seen Saturn; he would only have felt warmth if he was at the
place where Saturn stood. A Saturn man consisted of warmth mater. The
atmosphere of Saturn was fiery-bloody. Man didn't have any blood yet,
but the first germ of his later blood lay in the atmosphere around
him. Man's physical parts were only germinally present.
If one looks at how after a pralaya old Saturn changed into old Sun
with the spiritual gaze that moves over the planets one notices that
Saturn's warmth atmosphere condenses into air. Man gets an etheric
body on the Sun. He is a shining being. Spiritual beings work through
the Sun's astral atmosphere upon the etheric body, ignite it and
thereby make it shine. One calls this the sulfuric process. Something
quite similar arises today in thinking. When our fiery blood runs into
nerve masses there's a combustion process and things light up.
When the Sun passes over to the Moon, air condenses to water. The Moon's
body is a water body. We notice something very strange about this
water body. Single water drops change their position in an extremely
lively manner and race around with inner mobility. In some respects one
can compare this property of the water drops with mercury. That's why
one calls this principle that's added on the Moon the mercurial
principle. The parts are put together into forms by sounds, somewhat
like Chladni's sound figures. First two came together, then two pairs
made four, etc., just as one still finds in new plant, animal and
human forms. That's the female principle. The male principle only
arose later from pure earth forces.
When the moon passed over to the
earth, water condensed to earth. The precipitating salt process took
place on the earth for the first time through the interaction of fire
and water. Man arose from female and male and began to dissolve things
again through thinking so that evolution could continue. Man received
the erring I on earth.
Now if we look at this evolutionary series we see the four
elements fire, air, water, earth as in the third line of the
verse (2–12):
... see the three salt, mercury and sulfur, two arise from sun and moon(male and female) From this grows the Son of Man The crown of creation.
Understood like this, the Rosicrucian verse gains meaning.
Number 28
Berlin, 3-14-'08
Strive towards fire; Then you'll have fire. Ignite fire. Throw body, soul and spirit in fire; Then you have dead and living fire. It becomes black yellow white red fire. Give birth to your children in fire. Feed, water and nourish them in fire. Then they live and die in fire. Their silver and gold all become fire, And finally become a fourfold philosophical fire.
If an esoteric mediates on these lines and the diagram they give him
much strength. During the Saturn period there was only a warmth globe
on which the spirits of darkness attained their human stage. The blood
we had then was dark. There was a hidden fire or warmth on the planet,
but no light. When Saturn disappeared, the Sun rose from the darkness,
the second, air element with its oxygen made Saturn's glimmer burst
into flames, and then there was light, as is symbolized by the
alchemist's sulfur. Blood turned from black to yellow.
During the Moon period the whole atmosphere was watery, but not like
the water we know. It was divided into spherical drops that moved past
each other with tremendous speed. One finds this condition of Moon
substance in quicksilver, that also divides into very small spheres
and is more mobile than all other substances. During the Moon period
blood was as white as this substance, and it was given forms by the
world tone. These forms are female. The whole Moon represents the
female principle.
The fourth, earth element appeared during the Earth period in
connection with the third alchemistic substance — salt, the
symbol of crystallization and dissolution. This is where the male
element appears. Our present men with their red blood are shaped on
the earth. Everything that dissolves is salt.
Thus we have four kinds of fire in the four kinds of blood: black on
old Saturn, yellow on old Sun, white on old Moon and red on earth. The
warmth that now lives in our blood is the warmth of the planet Saturn.
All these bloods or fires are still in us and are instruments for
spirits who work in and on us, until we'll be individualized enough to
do what these spirits do. The air we inhale is the instrument, bearer
or body of a certain kind of spirit. The light rays that pass into our
eyes have a light spirit in them who works upon our eyes. Saturn
spirits find a point of attack in the warmth of the blood and ego.
Some of them are very bad and dangerous.
The verse above shows the way to control our instruments. The four
kinds of fire refer to our four lower sheaths that are the
"children" of the I. They must be "burned in the
fire of the spirit," so that they can become a fourfold
philosophical fire in the Vulcan period. We must "add fire to
fire," that is, the fiery, lower passions must be purified by
uniting them with the higher, spiritual fire.
We might get a clearer idea of how this happens if we consider that
our whole life is filled with four kinds of activity. We perceive the
surroundings with our physical senses. We feel sympathy or antipathy
for others with our life body. We feel wishes and emotions with our
desires body. We draw conclusions and make decisions with our
intellect. That's the most important part, that we form conclusions
and decisions. We can change our opinions about a thing, but a done
deed remains, and the result of a whole planetary period depends upon
the decisions that were made during it. Just as fire leaves ashes of
the burnt material behind, so a resolve or decision leaves something
good or bad behind forever. That's why an occult principle says: when
in doubt, do nothing.
The ashes that a thought leaves strengthen bones, and so people with
rickets do better if they think abstractly. Our sympathy or antipathy
works on the etheric body. We can easily see this through ordinary
observation. We know that the etheric body controls glands. A gourmet
drools when he sees good food. The glands in our body dry out and
become like the bark of a tree that protects the interior to the
extent that we learn to control ourselves and to bring our sympathy or
antipathy into harmony. Saps rise and fall in a plant, and in winter
it dies because it has no protection from the cold. Whereas a tree
allows its outer side to dry out and become bark; this protects it
from the cold and storms. That's the way an initiate is; his life body
doesn't die from one incarnation to the next. That's the way Druids
were, and "Druid" means oak — the strongest tree.
Blood is the I's instrument. Saturn spirits work in the warmth of our
blood, as Christ worked in Jesus' blood from age 30 on. Before that
Jesus had worked on his physical, etheric and astral bodies. Then
Christ took hold of the blood and purified it during the three years.
That's why blood had to flow. When we've purified our four bodies in
the same way we'll then have the four-fold philosophical fire that
belongs to the Vulcan period.
Number 29
Munich, 3-17-'08
It's the task of the 5th post-Atlantean epoch to develop
spirit self. This occurs in the Indian age through the spirit self
sinking into the sentient body. In the next Persian sub-race manas
permeate the sentient soul and thereby enters a new element, the soul
element. The result of this is that certain demons who previously had
no power over men were liberated and became hostile. Demonology arises
in this race; no demons had been mentioned in previous sagas and
myths. In the third sub-race manas sinks into the intellectual soul of
Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Semites. Nothing much changes,
for manas remains in the same soul element. In the 4th, the
Greco-Roman sub-race spirit self develops in the consciousness soul and
also remains in the soul element. Christ Jesus comes down to earth. He
has the power to overcome hostile demons. The Bible says that he bound
Satan for a thousand years. Our fifth sub-race follows, and now manas
steps into a new element again. It begins to live in its own element:
spirit self in spirit self. Thereby new hostile powers are liberated
that mankind didn't know before. And namely these enemies come out of
man's own breast. Men hinder each other by influencing each other more
than they ever had before. A case that was investigated occultly can
serve as an example.
Four people lived together. The first one was a little feeble-minded
and crazy. The second one was considered to be a very talented man, he
was productive and worked outwardly. The third was a so-called average
man and the fourth was a really highly developed man, although he
couldn't express himself. What does this look like from an occult
perspective? The first one has a very weak will but is otherwise
normally disposed. The apparently average number three is inwardly
deranged and streams this into the first one. What's with the second
talented, productive man? He really only has the talent of being able
to express something. The valuable content in everything he produced
was a transfer of the knowledge and forces of wisdom of the
4th one, who however didn't have the ability to express
himself. But when he stammered a sentence there was much more real
force in there than in the brilliant words that streamed out from
number two, impressing men so much.
It's a man's task today to free himself ever more from the restrictive
influences in his environment, and also not to let any such influences
go out from him. A man is supposed to become increasingly free. A man
is supposed to recognize and realize the eternal laws of the good out
of his own free will. The spiritual world only discloses itself to an
inwardly free human being. When some esoteric pupils say that they're
hearing voices who are telling them what to do in their daily affairs,
they're deceiving themselves. The masters are silent about everyday
matters. They only speak if a man rises above his existence to the
great world laws concerning human and world evolutions. A man must
learn to become quite free and independent in his small circle, so
that he can enter the spiritual world as a free, self-conscious being,
for only thereby can he become a usable member in human evolution.
Number 30
Berlin, 4-12-'08
A man had spiritual vision and knowledge in earlier stages of
development. His body was a kind of resting place for him in which he
could sleep and lose his consciousness while he was in it. As his
being became increasingly conscious on the physical plane his
spiritual perception and cognition decreased. When man became very
interested in things around him he lost his spiritual vision and
cognition entirely, and a dense veil covered spiritual things. This
interest in outer sense phenomena is called estimatio in
occultism, and estimatio is a poison that brings death. It
takes away consciousness of the continued existence of the I and
thereby brings a consciousness of birth and death with it. It blots
out consciousness of the I and the memory of continued life.
Consciousness must not be withdrawn from the outer world entirely, for
then it wouldn't take the essence of what it gained from outer
experiences with it. However this is the case in imagination. It must
not be completely inactive; a man must be able to direct his
consciousness at a picture of his action at will. A man wouldn't be
able to raise his hand if he couldn't imagine it pictorially. When he
raises his hand the picture and action are present simultaneously. If
he begins to make mental images without an action, that is, if he
unites his consciousness with the imagined picture he'll then regain
the ability to see astral things. This stage is called imago.
When the soul attains complete peace or quiet so that it remains
completely peaceful no matter what approaches it, then its
consciousness will be able to penetrate the veil of the harmony of the
spheres. This means transmutatio through inspiritation or
incatatio. When glands were created on old Sun it happened
through a process that's similar to the one that takes place in our
body when someone thinks of food and this makes his mouth water.
Glands were created on old Sun by higher beings who, as it were,
tasted the surroundings and secreted the gland substance that was
absorbed by physical bodies. Adrenal glands secrete a substance that
promotes bone building. The pancreas transforms sugar into substances
that are good for nutrition. Secretion of the glands is a process
that's brought about by soul processes.
When man lived in an astral or picture consciousness so that his
spirit could go into spiritual realms at will, some beings remained at
this stage. This stage remained crystallized in them, as it were, and
birds represent this in a crystallized form. Birds like eagles who
have such a wonderful eye, have crystallized astral vision. Mammals
crystallized the stage where man tried to control his body's
movements. These animals attained this only partially and therefore
remained behind at a lower stage of evolution.
Number 31
Berlin, 5-15-'08
Man gains interest in the physical world through perception or
estimatio. It's this interest that fetters him to the physical
world. One can grow out of this by seeing the spiritual behind things
in the sense world. In an earlier stage of consciousness men had
imaginatio and no estimatio for physical things, and
even earlier they had incantatio or inspiratio. Moderns
usually only have estimatio during the day, and they have
imaginatio at night. Men are unproductive in daytime; they used
to be much more productive. Moderns are only productive during sleep.
