The golden rule of true occult science: For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character.
The cognitive faculty of mankind has developed gradually. Attention has repeatedly been drawn to the fact that in the Atlantean epoch a large proportion of humanity was clairvoyant and able to gaze into the spiritual worlds, and that certain remnants of this old clairvoyance were still present in post-Atlantean times. After the Atlantean epoch, in the periods of the civilizations of ancient India, Persia, Egypt and Chaldea — even as late as the Graeco-Latin age — there were numbers of human beings, many more than modern man would ever imagine, who possessed the heritage of this old clairvoyance; the astral plane was open to them and they could see into the hidden depths of existence.
But humanity was to advance to a form of knowledge acquired through the outer senses and through the spiritual faculties connected with the senses. Man was gradually to emerge altogether from the spiritual world and to engage in pure sense-observation, in intellectual, logical thinking. By degrees he was to make his way to non-clairvoyant cognition, because he must pass through this stage in order to regain clairvoyant knowledge in the future. But such knowledge will then be united with the fruits of cognition based upon the senses and the intellect.
At the present time we are living in an intermediate period. We look back to a past when man was clairvoyant, and to a future when this will again be the case. In our present age the majority of human beings are dependent upon what they perceive with their senses and grasp with their intellect.
Without possessing clairvoyant faculties we can reach this height only by ennobling powers that are at the disposal of ordinary humanity. These stages had to be attained by man in the course of Earth evolution. What man knows to-day to a certain extent through his own intelligence and also what he attains through his own moral strength, namely the consciousness that he must have compassion with the sufferings and sorrows of others — this consciousness could not have been acquired by a human being in primeval times through his own efforts. It can be said to-day that such insight is unfolded by a healthy moral sense, even without clairvoyance, and to an increasing extent men will come to realize not only that compassion is the very highest virtue but that without love humanity can make no progress.
Man's moral sense will grow steadily stronger. But there were epochs in the past when he would never have understood by himself that compassion and love belong to a very high stage of development. It was therefore necessary for spiritual Beings such as the Bodhisattvas to incarnate in human forms. Revelations of the power of compassion and love came to such Beings from the higher worlds and they were able to teach men how to act accordingly. What men have come to recognize to-day through their own powers as the lofty virtues of compassion and love — this had to be taught, through epoch after epoch, from heavenly heights.
Through Initiation we can look into the spiritual world and perceive forces and beings that are connected with the finest thoughts and sentiments of men, but we also perceive the spiritual powers behind unbridled passions, sensuality, consuming egoism. The vestiges of clairvoyance in the majority of human beings — it was different, of course, in the Initiates — led to vision of these wild, demonic powers behind the lower human passions.
...a pupil should get to the point where all physical happenings become indifferent to him. A man must become completely different, but anyone who says that he has already overcome the physical after doing a few exercises can easily be deceiving himself. A pupil must be honest with himself. Truthfulness is the first virtue that one who wants to tread an esoteric path must acquire; one must be extremely honest with oneself.
Another magic word for esoteric strivers is patience. Just look at the sun; imagine how the spirit of the sun makes the sun rise and set day after day, that he's already done that for a long time and will do it for a long time to lead the earth to its goal. One should think of this patience, and then shouldn't think that an exercise is ineffective just because it hasn't had any effect after three to five years.
The Lord's Prayer, this wonderful reflection of seven-membered world lawfulness, is a very significant meditation which some pupils do every day. I know a master of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings who said: I only take the Lord's Prayer as a meditation once a month; the rest of the time I try to make myself mature and worthy so that I might be permitted to immerse myself in even one line of this meditation. That's the attitude that one should have about a meditation — that one wants to make oneself worthy to be allowed to use it.
Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy) is living practice and not just theoretical study.
From the above link:
Think, now, of a meditant (one who meditates) who concentrates wholly upon this meaning of human development, and who wishes to gather this meaning — the seven principles of man's spiritual evolution — into seven petitions in prayer. How will he pray?
To express the aim of the prayer, he will have to begin, before he utters the seven petitions:
Our Father which art in Heaven.
In this form of salutation, man concerns himself with the deepest foundation of the human soul, the inmost element of the human being, which Christian esoteric teaching characterizes as of the kingdom of spirit. The link of the first three petitions, which follow this exalted salutation, is with the three higher principles of human nature, with the divine substance within man:
Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.
Now the prayer moves from the spiritual to the earthly kingdom:
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.
The four last petitions are linked with the four lower principles of human nature.
What appeal is the supplicant to make with reference to the physical body that it be sustained within the planetary life?
Give us this day our daily bread.
What is he to say with reference to sustaining the etheric body?
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
The adjustment of what takes place through the transgressions of the etheric body is what he asks for here.
What is he now to ask with regard to the astral body?
Lead us not into temptation.
And with regard to the ego?
Deliver us from evil.
The seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer are thus seen to express the fact that the human soul, when it aspires rightly, implores the Divine Will for a development of the seven elements in human nature that will enable a man to find his right course of life in the universe, a development of all these seven elements in the right way. Through the Lord's Prayer, the petitioner, at the time when he uses it, may rise to understand the full meaning of the development of his seven-principled human nature. It follows that even when the users of these seven petitions are the simplest people, who do not necessarily at all understand them, these petitions express for them, too, the spiritual-scientific view of human nature.