Consciousness arises when the astral body and ego destroy the physical
and etheric bodies during the day. When the astral body and ego become
aware of their physical surroundings it's as if the nerves were being
torn to pieces.
Corporeal tiredness arises from the destructive, deadly effect of the
astral body and ego on the etheric and physical bodies. The streaming
of the physical world into man's organism has a poisonous, destructive
effect.
At night the ego and astral body take in the forces of the spiritual
world and stream them into the physical and etheric bodies. They
surround the physical body with pictures that have a healing effect on
it. The first thing a man sees when the spiritual world opens before
him for the first time is his physical body. This picture of the
physical body has a healing effect on him. Likewise the astral body
and ego work upon the rest of man in a strengthening, healing way at
night through true pictures out of the spiritual world. They stream
into the ripped nerve strands and destroyed organism. Thereby forces
from the spiritual world stream in at night that eliminate tiredness
from the body.
Tiredness mainly arises from interest in things. No tiredness is
caused if one looks at something without personal interest. For
instance, say someone really likes a tasty food. Thereby he has a
personal interest in the food because it stimulates his gums. It has
quite a different effect on a man if he knows his connection with the
cosmos and that he's at a stage where he has a physical body that
needs food. This affects his organism differently than if he only eats
food for pleasure. A man must get to know spiritual things through the
physical body, and then he loses interest in physical things.
A man should look upon estimatio as the low point in evolution.
He must grow out of this into the imaginatio that he had
previously. But if he connects himself with the physical world he goes
below the lowest point and can no longer ascend. It's very important
for a man to learn to occupy himself with things that lie beyond the
physical plane, with ideas and concepts that are super-sensible.
Exercises are given to this end. The longer and more patiently a pupil
practices certain ideas, the more he learns to overcome personal
interests and to ascend to imaginatio. Then a man becomes
productive instead of just taking in things from outside. He then
streams something from within out into the world. One rightly says
that man has the sun and moon in him. When he looks at things without
personal interest he streams a spiritual light onto them; he becomes a
sun who illumines things. They reflect his light. The surroundings
that reflect his light become a moon.
Correct ideas have a healing effect on man, and wrong ideas make him
sick. One can find a wrong idea behind every disease, if one traces it
back. Mankind in general is responsible for this and not individuals.
Interest also has a destructive effect when people run from one
sensation to the other and always want to be amused. That makes people
sick. It's also a hindrance to progress to have a personal interest in
higher knowledge. Men become scleroticized thereby. A man must not
become indifferent to his surroundings. He must retain his feeling and
sympathy for his surroundings. Some say that sympathy can also come from
egotism. That may be the case. Many kinds of sympathy only arise
because one doesn't want to see other people suffer. That's even a
good thing. It's better for a man to help someone out of egotistical
sympathy than not to help him at all. But we must learn to develop a
sympathy that stands above egoism, that helps neighbors because it's
one's duty to help them.
Number 32
Hamburg, 5-22-'08
Self-knowledge is the thirst and main thing in esoteric training. The
teacher says: Imagine that you saw your own mirror image. You'll see a
distorted image if the mirror is poor, and a correct one if it's good.
If you want to see yourself the way you are, you must make the mirror
nice and clear.
One who lets himself be torn back and forth by his desires and wishes,
who can't make his own decisions, who follows that other people tell
him, is like a boat in a sea that's being driven up and down by waves
and winds. But a man who controls his wishes and desires, who doesn't
let himself be influenced by other people is like a man who gets a
strong and sure grip on the rudder and guides the boat to the goal
through wind and weather.
People who drink alcohol have a different effect on us than men who
drink milk. We're exposed to all kinds of streams that go through
space. We're not free if we let these streams influence us. Let's make
this clear through four people. A is one you call a sensitive
man who quickly understands everything around him. But he himself is
weak; nothing original comes from his soul. He's connected with
B who has dispositions for a certain form of insanity, although
it doesn't break out because of his robust peasant nature. C is
a strong spiritual person, a genius. D is like A,
sensitive and receptive. The kind of insanity that's concealed in
B breaks out in the sensitive A; it's not his insanity,
but B's. Sensitive D doesn't take in B's
insanity, but C's geniality. D seems to be a clever,
genial man, but he's just a reflection of C's cleverness; he
can speak brilliantly about everything, but he can't make a single
correct judgment by himself. A strong, independent personality might
not seem to be very brilliant and might only make a few, hesitant
judgments, but he makes them by himself, out of inner deliberation and
strength. Such a man would certainly seem to be more valuable than
D. An esoteric pupil should free himself from all outer
influences, not by fleeing the world, but by making the true man, the
spiritual or higher I, independent. We really have not just four but
five members, namely, physical, etheric and astral bodies, a sheath
ego and behind that the real I, the true man. We pour all influences
from the outer world into this sheath ego; they tear and pull us back
and forth. All influences that go from man to man in the way just
indicated hit the sheath ego. We must try to strengthen the true, real
I that far surpasses the other one. Then we're immune to outer
influences.
How do we do that? In good Rosicrucian schools pupils were given a
symbol like this. And the teacher says:
You won't be able to apply the method that you get through this sign
for everything that happens to you during the day, especially in these
hectic times, but you should do it once in a thousand cases. For that
time conjure up this form before your spiritual eye so that you stand
before it when you're supposed to make a decision. Think that
"order me" stands written along the one line. Then let
everything that can be said in favor of the deed in question run
through your soul. Everything must be well and consequently thought
out. A fact that follows from the preceding one must be thought
through factually until the goal of your resolve stands clearly before
your soul at the end of the line. Then think of the other line. What's
written on this is: "forbid me." Here you must line up all
the facts that speak against the decision. This must happen just as
clearly and matter-of-factly as before, without sympathy or antipathy.
Then let your gaze move along the upright that's not written on. Imagine
that your real I, not the sheath I, is standing there. Then wait
quietly and compare the facts that are there on the lines "order
me" and "forbid me" by looking from one to the
other. And then the right decision will arise in you and this will
have been given to you by your real I.
You must do something similar when you have to make a judgment. The
"right" is written on one line and "wrong" on
the other. Your higher I stands at the uninscribed line. It's unmoved
by the streams that go through space, whether they come from other
people or other spiritual beings. This true, independent inner I,
uninfluenced by the sheath's ego, then tells you the right judgment, if
you listen silently and in complete inner quiet and seclusion to what
it tells you.
Such forms and lines come from the spiritual realm The masters of
wisdom and of the harmony of feelings gave them to us because they
know that they work in the spiritual element in us. A form like this
awakens the true I in a man and lifts it out of consciousness into
consciousness. The Gods once created man out of forms, numbers and
lines — or measure, number and weight, as one says in occultism.
Numbers, lines and forms influence men. This is known by black
magicians. They use them to make men dependent. They know how to use
forms, numbers and lines to make men slaves of their will impulses.
White magic makes a man independent. Its goal is to raise the higher
man, the inner ruler, into a man's consciousness and to thereby make a
man into a free, strong, independent being.
Number 33
Hamburg, 5-24-'08
Today desire goes out of the astral body, interest lies in the I, and
pleasure is in the etheric body. Previously interest was in the astral
body, desire was in the etheric body and pleasure was in the physical
body; this was in the Lemurian epoch when there was no disease, food
flowed in and out, and egoless people without interest in outer things
changed bodies like clothes. Pictures arose in the astral body that told
a man what was good or harmful for him. He was interested in the
pictures that arose within him and this interest remained when he
changed bodies. This was a permanent astral consciousness. This changed
when the I that had been in the spiritual world sank into man and
permeated him more and more. Interest moved into the I. The I drew
interest up to itself, it drew everything up to its own realm. Thereby
it tied itself off from the Gods, and the result was death. Everything
that doesn't happen for the whole but for a single something that's
separated from the whole, and therefore is egoism, finally leads to
the destruction of this single thing, to death.
Rosicrucianism calls this interest that goes out from the ego
estimatio. We must raise our interest to the astral plane
again; whereby we gain imaginatio. When desire is brought back
into the etheric body we attain incantatio or
inspiratio. And by putting pleasure back into the physical body
we get intuitio.
When we no longer follow personal interests in our actions, when we do
what we have to do in such a way that we follow the inner necessities
that a rightly understood law of karma places on us, when we give our
deeds to the outer world with inner equanimity and in accordance with
this law, then we overcome estimatio through our own higher I
who is then the doer. And when bound by the strength of this I we no
longer let ourselves be driven by the streams and influences that
storm in on us from the outer world we can then make right judgments
about the outer world and we gather wisdom from it. It reveals its
inner nature to us when we stand before it with equanimity, and when
we think and act in such a way that we know: All of my thoughts,
feelings and deeds influence the whole, nothing exists for itself; I
want to give everything to humanity, let everything be dedicated to
the service of mankind. When this lives in a pupil as the basic
feeling, he then develops Buddhi, the Christ principle. Thus he lets
the higher triad arise from the given figure: Manas, Buddhi, Atman.
Number 34
Hamburg, 5-31-'08
One must repeatedly let what one had heard in esoteric classes pass
before one's soul, and only then will one gradually get out the forces
that are hidden in what's given. In this way one learns to distinguish
between thoughts that work productively in one's soul and those that
are unproductive since they only reflect on things that are already
given. If one looks at a watch one can make its whole construction and
how it's kept in motion clear in one's thought. But they are
unproductive thoughts. The one who first invented a watch had
productive thoughts. Most of our scientific thinking is unproductive.
But when we occupy ourselves with what's given to our thinking in
esoteric classes we occupy ourselves with productive thoughts, and
that's a source of strength for our soul. Such thoughts must pass
through our soul in the right order. Just as nothing could exist in an
organism if a leg was attached where an arm was supposed to be, so
everything in our thinking must be consequent. Let's place such a
thought structure before our soul today.
One says a lot about wisdom. But wisdom isn't what's often called
wisdom today. One gets smart through experience, but wisdom is the
force that streams into us from the spiritual world and then streams
out again. Wisdom also comes from the mouth of babes. When what
streams out comes more from the feeling, it's wisdom, but when it
stimulates a man into action so that productivity predominates, it's
love. But one has to know what love really is. Someone may feel
sympathy for a man's misfortune, but that isn't real love. Sympathy
only becomes love if one steps in and helps him. Wisdom and love make
up the I. The I is love and wisdom that have become will. This is the
higher triad. When it's reflected somewhat lower I, love and wisdom
become thinking, willing and feeling, respectively. Reflected even
further down they become the four temperaments. Men have composite
temperaments, but angels only have one each. The first kind of angels
are those who work the choleric temperament into men. Such people like
to do things. Sanguine angels inject men with a temperament that makes
them receptive to all sublime and beautiful things, although such men
aren't very active. They get enthused easily but don't stick to
anything very long.
Phlegmatic angels influence men so that they're not interested in what
others have created. They do not leave such a creation the way it is,
they repeatedly change it, they make everything flowing and
indefinite. This is already expressed in the word phlegma, which means
slime. Phlegmatics can't make decisions and resolutions and so they're
always missing opportunities. Their bodies have soft and indefinite
forms, they walk softly as they weave back and forth. And yet such
people can also be choleric in their insistence on particular foods
that they like. Melancholic angels work on a man so that he sees
everything in himself, he's only occupied with himself, he does
nothing for progress. So he doesn't enjoy creation and becomes dull
and dark. One must judge all characters on the basis of what the
individual does for the whole's progress. If one reflects these
qualities even further down then choleric corresponds to fire, air to
sanguine, phlegmatic to water, and melancholic to earth — there
everything becomes rigid and solid.
One should hold such figures before one repeatedly. They make it
possible that our soul organism is built up in the right way. One must
think through such figures clearly. Our inner life can't be
strengthened by thoughts that oscillate back and forth. The soul gets
stronger if one places such forms before one's spiritual eye.
Number 35
Berlin, 6-5-'08
The content of what's given in an esoteric class isn't much different
from what's given in an exoteric one — it's the way that it's
given that's different. An esoteric shouldn't just imbibe information.
Every class should be an experience of his soul. At the end of a class
we should be different from what we were before it.
In esoteric schools they used to say: If you don't know whether you
should do something or not, don't do it. But one can't say this to an
exoteric, because he'd get lazy and wouldn't get experiences. One
finds the following exchange in a Rosicrucian book: The pupil's heart
asks the teacher: How do I find the path to higher development? The
teacher answers: When you find the place that's free from all personal
things. The pupil's heart asks: Where do I find this place? The
teacher: In your I that wills without self, and that thinks without
sense perception. Question: How can I will without a self, how can I
think without senses? Answer: Will without I, think outside of your
self.
People often ask whether it wouldn't be better to use the time that
one uses for development for doing good deeds in the world. But
occultists must reply that time that's spent on development isn't
wasted. For a man can only work well and rightly for mankind by making
himself more perfect. Outer deeds that seem to be ever so good can be
harmful; one just doesn't know it. There's chaos in our soul now; we
must develop it into an organism, just as our body was made into a
well structured organism through the wisdom of higher beings. We
attain this by bringing certain lines and figures before our souls and
finding out what they mean. (See the previous lesson.) The three upper
dots have come together voluntarily; reflected over into the soul
element they make themselves into a triangle with sides.
a=devotion, leading up to the Gods; i=a particular direction that's supposed to lead to the divine; o= the all embracing God-head; the embracing of revealed form; u=resting in the Godhead and feeling protected in divine peace; e=a streaming in from far distant spaces (overcoming of difficulties); ei=divine revelation into men before which one retreats shyly with reverence; oe=same as ei but more so. A man feels that he's enclosed in his body with the active Gods outside.
Number 36
Munich, 6-14-'08
Impatience slows development of the organs one needs to see into
higher worlds. For many pupils already have spiritual organs developed
before they know about them or know how to use them. It's like a
sleeper who hears nothing because the ego and astral body have left
his ears.
When we look at a rose its red color, form, etc. has a destructive
effect on our retina. The rose sensation runs along our nerves and has
a destructive effect on them. The astral body throws what the retina
receives into the etheric body that thereby gets many impressions from
outside daily.
What tears down the physical body builds things up in the etheric
body. The latter builds itself up through impressions and experiences
from outside. The astral body is also destroyed by outer impressions
and then the I is supposed to build things up again. The astral body
is harmoniously organized when it comes to a new incarnation and is
then made disharmonious. That's the occult explanation for the fact
that most children cry after they're born. Their astral body feels
that entry into life destroys its harmony and it feels this as pain.
This harmony can only be restored by the I, through the creation of
thought pictures that the I throws into the etheric body via the
astral body, and that are viable. Most of the impressions that we send
to our etheric body in ordinary life are worthless as far as their
vitality is concerned. We should create mental images that are clear
and rightly structured and therefore are able to live. For instance,
what the eyes receive from outside they throw onto the etheric body,
on which the picture arises. The I then works on the etheric body from
the other side via the astral body by forming a thought in this that
it throws on the etheric body as an impression; and the main thing is
that they should be the right, viable thoughts. These viable thoughts
form our spiritual organs that'll make us clairvoyant. Just as Gods
created our physical body harmoniously so that each organ and limb is
at the right place, so we must form our astral and etheric bodies
harmoniously and make our thoughts viable. This doesn't have to take
long. An experienced esoteric often only needs a minute to harmonize
his impressions again. One creates such organ-forming, vital
impressions in one's etheric body through meditation, by immersing
oneself in certain concepts, in eternal thoughts.
For instance, it's important for every pupil to meditate on the wisdom
concept. This doesn't mean that he should form a firmly outlined,
intellectual definition of wisdom. He should have mobile views about it
that are easy to change. Wisdom and cleverness or erudition are very
different things. Some beings don't think and yet are very wise. They
execute plans very wisely, although they were created by other beings.
There are also men who aren't clever or erudite but are wise. Now if one
meditates on the wisdom concept in the right way some wisdom will flow
into us, enlightenment from higher worlds will come to us.
A second concept that one should meditate on is love. What the average
person calls love is often nothing but crass egotism. True love is
always productive, as when an artist devotes himself creatively to his
work. The Gods created our earth out of love as they devoted
themselves entirely to the creation that they sweat out of themselves,
as it were. What can unite love and wisdom is that I that always works
at itself, that must always be egofied anew, as Fichte puts it. One
only understands Fichte's philosophy rightly if one sees that the I
must always create itself anew, must know itself anew. That's also
what Meister Eckhart means when he says: What good is it to be a king
if one isn't aware that one is one.
All things on higher planes throw shadows onto lower ones, and so I,
wisdom and love work as thinking, feeling and willing on the next,
lower plane. One who thinks intentively about it will realize that the
I is changed into thinking, wisdom passes over into feeling, and
productive love becomes will, that is the impulse to creativity, to
devotion. To complement these three points and the triangle it's good
to meditate on four other points and a square. Choleric, sanguine,
phlegmatic and melancholic beings create an etheric body for a man
when he presses towards a new incarnation. Each man gets something
from each of these beings, although one or the other usually
predominates. This dominant temperament becomes manifest in a man's
whole behavior, especially when he is young. For instance, phlegmatic
beings are enemies of the philistine, petty things that a man would
get into if he got too much from the melancholic beings. Choleric
beings also become manifest in fire, sanguine ones in air, phlegmatics
in water and melancholic beings in earth. Our earth is the outer
expression for melancholy that has become physical. If one meditates on
all of this one will someday lose consciousness of the outer world and
will then know what eternity is and that birth and death are only
changes. The etheric body will light up from the other side through
the I and we'll see the effects of the eternal, live thoughts that we
imprinted on it, namely, the clairvoyant organs that we can now use.
If we're impatient and try to speed up this process the I illumines
the etheric body, but we only see the outer impressions that were put
into it, distorted pictures that are often horrible, or else
beautiful, deceptive pictures. Therefore it's advisable to use the
greatest care and patience in creating well formed, proper spiritual
organs, for we're creating our future, our new earth with them. The
Gods meditated our present planet, and what we create should be just as
full of wisdom.
Every perusal of art also strengthens clairvoyant organs. For
instance, when we look at a statue it's good to feel the forms and
lines in one's thoughts. This strengthens our creative capacities.
Number 37
Stuttgart, 8-5-'08
Every esoteric who's trying to develop himself inwardly must know
about his connection with spiritual powers who live in the surrounding
world and who stream in and out of him continually. When we look at a
human being we first have his physical body. It's due to the working
of spiritual beings that the physical body is put together the way it
is. Archai work in the earth, water, air and fire elements. They
stream in and out of his physical body. Likewise archangels are at
work in his etheric body, and angels in the astral body. The sentient
soul that developed out of the latter is worked on by the Exusiai.
Dynamis work on the intellectual soul and Kyriotetes on the
consciousness soul. Even high beings work on man's higher members:
Seraphim on spirit self, Cherubim on life spirit and the Thrones on
spirit man.
When an esoteric pupil wanted to know the essence of Christian
teachings he had to look at this picture of man shaped like a tree
that's rooted in the spirit. That's why they meant by Buddha sitting
under the bodhi tree, or Nathaneal sitting under the fig tree. The
world ash Yggdrasil is also a depiction of this tree.
The forces that work on the physical body are Archai. There's four
kinds of these beings. They're not incorporated in physical bodies,
they only have a corporality down to the ether. These are the four
kings who work on man in the ether. Man owes his physical body to
these beings who live in the ether. If one thinks of ever finer
substances from solids to fluids, gases, warmth and ethers, one is
getting the wrong idea about ethers for they are quite different from
physical substances.
One should look upon the four forces in ether that work on man's
physical body as the four temperaments. The substances of the four
beings are the four temperaments. Beings who are incorporated in the
choleric temperament work in man's warmth element, those in sanguine
in his air, phlegmatic in water, and ones who are incorporated in the
melancholic temperament work in his solid or earthy things. The
melancholic temperament enables a man to form firm concepts that
remain the same, so that if he thinks horse today it will
remain the same concept for him tomorrow. Whereas the phlegmatic
temperament keeps concepts fluid so that he can always take in new
things. When a man thinks, his thoughts are firmer parts of the
uniform mass of his aura. In some people thought forms tend to stay
firm; in others they're constantly changing. If a man's forms of
thoughts are flexible, new thoughts can press into them and the two
understand each other very well. An esoteric must cultivate this
flexibility of thought forms. This is of great importance for him.
That a man can do this is based on phlegma. It's a mistake to say that
a man has this or that temperament because he has this or that
physical body. His physical body was formed out of the temperaments by
the spirits who work in him.
Number 38
Stuttgart, 8-9-'08
Many people think that they're working for the good of mankind from
morn till eve, but this is questionable. A clairvoyant can see that
efforts coming from materialistic thinking have the wrong effect, and
it may lie in some people's karma that they should wait until they can
do certain things. Then a higher being can whisper such a task in his
ear, so that it's not induced by outer circumstances. Life is a
destructive process for someone who only devotes himself to outer
sense impressions. A meditating esoteric doesn't let his life be
determined by outer circumstances as much. One who makes repeated
meditational efforts isn't exposed to astral confusions at night and
makes himself ready to receive the instructions of spiritual beings.
And it's very necessary that we be instructed in this way. For since
1879 we've entered a new stage of human evolution. Gabriel worked on
the development of a new organ in man's brain by regulating human
births (1525–1879). A 16th century man would not have
understood our present theosophy. It's up to archangel Michael to
stimulate men to use their newly acquired organ, that degenerates if a
man doesn't use it. Such a man comes under the influence of Michael's
opponent, Mammon or Beelzebub. This is the God of hindrances, who
wants to prevent men from making progress. The bacteria that arise
under his influence can give rise to terrible epidemics and strange
nervous diseases; children could be born with a ruined nervous system.
After Michael's reign comes Oriphiel who gives the divine wrath that
should only be used by highly developed people. Jesus drives the
merchants out of the temple.
Number 39
Stuttgart, 8-13-'08
Although one can't eat one's way into the spiritual world, eating the
wrong things can make spiritual development difficult or impossible.
Alcohol only arose after the Atlantean epoch to help men to become
individualized. It closes man off from his higher capacities and
encloses him in himself. That's why alcohol was used in the Dionysian
mysteries. But now all civilized people have reached that stage so
that alcohol is an unnecessary evil today. Through its use one loses
the ability to get along with others and to understand them. Alcohol
is especially harmful for esoterics since its use changes all
developed higher forces into forces of the personal ego, repeatedly
locks it into itself, and tears the astral body apart through the
opposing streams of the higher and lower I forces. The principle
through which everyone can consciously attain his individualization
was brought through the coming of Christ to the earth. That's why
Christ Jesus says: I am the true vine.
By consuming alcohol one prepares a fertile soil for hosts of
spiritual beings, just as a dirty room gets filled with flies.
The meat (but not milk and eggs) that we eat is permeated by the
animal's astral body, and so our astral body has to work to digest it.
This takes it away from its real task of creating pictures. Also at
night it's held fast by the etheric body so that it can't leave it
properly. This hinders it from its nightly task of restoring vital
forces. Vegetarian food that consists of physical and etheric things
support the creation of large, comprehensive pictures and so gives a
greater insight that lets one oversee things better without much
deliberation. The greater force doesn't exhaust us, but summons
spiritual forces.
Vegetarian food is excellent for doctors and lawyers who will find it
easier to see through their patients or their clients' affairs, but
it's not the right thing for bankers, industrialists, salesmen and
others who have a lot of calculating, for one loses the ability to
make physical combinations. People who inherited a body that can't
stand vegetarianism should not undertake an esoteric training.
The jogging, exercising and bathing that are often recommended are
wrong for an esoteric; they pull him down into his physical body. He
should try to move his limbs as little as possible.
A budding esoteric doesn't need faith, but only confidence in his
teacher, as is true for any kind of instruction, and he needs his
healthy human intellect. This will lead him to the conviction that
masters of wisdom must exist since it would be illogical to assume
that evolution stopped with us, although this in itself wouldn't tell
him who or what these masters are. But his teacher knows who they are.
A pupil can assume that basic truths like karma and reincarnation are
true on a trial basis. Then he can find out for himself whether
they're true. When something happens to him he'll tell himself that he
must have caused it, and he'll act accordingly. That's why Jesus says
that if someone strikes you on one cheek you should offer him the
other one also, because if he hits you there too he's making bad karma
good. A meditant should do six subsidiary exercises:
Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in
thoughts without going over to other things. One can prepare for this
by familiarizing oneself with the object first. After a few days one
can choose another object. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness
in the pupil as it activates the chakram between his eyebrows. One
should send this feeling through the brain and down the backbone.
Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise
also gives firmness.
Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn't fluctuate between rejoicing
to heaven and despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much
if one doesn't laugh boisterously at; one can bear a pain better if
one doesn't wallow in it too much. This gives one a feeling of quiet
calm that one lets stream from the heart to the arms, and out through
the hands.
See the beautiful and true elements in all things. Christ Jesus
admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only
saw ugliness. One can discover at least a small kernel of truth and
something beautiful in everything. If one does this exercise for some
time it gives one a feeling of great joy.
Always be open to new things. One should never say: I never heard of
that, that can't be, or I don't believe that. One should always leave
the possibility open that one can learn something from everything that
people say. Thereby one can learn from children, animals and
everything else. This gives one the feeling that one could also
perceive things while one is partly outside one's body.
This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that one can
combine two and two or any way one wants. By doing this, one gets the
feeling that one has grown beyond the limits of one's skin.
Number 40
Munich, 11-8-'08
Esoteric and exoteric lectures don't have to be very different as far
as content goes, but one should keep in mind that the masters of
wisdom and of the harmony of feelings speak to us in an esoteric
class. The important thing is in how an esoteric class is given and
that we should let its effects live in our soul. Classes are given to
us so that in life we like to think back to them and let them form a
central core in our soul. They're complements to the exercises that an
esoteric has to do.
We know that these exercises bring about colossal changes in the
astral body that had previously been disordered and unstructured,
although it was a harmonious whole, so that islands and pockets are
created through which we begin to form organs. These astral organs are
the canals through which the masters let communications from higher
worlds flow into evolution to promote it. We intervene in the Gods'
world order through this independent formation of astral organs, we
challenge it by using forces that it had previously used for other
things, and namely to protect the astral body from the effects of
negative qualities.
An esoteric must try to be objective about his neighbor's qualities
and be able to notice and tolerate their negative qualities without
judging them. For instance, he should say: I see that this man is vain
and ambitions, but at the present stage of his development these
qualities are just as necessary as other, positive ones. We can
compare things with a tree here. Even though the bark is the dying
part of a tree-organism, it is necessary to protect the interior in
which vital juices and forces circulate. Some of the forces must be
used for bark formation, but not all, otherwise the tree would
lignify, wither and die. But nature sees to it that the tree's inner
life forces counteract this and regulate the process. That's the way
things are with respect to a man's negative qualities such as ambition
and vanity and their effect on the astral body, that make it look as
if it had light rays in the form of needles coming out of it that
become fainter and further out.
The divine world order sees to it that these needles don't go deeper
into an ordinary person's astral body by sending forces out from
within to the astral body's skin, like a tree towards its bark, and
thereby makes these needles into an outer protective wall. Although an
esoteric must be objective and lenient about these qualities in other
men, he must be strict with himself and get rid of ambition and
vanity. For he uses his protective forces for other things, so that
his astral body wouldn't be able to prevent the needles from
permeating it and eventually sickening the physical body.
Another negative quality that lazy people often have is envy. It
arises in the soul because one compares one's achievements with those
of other people and painfully feels their superiority This makes the
astral body's substance cloudy and opaque. Divine forces counteract
this in an ordinary person. Anger is another negative quality. It
becomes manifest in the astral body as condensations with thorns.
Since an esoteric no longer has the protective forces that other
people have, he must develop others. Some people say that one should
combat vanity, envy, etc. by fighting them directly. This would
definitely not be the right thing for an esoteric. Fighting ambition
and vanity would get him too involved with himself, and that would
just worsen these errors. Instead, he should think about man's
seven-fold nature and his various bodies intensively. If one does this
every time that one especially feels these qualities, one will notice
that they eventually disappear The cure for envy is to meditate on
beauty in art and nature in some particular form that shouldn't have
any thing to do with the envied person. If we occupy ourselves with
something beautiful whenever we feel envy, it will gradually
disappear. Some people get angry at city noise, but the really harmful
thing there is the demons that the noise keeps in check. One must be
able to live in noise without getting angry. An esoteric attains this
by meditating intensively on the four sentences in Light of the
Path or on other verses that were given to us. Then one will see
that the noise and anger gradually disappear. Anger also has a very
bad effect on an esoteric's physical body. When we transform our
errors in this meditative way, we build a temple in us into which we
can withdraw from noise, in which we gather forces, from which we can
get strength, calm and enthusiasm. Thereby we'll feel ever more
intensely that we're a big family gathered round the shining central
point of the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings from
which light and life flow down to us. Our goal will then float before
us ever more as a shining star that nothing can darken anymore.
Number 41
Berlin, 11-11-'08
Ambition and vanity become noticeable in the astral body as thorns or
pointed streams inwards that then turn around and lose themselves
outside. When one has temptations like this, one should immediately
direct one's thoughts to great, beautiful things that were done by
outstanding geniuses. In envy there's an attack on the etheric body
that can also hinder blood circulation. A kind of fog arises in the
astral body, so that one can't see people and circumstances clearly.
When an esoteric feels envious he should think of beautiful works of
art or of revereable beings. Vanity and envy are also combated by
repeated ideas about earth evolution and man's seven members in inner
calm. The astral body's content is a zero for the spiritual world and
we must change this nothing into a something. Rage, anger and
aggravation produce nodular hardenings and fine roots in the astral
body. Blood surges and artery swelling are protective measures that
dissolve them. In curiosity folds arise in the astral body that make
it slack and passive. This slackness can continue into the physical
body. In gossipiness tensions and pressure relations arrive in the
astral body.
The way to confront these phenomena and to gradually overcome them is
to acquire inner calm. One must learn how to shut oneself off
completely from the outer world at certain times. If a pupil finds
this difficult to do he should imagine a caduceus. One will gradually
be able to make oneself unaware of the disquiet that big cities bring
with them. It wouldn't help to eliminate the world's noise, for the
harmful inner effects would remain.
Much worry dries out and withers the physical brain. Worried thoughts
make furrows in it and thereby make one think such thoughts
repeatedly. Here the physical body becomes a hindrance to a man's
progress. Facial wrinkles reflect these groove[s]. Worries live in a
certain astral substance; soters [sic] are highly developed
individualities who take this sorrow substance upon themselves. The
greatest man of sorrow was Christ.
Number 42
Berlin, 11-17-'08
If an esoteric still has aggravation of rage, curiosity or gossipiness
in him they cause great harm to his bodies. Curiosity has a
dessicating effect on the physical body, and it puts folds into the
astral body. Talkativeness shows us as cracks. When spiritual organs
are built up at night through the exercises, the cracks bring it about
that they're torn apart again.
An esoteric pupil should create 15 minutes of absolute spiritual quiet
through his will, even in the greatest noise. He can attain this
spiritual quiet better in a noisy city than in great seclusion in the
country, since it depends on the effort of will. He should create this
inner calm by withdrawing into himself so that the noises recede into
the distance.
What's elaborated in meditation doesn't just benefit the meditator
— it goes back into the cosmos and is of use to the whole world.
Number 43
Munich, 1-7-'09
Every meditation has been handed down by great initiates for
millennia; it's the path into super-sensible worlds. Each one gives us
a picture of initiation, if only as a weak reflection. It's a picture
of what we'll someday have, albeit a very faint picture.
So that the meditation can work into and upon us in the right way we
should imagine the meditational material as pictorially as possible in
a spiritual picture that we create for ourselves. For instance, when
we receive the meditation:
In pure rays of light
gleams the Godhead of the world
we should try to strip off everything that fetters us to the sense
world at these moments and devote ourselves as much as possible to
these pictures and live in them.
Meditation should be the most important and sacred event of the day
for us. If we immerse ourselves in these pictures as much as possible
and let them live in us, then depending on how intensive and serious
we are in this and on our karma we'll sooner or later experience a
moment in which we notice that these pictures and ideas are realities,
that they are a world in which we suddenly find ourselves and that's
quite different from the outer world. We find that we're on the other
side of things, as it were. Meditators who haven't advanced to vision
yet will find that as soon as they begin to meditate they are attacked
by thoughts about their surroundings and everyday life. All noises
seem to become more disturbing and all stray images and thoughts
become more insistent. It wouldn't do any good to fight them, because
powers stand behind them. It would be as if one wanted to defend
oneself against a swarm of bees by punching them: they would just
attack one even more.
There's an occult way of silencing these unwanted thoughts, and that
is to clearly imagine a shining Mercury staff with a black snake
winding around it and then a white snake winding against the other
one. The black snake symbolizes the materialistic thoughts of the
lower self that disturb one, and the bright one the divine thoughts of
the higher self. And when we place this symbol with its whole
significance before our soul — where the bright snake coils
against the black one — then all disturbances will disappear and
we can immerse ourselves in our meditation. Those who have attained
clairvoyance are disturbed by wild animal visions that are very ugly
or sometimes seductively beautiful and that comes from passions and
desires. Here too the mental image of the Mercury staff is the only
antidote.
Depending on karma we'll sooner or later have the feeling that our I
is being torn to pieces when we devote ourselves completely to our
meditation. This feeling must arise and it's quite right up to a point.
We ordinarily feel like a unit in an enclosed physical body, but we
must consider that we are very composite and complicated, and that the
spiritual world to which we mostly belong isn't anything simple.
Thrones, Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai worked on our physical,
etheric, astral bodies and I on Saturn, Sun, Moon and earth,
respectively. All kinds of high spiritual beings worked on our
physical body on old Sun and Moon. Some built our larynx, others the
heart or the liver; reproductive organs were created by some beings
and the digestive apparatus by others, and so on. At a certain stage a
meditator gets the feeing that he divides and gets into the hands of
all of these powers and loses himself in them. One who hasn't attained
vision yet will then have a nothing feeling, as if the meditation was
not bearing any fruit. This is depressing, but there's no great danger
here either for the meditator or the meditation. A clairvoyant will
hear the voice of a figure and then also see it, and this will whisper
to him that the world that he sees is an illusion that he's creating
himself. This is the temptation that approaches him from the other
side and doesn't want him to ascend into spiritual worlds but tries to
hold him back in the sense world forcibly. And this temptation is a
great danger. The occult way to combat this is to imagine the rose
cross. The rose cross is the symbol for the Mystery of Golgotha. The
cross, the symbol of death, out of which with the blood that flowed
out of the five wound-roses sprout as a symbol of life. If we bring
this symbol and its whole significance before our soul we'll have an
unbeatable weapon against the power that leads us into temptation. And
why? Because Christ through his death, at the moment when his blood
flowed, united himself with the earth's astral body and brought it new
life and light. He lives in this astral body as the astral light that
shines in darkness. When we've attained vision we see in this astral
light. Thus the rose cross is the symbol for the light that conquers
the powers of darkness.
We see objects with our physical eyes because they're dark and they
reflect light. But when we attain vision through our meditation, the
dark sheath that covers objects will get thinner and thinner. We'll
see the astral light in them shine, the light in the darkness, and
they'll thereby disclose their interior to us. We'll know the forces
that are at work in them and we'll live with them. We'll not only see
a red, cubic crystal from outside, but we'll feel the forces that
build it up and spread red light over its surface through green light.
If someone wanted to get inside by breaking it apart he would only
create more outer surfaces. One only presses inside if one sees in
astral light. To be able to stand this astral light neophytes had to
prepare themselves in a kind of a sleep in a grave. After seeing the
astral light, Paul was without sight for three days.
If our meditation is done correctly, it should leave us spiritually
strengthened. We often have no feeling that this occurred, but every
meditation has an effect sooner or later and we often harvest the
fruits unexpectedly years later. One who doesn't greedily and
impatiently demand growth but is satisfied with little, will always
receive a spiritual strengthening.
Number 44
Kassel, 2-26-'09
As soon a pupil begins an occult path powers approach him who try to
inhibit his development. When we mediate we should forget ourselves by
extinguishing everything that connects us with ordinary life, we
should immerse ourselves entirely in the content of the given words so
that we don't feel our body or have any ordinary thoughts or daily
feelings. The opposing powers try to pull us back into ordinary life and
to prevent us from concentrating. As soon as we notice this, as for
instance in
In pure rays of light
where we should only
think and feel that light is the Gods' clothes, so that we live
entirely in this image, we can use the Mercury staff as an effective
symbol, and namely a bright, shining yellow staff with first a dark
snake and then also a shining white snake wound around it.
Every live thing has a skin as a sign that it's enclosed in the
physical world. Etheric and astral bodies also have skins. When a man
receives impressions through his senses, the astral body's skin gets
cracked and is used up; this becomes manifest as tiredness. This skin
is shed and replaced during sleep. We should try to become aware of
this process before going to sleep. Think that one is going into
spiritual worlds where the astral body is renewed by spiritual beings
in the realms of harmonies and sphere tones. We should go to sleep
with thankful feelings for these divine beings and powers; here we
should feel love for wisdom. Then bad feelings won't be able to
influence us.
Just as a man uses up the skin of his soul body every day and renews
it, so a snake also sheds its skin every so often and renews it. That
is why looking at a Mercury staff is an effective way to get into
spiritual worlds during meditation in such a way that hindering
influences are overcome.
Another way is through the idea that we're inside a blue aura, closed
off from all bad feelings and thoughts that want to get at us. Only
the good powers can gain access to our soul. This can be effectively
connected with the following meditation:
May the outer sheath of my aura become denser.
May it surround me with an impermeable skin for all impure, unclean thoughts and feelings.
May it only open to God's wisdom.
A beginner will only feel the presence of dark forces in distracting
thoughts, but an advanced pupil see these astral powers as rats, mice
and parasitic animals. But no one should be glad to see such animals,
otherwise he would fall prey to them. One must strengthen oneself to
resist the influences of these dark powers.
Another typical experience that's felt by a novice and seen by a pupil
is that his physical body is dismembered and scattered, and seems not
to belong to him anymore. Even the organs like the heart, liver and
gall bladder expand. Thereby we recall that our physical body arose on
Saturn through the streaming in of Thrones' substantiality, our
etheric body on old Sun through Spirits of Wisdom, our astral body on
old Moon through Spirits of Movement, whereas on earth the I was given
to us by Spirits of Form. We return to these spirits during
meditation. Now one should not imagine that each of our organs goes
back to the power who implanted them in us, but we blend into their
moods; although when we feel that we belong to these powers we must
remain aware of our own I.
Another typical experience during meditation is that consciousness
seems to get weaker or is being dimmed down. This is also the case in
a certain respect, but we must try to always keep it awake. The black
cross with seven red roses is a way to do this. The rosy cross is the
great symbol of Christ Jesus — dying, perishing life that has
the power to produce new life. Imagining this symbol always has a
strengthening effect on spiritual development; it strengthens our
everyday life in all situations.
It's during our occult exercises that the Tempter approaches us most
strongly. An advanced pupil sees him just as he's described in the
Bible.
Finally a feeling of deepest soul peace arises during meditation
— no external feeling of quiet, but a deep inner feeing of peace
that can't be disturbed by anything, no matter how much things are
raging and roaring around one. Here the Mercury staff helps us to
press into spiritual worlds and the rose cross makes us firmer in
them. Two things must be completely avoided during occult training. We
should never harm anyone through deeds, thoughts or words
intentionally or not. Secondly, the feeling of hate must disappear in
us, otherwise it reappears as a feeling of fear; for fear is
suppressed hate. We must transform the hate into a feeling of love,
the love of wisdom.
Number 45
Berlin, 3-3-'09
Nothing is given to a pupil as something finished, but the teacher
leaves it up to him to do something with it. Everything is like a seed
that's placed into the pupil's soul so that it can unfold its activity
there. Development is placed in the pupil's own hand The impulse is
given into the I, and the I must develop it out of its own power that
should be kindled inwardly. There are facts about the spiritual world.
Let the pupil kindle feelings about them himself; and may his soul
blossom thereby, just as a flower comes forth from a seed. Let this
pupil hold this thought fast in his soul: May the I's freedom and
independence always be preserved. And looking up to Christ, let there
always stand in our soul: Christ is the archetype of the I, let my I
strive to become a copy of this archetype. And "I am" is
the only right name for this archetype; we can never speak of
"He."
Number 46
Munich, 3-8-'09
The more the beings we see during meditation that look like sphinxes,
Seraphim and Cherubim, the surer one can be that one is seeing good,
sublime beings and that one is on the right path with one's
meditation. The rats and mice that one eliminates through a caduceus
come from a sub-physical world.
Everything that has a life of its own is enclosed in a skin. Our
astral body also has a skin. A dependent, weak man has a very thin,
cracked and easily breakable skin, and that's why such people often
wish that they could merge with the universe. An independent,
strong-willed man has a thick astral skin. But all astral skins get
used up during the day, that is, they get holes, become tattered and
hang limply when the man gets tired. On going to sleep we should tell
ourselves reverently that we're returning to the Gods who created us.
The astral body draws new forces from the Gods to form a new skin for
the astral body. The reforming of this astral skin is symbolized for
us by the snakes on the caduceus. We can use the Mercury staff before
evening and morning meditations and also during them to ward off bad
influences.
Red roses on a cross are the symbol for new life springing from death.
The red roses are in the deepest sense the symbol for the holy blood of
Christ. Evil powers must withdraw from anyone who places this black
wood cross with its seven blooming dark red roses before his soul
That's why one should let it come to life within one after every
meditation. It's a symbol from which we can draw endless strength.
Let's imagine a quiet sea and then the same sea with towering waves,
and that we're on a sinking ship in this wildly surging water so that
death is inevitable. Anyone who can feel no fear of death but only the
wonderful beauty of the unfettered elements and the grandness of
creation at such a moment knows what soul peace is.
We should let such images, such thoughts, live in us in their whole
richness and greatness as often as possible. Then we'll feel that fear
and terror about the elements and eruptions disappear, and we'll draw
strength from all hindrances that life puts in our path.
Number 47
Hamburg, 3-14-'09
Foreign beings can't press into a being that's enclosed by a skin. So
man's astral body was a zero, a nothing for other beings. Through the
fact that the astral body had separated from the whole astral matter
and had surrounded itself with a skin it had become a one, and people
described this by putting a one in front of the zero: 10 Then they
added the six and five that refer to the Venus and Jupiter stages of
evolution that gives rise to the mystical number 1065 that is mentioned
in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine (Vol. 1, Dzyan iv).
When a pupil becomes clairvoyant he sees rats, mice and other
parasitic animals. Beings with beautiful human faces but crippled feet
come to tempt him. The snake is a symbol for the astral body. One
should use the shining staff with a black snake and a brightly
shining, glittering snake to banish the beings that want to drag one
down. Sphinxes and cherubs are good pictures to see.
The physical body doesn't belong to us, it's an optical illusion. It's
formed by streams that go out from Thrones. Imagine brooks that flow
together; a whirlpool arises where they meet. Likewise the physical
body arises where streams from Thrones come together. The black cross
represents the lower animal part of man that must be overcome. The
seven red roses must sprout and flower out of it. A beautiful story
tells us that when Christ hung on the cross, bees came and drew honey
from his bleeding wounds, as from red roses otherwise. The blood's
composition had changed through the sacrifice and had become like the
sap of red roses.
All battles here on earth are only a weak copy of the Gods' battles.
Number 48
Berlin, 3-21-'09
A man is a very complicated entity. When a man begins to eat
vegetarian food there are a few things that he should consider. For
instance, if we eat beef the forces that produced a small brain and a
projecting go into our astral body and work there in a hardening way.
The astral body takes on these forms after death, as can be observed
on the astral plane. This fact led to the idea of soul transmigration.
If men hadn't eaten animals they would have remained soft and would
have taken on grotesque forms. If someone is a vegetarian today and
loses this hardening element, this inner firmness, and if he's not a
robust man he easily loses his inner hold on himself and can even
become insane. An esoteric who takes his development into his own
hands and must overcome influences that affect his progress from
outside must achieve the firmness that's produced in him by hardening
forces by acquiring clear thinking. An esoteric creates firm lines in
himself and avoids the danger of becoming shaky by imagining old
Saturn, Sun, Moon, etc. so that he's immersed in purely impersonal
thoughts. We shouldn't be influenced by biased habits that are
connected with race, time, etc. in our thinking; the latter should be
entirely free.
We must develop our intelligence. Some people have the intelligence of
an eight year old who can only do their jobs if everything is dictated
from above. Otherwise they collapse. Another danger is that if an
esoteric has had some special experiences he may think that he's very
devoted and selfless, when in fact there's a fine egotism behind this
that's hard to detect. This also has to go if one really wants the
Christ to be born in one. And one can only overcome it through pure
thinking. If one has seen something astral or the like, one should be
clear about what it is, and not imagine that it's of great importance
or that it proves that one is already far advanced. One should
confront everything clearly and impersonally and purify one's
thinking, feeling and willing in order to let the spirit work through
one.
Number 49
Berlin, 5-5-'09
We form an idea of a rose when we see it, we feel that it's beautiful
and so we pick it. We stimulate our physical and etheric bodies
through this thinking, feeling and willing. We make an impression on
the physical body through every ideation and feeling whether we
perceive it or not.
But things are different in a meditation. The masters of wisdom and of
the harmonies of feeling made meditations that stimulate the etheric
body and not the physical body; the etheric brain oscillates while the
physical one is quiet. Thereby the etheric body can imprint its
meditative experiences on the astral body and thus develop the organs
it needs in it. And this has a salutary effect on the physical body.
Looking at a shiny object can also loosen one's etheric body. But
since no meditational material streams into it, it's exposed to all
high and low, good and bad spiritual influences around it. This is
something that's very low, whereas the exclusion of the physical body
through meditation is something high. Things were different in ancient
times when an initiator pulled the etheric body out of the pupil's
body to imprint experiences from spiritual worlds into it. From
trances to three and one-half day temple sleeps, it was always the
hierophant who mediated everything into the pupil's consciousness,
whereas today the pupil tears out and elevates the etheric body
himself and lets the master's teachings stream into him. Why is this
so? The being whom we call the archangel Gabriel started directing
things around 1525. Through the right control of births he brought it
about that the organ that's in the sinus above the root of man's nose
gradually developed. It's not directly perceptible physically, but if
one could compare a recent corpse with one from the 13th
century, one would find differences in structure and in the windings
of the brain at the place mentioned. Archangel Gabriel gradually
prepared this organ in man, so that he was able to take in the message
of archangel Michael, who was next in line in 1879. Through this new
organ Michael will print theosophy's message into men, although not
directly but by letting his wisdom stream into men's etheric bodies
through the great white lodge, and from there a man must consciously
let them flow into the organ for them and then let them work in his
etheric body. Those who make messages receptive for the message are
ready to work on human an dearth evolution in the right way, and an
esoteric should place this high, ideal goal before his soul modestly
but also decisively and to become ever more aware of his high,
responsible task. The others who don't use the organ allow it to
degenerate and dry out, and so they don't do the work they should be
doing. Archangel Michael will see to it that the work gets done
— but in a different way than it would have been done by men.
Whenever men shirk their duty the spiritual world is obliged to do
their work. When the earth passes over to the Jupiter condition the
task that was assigned to it in this evolutionary period must be done.
We want to unroll the great future panorama that will be seen when the
earth matures for the Jupiter condition. It will be completely
spiritualized by the men who worked in the right way, and these men
will live in a wonderful paradise. But another part of the earth will
harden and shrink into a small kernel, as it were, through the men who
let their organ dry out, and the men who live on it won't perceive the
others; they won't exist for them. They aren't mature enough to go
into the Jupiter condition by themselves and will therefore be carried
over in the lap of spiritual beings; and they'll show one how hard it
is not to have gone along with evolution. A man only has this earth
period to develop to freedom and through it to love and we should get
strength for this work in our meditations. Sooner or later we'll get
to know spiritual worlds that surround us, and namely through our
meditation, but we should always remember to do it with the right
attitude, not out of curiosity — that we like to call thirst for
knowledge — but to help mankind to progress towards freedom and
love.
Number 50
Berlin, 5-27-'09
Before Christ came to earth and became a man so much darkening had
taken place that even masters in physical life no longer had the clear
knowledge of super-sensible things that they had previously. After
Christ became flesh things brightened up slowly. That's why some
initiates didn't have a clear idea of the importance of the Mystery of
Golgotha, and this was true of a great initiate who had known
practically all the spiritual things that a man could know in his
Egyptian initiation.
First higher beings reveal something to mankind's great initiates, and
then the latter must pass this on as teachings. And no one can arrive
at knowledge unless what was already revealed is first given to him as
a teaching. That's quite impossible. That's why in esoteric schools
they always taught things that can let a pupil come to knowledge.
That's why teachings that can be given publicly are given in theosophy
to give those who long for it a chance to arrive at a knowledge of
truth, to get to Christ.
The childhood of great initiates differs little from that of other
men, although a few points might indicate what kind of spirit lives in
the child. They have to learn and enrich their knowledge like others
an thereby reacquire what they had been in earlier incarnations. This
was also the case with Christian Rosenkreutz. Some men may have been
surprised that he didn't see the importance of the Event of Golgotha
right away. This was because the ego of Christ Jesus had been placed
in him, just as the etheric body in Francis of Assisi. But since it
was the ego it first had to work through to knowledge to then become
fully effective. Therewith he had a high and important mission.
The true and only name of Christ is "I am"; anyone who
doesn't know and understand this and calls him something else doesn't
know anything about him at all. I am is his only name.
Number 51
Kassel, 6-27-'09
Selfishness is combated through logical thinking. If thinking
regulates itself logically, desires can no longer come up and the body
works automatically. We close our eye automatically if a fly
approaches it. Spirits of Movement built this reflex into us. What we
do automatically is always correct and wise; what we do voluntarily is
subject to error. Sprits of Movement also had to learn; they made a
lot of mistakes before movements like eye closure became automatic in
us and before these movements could be carried out so wisely. Such
movements are completely independent of our personal feelings, wishes,
etc. That's the way our thinking must become. The right sequences of
thoughts must be strung together entirely by themselves; thoughts must
not be produced for selfish reasons and purposes. They must proceed
from previous ones in a purely logical way. We learn logical thinking
from theosophical teachings, when the mighty facts that can all be
understood with the intellect, even if one can't see and investigate
them oneself, are placed before us and we try to grasp them with our
thinking. Thereby we're diverted from lines of thought that only group
around our own small lower ego and we're directed towards great,
comprehensive ideas. That's the way we work on our astral body.
We're born with certain inclinations that become converted into habits
during life. What fit to these habits earlier now becomes a hindrance
to progress. All action must become conscious; we should do things on
our own and not because of our connections with family, nation,
classes or circumstances. Thereby we work on our etheric body.
Worries put pressure on the physical body. We should do our duty, and
also against opposition, but we shouldn't worry too much. It's hard to
strike the right balance here between concern and standing above it,
but too much worry dries out the brain so that it can't take in new
thoughts. The greatest man of sorrows or soter was Christ, and
as it says in
(I Peter 5:7)
we should cast all our care on him; for he
cares for you. that is, we should give all worries past a certain
point to Christ so that He can make our physical body healthy and
strong, so that our soul is also healthy.
Number 52
Muenchen, 8-27-'09
Today we want to occupy ourselves with occult symbols that a pupil
gets to know during his development and through which the masters of
wisdom and of the harmony of feelings give us wisdom that was brought
over to us from Atlantean times.
After Atlantis sank, great initiates led two main streams of people
from west to east, on through Africa, the other through Europe. Those
who came to Asia through Africa produced the individuality that could
take in the Christ light in the course of incarnations and
developments. In the northern stream a strong, sturdy stock arose
among initiates that not only knew how to defy outer enemies but was
also a match for psychic, demonic influences. There were mystery
centers in Europe, whose existence is reported in old sagas. For
instance, the report of such an esoteric school is concealed behind
the legend of King Arthur and his round table. King Arthur was a high
initiate who proclaimed the mystery wisdom to his pupils.
Now, it's an occult law that some initiates withdraw to spiritual
worlds when an especially high one unfolds his activity on the
physical plane. Thus, while the Christ light shone in the Orient,
another high initiate withdrew for whom north European people had been
prepared as a later sphere of activity. He later incarnated to let the
Christ event in its whole importance flow into mankind. We're told
about this incarnation of the high initiate in the legend of the Holy
Grail that angels carried from east to west and kept floating above
the earth there. King Titurel was the guardian of the Grail and the
reincarnation of the high initiate who was supposed to prepare things
for a certain historical period. An old French legend, Floire et
Blanchflor, was inspired by Titurel. Charlemagne was the
reincarnation of a high, East Indian adept and an instrument of the
spiritual individuality that's symbolized by the name Titurel. Floris
and Blancheflur are called Charlemagne's spiritual parents. They
inspired people who were connected with the mystery center.
Titurel attracted pupils who were all called Parzival. A Parzival had
to free himself from all worldly influences that drag one down,
through appropriate exercises He had to be a Cathar. When Parzival,
who at this stage would call himself a "pious one" or
purified one, stepped before his master Titurel, the latter let him
use the forces that he'd developed through catharsis for an intensive
concentration The earth and everything on it disappeared before his
eyes and gradually changed into the image of a tree that grew and from
which a wonderful lily sprouted And while Parzival was immersed in
this perception he heard the voice of Blancheflur behind him —
who, as it were, symbolized herself in the lily, saying "You are
that." The lily emitted a strong odor that Parzival found
repulsive and he realized that this aroma symbolized all the things
that he had set outside himself through catharsis, and that this still
surrounded him like an atmosphere. Then the tree withered before him
and it was replaced by a black cross with red roses sprouting out of
it. He heard the voice of Floris — whose symbol was the red rose
that's strengthened in itself — behind him: "You should
become that." Parzival was then led into mountain solitude by
Titurel to meditate on the mighty pictures that had been conjured up
before him. And on a secluded peak he directed his gaze to the endless
heavens above him, lowered it to the endless depths beneath him,
looked to the front and rear, right and left into endless distances,
and an indescribable feeling of reverence and devotion for the Godhead
that revealed itself to him in every thing overcame him. And he
directed a prayer to it: "You great Enveloper, you whom I feel
above and below and beside me, who is everywhere whether I look
forward or backward — I would like to devote myself to you and
merge with you." At the same time he felt another divine power
who did not overpower him as much, who seemed to lead him into himself
and seemed to give him a center there. And he felt a third force like
a messenger of the great Enveloper who seemed to lead him in a circle
around his center. He felt that his left hand was grasped by a force
that pressed like warmth through the arm, that announced itself
through a feeling of cold. If we want to draw these forces then we
must draw the first three (as at the bottom of the diagram below), and
the two others that pressed through him like a feeling that gave him
knowledge of his connection with all mankind, as wings.
Then the sky became dark for him and lost its outer light, and
suddenly space lit up for him from within. He had the feeling as if
his head opened up like a chalice to divine light and in this light he
saw the messengers of the Panenveloper who came towards him from
above, and through the radiant light that stood above him like a star
and sent its shine deep into him he heard their voice that said to
him: "This is the light of the Father, out of which you were
born."
And he realized that to become worthy of this birth he would have to
transform the green lily tree into the dry wood of the cross in
himself, just as the Christ had gone through death on the same, and
that only thereby the hope could blossom in him to be resurrected in
the Holy Spirit:
Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
Notes from B-F: 1 is a force that projects into us, that also fills us
when we concentrate on an object (white lily) 2 is another force that
urges us to be ourself in initiative actions (rose cross). 3 is really
a circle, a force that induces us to see life's joyful and sad
experiences around us and not in us — with equanimity. It's the
karmic law of necessity that turns in a circle. If we devote ourselves
to these three, we then get 4/5 as supports, a warm wing of enthusiasm
(love) and a cold one (shame and fear) that harmonizes this. Then in
arrows 6/7 there are streams from the geniuses of light who bring us
wisdom; thereby we feel as if we were growing two small wings in the
larynx region. Then we hear the harmony of the spheres 8/9 from the
geniuses of will that clarifies the goal of man and world evolution.
The whole picture is the tree of life or man in the form of a
pentagram.
Number 53
Muenchen, 8-30-'09
After Parzival stood before Titurel and had the experiences of which
we spoke, an intimate and deep feeling of shame arose in him. This
feeling of shame permeated him completely. He had gone through
catharsis and had thought that he was now so good and pure that he
could become one of the followers of the Master of all masters, the
Christ. In this feeling of shame he was reminded of Christ's words:
"Why do you call me good? No one is good but God." He now
knew how very imperfect he was still and how much he still had to take
into his striving for the good, how much he was still lacking in order
to be good.
And a second feeling, a feeling of fear overcame him. He thought that
he had gotten rid of that a long time ago. But it was a different kind
of fear from the ones he'd known previously. It was a feeling of his
own smallness and weakness as a man compared with the sublime Godly
being when he let a second word of Christ live in his soul:
"Become perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
These two words should live in the soul of every esoteric.
An esoteric should kindle full devotion for divine beings in his soul.
Thereby the consciousness develops that what one does isn't so good,
but that one should always try to become more perfect. We should look
at what's developing in one's soul. God lives in developing things. If
we get to the point where we're acting in a good and noble way, then
it's God in us who's good. The God who lets us act in a good and noble
way is our archetype itself, that created us. We must become a
complete copy of this archetype.
Be it ever so hidden, there's a selfish motive in everything we do. We
must realize that we can't be selfless. It's a world karma that lets
us act egoistically. But world karma is God. Everything that God is
and does in the way of good is better than we could do it. An esoteric
should tell himself: Let me do something that I have made it my duty
to do, let me do it as hard as I can and in such a way that I tell
myself that the divine element that's at work in me is doing this and
I'm only the instrument of this godly element — then the higher
self in its striving towards perfection is revealed to him.
There are three revelations of the higher self: Through a dream, an
inkling, and through meditation. If an esoteric has lived in his
meditations, if he has tried to repeatedly live in his thoughts, words
and deeds in accordance with the perfection principle, if he has
repeatedly tried to be good — then at some point he'll realize:
If I would place all the joy and suffering that I previously thought
was in me outside me, then it would be as if it surrounded me like a
soul-spiritual thing; I no longer live in what I have placed outside,
I'm no longer touched by the waves of pain and joy. Then a pupil must
learn to stand fast in the center of his existence by living entirely
in the power of the mantra: Ex Deo nascimur. Thereby the pupil
inserts the higher self into his humanness; this second I isn't in us
and can't be found by brooding into oneself but only by growing out
beyond oneself.
Through the exercises we stimulate a force in us that otherwise works
more as a memory force in us and reawakens the ideas, feelings and
sensations that were aroused by past things and happenings in the
outer world. The pupil gets to know this as a force only; he learns
how to organize it up into the brain, so that it eventually grows
toward the higher self that floats above us. The pupil now lives in
this newly acquired force. All outer pains and joys now seem to be
outside of his center. He stands there firmly enclosed in himself
against all outer influences; he feels free in himself and free of all
external things.
And the pupil feels something else. Previously he had learned the
teachings about karma. Now he knows that he stands under the necessity
of the effects of karma. He experiences the higher self that places him
into existence through birth in this newly attained force, and he sees
how what develops in his destiny in the outer world must be brought
about through the active necessity of karmic force. This gives him a
certain joy with respect to pain and suffering. He confronts
everything with equanimity.
If a pupil has progressed this far, he then gets to contemplation and
thereby to consomatio of the higher self. And now spiritual
eyes and ears are organized into him and begin to function when he
devotes himself to the exercises with patience, persistence and
concentration. He learns to see the light world of spiritual beings
and the spiritual will being who resounds towards him, audible to his
opened spiritual ears. And he knows that he can't have these spiritual
experiences by means of his physical organism. In his experience of
the pentagram (8–27) he feels that he's placed into the whole etheric
and spiritual world This drawing and occult script has a
soul-awakening and a spirit-liberating effect. The pupil should
repeatedly place it before his soul and he'll experience that every
new forces grow in his soul thereby. We saw that Parzival who stood
before Titurel in solitude had the experiences that come to expression
in this occult script. The whole Christian wisdom and mystery that
winds around the Grail is expressed in it.
The mystery wisdom is like
a greenhouse plant that was only revealed to a few mature people; what
the rest of mankind received was the faith content of the various
religions. The Christian wisdom of the Grail is a mystery that was
revealed to all as knowledge but to no one as a content to be taken on
faith. All pupils of western esotericism are Parzivals.
Lohengrin is a son of Parzival. He's a personality that doesn't come
fully to expression in a body. The swan is the expression of the
higher individuality that radiates above him. Lohengrin unites himself
with Elsa, the human soul. She doesn't ask him where he comes from,
she doesn't ponder about his nature — she takes him the way he
is with thanks and humility for his gifts. But when someone
maliciously suggests that he's not of noble birth, she asks him about
this. Thereupon, Lohengrin has to withdraw from her. He disappears up
into the spiritual world. A pupil should mainly have a feeling of
thankfulness for what is given to him from higher worlds in this
incarnation. He should not investigate and search or interpret these
talents with his ordinary intellect. For this induces the higher self
to withdraw from his soul. There's a big warning for us in Elsa's
fate. We shouldn't let any outer thoughts, no feelings and sensations
from the outer world into the sanctuary of our mediation and
concentration, otherwise that source of strength through which we
attain the growing out and up of our human forces to the higher self
isn't stimulated, we can't find the higher self, it repeatedly
retreats before us. We should observe the projection of the spiritual
world's effects into us in contemplation, closed off from all outer
impressions, alone in the deepest quiet and immersion; resting in the
deepest solitude we should let them work in us quietly and chastely in
order to eventually become knowers of truth, to become an instrument
for the work of spiritual beings.
Number 54
Berlin, 10-26-'09
An esoteric who meditates and is approached by things from outside
could ask: Would this have happened to me if I hadn't become an
esoteric? An esoteric should make it his duty to observe life and
himself very intimately. The fact that he has set out on this path
should stand at the center of his life, for him, for he is a small
center of spiritual life, and this radiates out into his environment
— more of less unconsciously for him — and brings about
the things that approach him. Through his higher development, a pupil
leaves his lower self that connects him with the outer world alone
— at least for a short time. During meditation he leaves it to
itself and qualities that we thought we had overcome already crawl out
from all corners of our nature and can make us worse if we don't keep
ourselves under firm control. Certain exercises have been given us to
support us here, in addition to our meditations.
As you know, everything runs cyclically, and this is also true of
development. If we begin an esoteric training now, then after seven
years all kinds of qualities that were slumbering in us can emerge
strongly and set one back. But this can't happen if a man pays enough
attention to himself, his life and his surroundings.
Anyone who has a hidden opposition to his teacher will find that this
feeling soon breaks through and adversely influences the effect of
meditation. In an esoteric's daily meditations he should keep it in
mind that he's mainly trying to get through to his higher self, and he
should reflect on what this higher self is. He shouldn't think that
he's supposed to bring something to this higher self — he should
have an expectant attitude towards him and expect everything from him.
Usually there are three ways in which it approaches a pupil on his
path. The first way is a rather flitting one and it requires the
attentiveness that an esoteric should have for all things. Namely,
this is in a dream, and what happens there is what one calls a
doubling of the I. For instance, one has a problem or wants to do
something. Then someone appears to one in a dream who tells one what
to do or who solves the problem, one who is better and cleverer than
oneself. One should pay attention to such dreams. Then in the course
of development it may happen in helpless moments or at times when one
has made a decision that one hears a quiet voice that, for instance,
advises one not to do what one has decided on. It's often a decision
that one has made with the best knowledge and conscience, and if one
follows the voice that nevertheless advises against it, it may seem as
if one has done the wrong thing, but in by far the most cases, one
will immediately notice that one did the right thing in following the
voice. Now, if one practices paying attention to this, one will notice
that one has something in one that's higher than one's own reason,
that's cleverer than one is oneself. And the third time that one
confronts one's higher self is a very important and sacred one. This
is during meditation. One will only unite with him for short moments
there. But to attain this, one must silence one's whole lower nature.
We must eliminate everything that fills us with antipathy or petty
feelings for the world and life. In observing himself, a pupil must
always keep the polarity law in mind, that is, if he has a bad quality
and wants to get rid of it, he must also look for the opposite quality
in himself. It's certainly there. The presence of one quality
definitely conditions the existence of the opposite one, whether one
believes it or not, and this must be eradicated — then the other
one also disappears. For instance, if one feels then there's also the
polar hate in one, be it ever so hidden, and one has to drive this
out. Then the fear disappears by itself. The higher self will only
unite with us if such qualities are eradicated in meditational
moments.
This union with the higher self is beautifully depicted in the saga of
Lohengrin and Elsa. Lohengrin comes to save Elsa, to unite himself
with her. Distrust, a negative quality is sown in her soul, and the
higher self, Lohengrin, must withdraw to higher worlds, can't unite
with her.
Number 55
Munich, 12-7-'09
When we begin an esoteric life through our meditation, we must resolve
to move something new into the center of our life, something that
wasn't there till now but that will now become the main thing. The
success that our exercises will have will depend on the intensity of
this resolve. One can take the exercises that one gets as something
that's added to everyday life, so that one does them like some other
ordinary work. But one will then notice that the progress one makes
isn't especially great. The resolve that an esoteric should make is to
connect everything he runs into in ordinary life with his esoteric
life, to really feel that this is the center from which he directs all
of his other life, from which something is constantly flowing into
this life.
For what are we supposed to accomplish with our meditations? If we do
them in the right way we're supposed to develop a strong force, a
force that uses the words of the meditation as an instrument with
which we gradually create spiritual organs in our astral body with
which we'll perceive the surrounding spiritual world. The impressions
that we make in the mass of our astral body only gradually become
permanent, for we can compare our astral body with an elastic mass
that becomes imprinted but then returns to its previous shape after
awhile. We make these impressions during sleep when our ego and astral
body have left the etheric and physical bodies. The stronger and more
intensively we do our meditations, the more intensive the impressions
in the astral body become, until they remain and the organs we call
lotus flowers develop from them. This process is described in the
verse that comes to us from the masters of wisdom and of the harmony
of feelings:
In the spirit lay the germ of my body ...
But we can only really use these organs when they've become so strong
that they can be imprinted from the astral into the etheric body. It's
only when the etheric body has received a copy that the portals before
which the Cherub with the flame of the whirling sword, stands open for
us.
We've heard that our physical and etheric bodies couldn't live for a
second without an ego and an astral body and that therefore when these
two leave the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, higher kinds
of beings enter them, beings who are of the same nature as our I and
astral body, but who stand much higher. An archangel replaces our
astral body, and a spirit of personality, our I. We meet these high
spiritual beings when we've developed our astral organs, and
esotericism calls this tremendous event that's so sacred to us the
"meeting with the higher self."
We should look towards this moment with feelings of highest devotion,
with a being intensively permeated by its sacredness. If we don't do
our meditation with this attitude of really genuine humility, then the
spiritual world won't reveal itself to us in its true form, but all
kinds of fantastic formations will appear to us, and the moral result
will be a ruinous price. It's a good deed that the world into which we
would like to press prepared by a school that rightfully exists, is
closed by the Cherub with the fiery sword as long as we're
insufficiently prepared. The guardian of Paradise stands exactly at
the place where we slide over into deep sleep, where we lose
consciousness. If we didn't lose it here we would see him. But a
glance into the world of archangels would destroy us, since we're not
up to it.
Now, why is this archangel who enters our etheric body called our
higher self? Why do we try to become united with him? Here we must
touch upon a secret that concerns the human being. The man that we see
walking around on earth today is really a maya, he is incomplete.
There was a time in the ancient Lemurian epoch when only a single pair
of human beings remained on earth, that was strong enough to ensoul
animal-like formations. The other men had gone to various planets, and
so present men originate from this primal pair. The Bible' story about
Adam and Eve is right, even though it's presented in the form of an
allegorical tale. Now Lucifer overpowered these first human beings and
permeated their astral bodies with his influences. This made the later
Ahrimanic influences possible and everything that helped men to live
in the physical sense world. Thereby the spirit behind matter
disappeared for him ever more, and the latter became an unpenetrable
cover for him. If man had only remained under the influence of the
divine spiritual beings who created him, he wouldn't have become free,
but he always would have recognized spiritual things behind matter.
Now, these guiding creators didn't want the whole etheric body to be
permeated by Luciferic influences. So they held one part of Adam's
etheric body back in spiritual worlds. And this part of the etheric
body is the higher self with which we should reunite ourself and with
which we're a whole human being. An esoteric should tell himself: This
higher being that really belongs to me is waiting over there to become
reunited with me, and in my meditation I should strive to go to him
with all fervor, should form myself into a chalice that takes in this
higher element. Paul, who was an initiate in these things, uses
exactly the right expressions when he speaks of the old and the new
Adam. This union of the etheric body that remained behind with a human
being happened for the first time when the Luke Jesus was born. This
Jesus boy received Adam's etheric body. The high, guiding creator
beings had held back the capacity of individual thinking and speech
for men with this part of the etheric body. It's true that a man
thinks, but it's no thinking that he produces himself individually
— instead he takes some of the divine thinking substance that
streams through the world. Man has no individual language either, for
high spiritual beings gave groups of men a common language. Men are
supposed to acquire their own thinking and language through a reunion
with their higher etheric body. Since the ability to speak lies in the
etheric body, one can understand the legend that tells us that the
Jesus boy didn't have to learn to speak, but that after his birth he
spoke to his mother in a language that she understood. Through the
connection of Adam's etheric body with a physical human body again, it
became subject to the law of number and multiplication that applies to
every spiritual thing that descends into matter. Just as a seed that's
laid in the earth produces an ear with many kernels, so Jesus' body
was the soil for Adam's etheric body, the through-station for
multiplication, and it's these multiplied etheric bodies that are
waiting for us. When we're immersed in our meditation so that the
whole outer world disappears for us, we'll then get the feeling that
we're dying, and then united with our higher self we're resurrected.
That's why for the more recent esoteric schools that exist rightfully,
the cross is the symbol for resurrection to this new life. It's not a
birth that's taken to be the starting point of this life, but a death,
the death of Christ on the cross of Golgotha, and the symbol for this
life is the holy blood that flowed forth. That's why we have the dead
plant, the dried wood with the live, red roses sprouting from it
united in the rose cross. And in our meditation we should feel that
we're born from God, as it says in our main guiding-verse, that's
supposed to be the guiding verse of our esoteric life, and that we die
in Christ as we let the force of our meditation become a light in us
that radiates into higher world; and our higher self comes to meet
this warmth, these rays — thereby it unites with us as the Holy
spirit in which we come back to life again:
Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritual Sanctum reviviscimus.
Number 56
Unknown date
Vegetarianism without spiritual striving leads to disease. It's not a
matter of back to nature but of through nature to the spirit.
It's true that meditation and concentration exercises will be the main
thing for our spiritual striving, but when the elaboration of the
astral body begins, the food that an esoteric eats will be of some
importance.
It's especially important to avoid alcohol in every form. The bad
effect of alcohol on the brain function has been scientifically shown,
and knowledge of spiritual things is made completely impossible
through its use. It's inadvisable to eat meat and fish.
Mushrooms are very harmful; they contain hindering lunar forces, and
everything that arose on the old Moon signifies rigidification. Likewise
legumes aren't very advisable because their nitrogen pollutes the etheric
body. Proteins make mastery of sexual passions difficult. Sugar
promotes independence, and should be avoided by egotistical people.
People who tend towards envy, deceit and bad will should avoid
cucurbits and vine plants in general. The sweet, intoxicating aroma of
melons darkens clear, intellectual consciousness and should be avoided
by emotional people. Apples intensify the urge to dominate in some
people and often lead to rudeness and brutality. The high iron content
in cherries and strawberries isn't good for everyone.
If someone wants to undergo training in thinking, he mainly needs a
well-constructed, healthy brain apparatus. Since present-day parents
seldom give their children such well-built brains, one needs help to
strengthen one's brain apparatus. And here it's mainly filberts that
supply the brain-building substance. All other nuts are of less value
and peanuts should be avoided altogether. Milk butter is the best fat.
Coffee supports logical thinking, but doesn't make one a logical
thinker by itself. Drinking too much coffee leads to hysteria in
people who don't think much. One can get good ideas by drinking tea
or by doing special exercises.
It's especially important for an esoteric to lead a life of
moderation. An ancient sage said: Moderation purifies feelings,
awakens ability, cheers one up and strengthens memory; the soul loses
most of its earthy weight and thereby enjoys greater freedom. A man
wouldn't be able to generate productive thoughts if he ate too much
and too often, because his forces would be used in digestion, and
there wouldn't be any left for thinking. Schiller, Shakespeare and
many other writers lived on very little food. The mind is never so
clear as after long fasting. The greatest saints lived on fruit, bread
and water, and no miracles were ever done on a full stomach.
When a man works on himself he harmonizes his temperaments, but until
then a melancholic pupil should eat fruit, so that its sun forces
permeate the solidifying and rigidifying element in melancholics.
Phlegmatics shouldn't eat black roots because they would only increase
his inner love of ease. Whereas a sanguine would benefit by eating
root vegetables. One could almost say: A sanguine must be fettered to
his physical body by food, otherwise he might fly away. The ego is
predominant in cholerics, so they should avoid hot spices and
stimulating food.
A master doesn't need solid food, and temperaments no longer influence
or control him. He uses the choleric temperament to do his magic
deeds, he lets the things of the physical world pass by him like a
sanguine, he'll behave like a phlegmatic in his enjoyment of life and
he'll brood about his spiritual findings and experiences like a
melancholic. But it'll take us awhile to get that far, so we should try
to bring our whole life into harmony with our spiritual striving. You
only get as much out of life as you put into it.