All formulas for meditation in the world's great religious societies throughout history have had their origins in spiritual science. Analyze every true prayer that exists — word for word — and you will find it to be no arbitrary stringing together of words. Never has a mere blind impulse been followed to string together so many beautiful words. Not at all; rather, the great wise men have adopted these prayer forms from the wisdom teaching that is now called spiritual science. Every true form of prayer was born of this great knowledge; and the great Initiate Who founded Christianity — Christ Jesus — had in mind the seven principles of human nature when he taught His prayer, expressing in it the seven-principled nature of man.
So are all prayers arranged. If it were not so, their power could not have continued to be exercised for thousands of years. Only this manner of arrangement is effective, even among simple people who do not in the least understand the deep meaning of the words.
A comparison of human life with occurrences in nature will make this appeal of true prayer to the simplest of people more understandable. Observe a plant. It delights you, though you may know nothing at all of the great universal laws according to which it has come into existence. It is there, and may have interest for you, but it would never have been created if primal, eternal laws had not existed according to which the necessary creative forces flowed into it. There is no need for simple natures to know these laws at all, but if a plant is to be created it must be produced in accordance with them. Similarly, no prayer that has not issued from the fountainhead of wisdom has real meaning for either the learned or the simple.
It is in this present age that those who have so long observed the plant and received its blessing can be led to the wisdom in these great universal laws. For two thousand years the Christian has been praying as the unscientific man observes a plant. The time is coming when he will discern the power that prayer possesses from the deep source of wisdom out of which it has flowed into being. Every prayer, especially the prayer that is central to Christian life, the Lord's Prayer, expresses this primeval wisdom.
As light is manifested in the world in seven colors, and the Fundamental sound in seven tones, so does the seven-membered human being, aspiring upward to its God, attain expression in the seven different feelings of aspiration that refer to the seven-principled human nature and are expressed in the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer.
Thus, in the soul of the Anthroposophist, this prayer expresses seven-principled man.
We must feel the analogies in nature. There's something spiritual behind all physical things. If we do the meditations correctly and get further on the esoteric path, we'll soon feel something that corresponds to what we see in nature: germination and growth in spring and summer, and the melancholy of dying in the fall. Just as we go to sleep at night, so plants go into a plant night in autumn. Only the seeds remain. In them are the capacities that were acquired during summer life. These capacities become reactivated in spring, just as our forces and abilities from the preceding eve reawaken in the morn. We must go to sleep and wake up again repeatedly, use our capacities during the day and gather new forces at night. Behind physical plants are sublime spirit beings who must stride to new activities each spring, and who sink into a plant night in the fall when only plant seeds remain These beings are so far advanced that they only have to make this change once a year, whereas a man must go through the change of going to sleep and awakening every 24 hours. The higher beings don't have to do it as often.
Feeling oneself to be united with the pan-spirit should not remain a phrase. One must really feel and experience what lies hidden in the sequence of spring, summer, fall, in coming to life and dying.
Spiritual life flows into us during meditation. We must prepare ourselves in the right way so that we can receive this spiritual life properly. We do this through study. Just as the sun which sends out its rays and forces would only find an empty spot if the earth wasn't prepared to receive and use them, so our meditations would find no soil to work on; they would find a kind of an empty place if we didn't prepare ourselves through study, if we didn't make ourselves receptive for the spiritual life that flows into us through meditation. Thus we can see the macrocosm in the microcosm.
A pupil should devote himself to his meditations with complete devotion and concentration. He should put his everyday thoughts aside completely and only open himself to high spiritual forces. The meditator should look upon every meditation as a sacrifice, as a sacrificial smoke that rises to the Gods. Thereby we contribute to harmonization and progress, whereas low, egotistical thoughts are the basis for catastrophes; and no human protective devices can prevent catastrophes such as the many we've had recently and like the even more terrible ones that are yet to come; one can do whatever one wants to stop them — they'll happen anyway.
We must have the spiritual in view and in our feelings in all of our deeds and thoughts. We came down from the spirit, and enriched and perfected we'll reascend to the spiritual.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
Lesson 4
We'll begin today's esoteric lesson by reading the prayer to the Spirit of the Day. The exoteric church directs its prayers to the Gods in general, but a theosophist who knows that every time period has its own regent, modestly turns to the spiritual being who rules the present day under the name of Mars.
Great embracing Spirit,
Knowledge lived in your sensations when no knowledge was given to me yet.
You were.
I lift my soul to you.
I moved into my body.
In my sensations I lived for myself.
You were in the life-sun.
Your being lived in my sensation as my being.
My soul's life was outside of your life.
You were.
My soul felt its own being in itself.
A longing arose in it,
The longing for you
Out of whom it arose.
You were.
Great embracing Spirit
May my I raise itself from below upward,
May it get an inkling of you in the all-embracing.
May the spirit of my being be illumined
By the light of your messengers.
May the soul of my being be enkindled by the fire flames of your servants.
May the will of my I grasp
Your creatorword's force.
You are.
May your being permeate my will
That my I be grasped by an understanding of your light's shining,
Your life's love-warmth
And your being's creator words.
You are.
Lesson 5
One often hears Theosophists say that there are dangers connected with occult development. But it should be emphasized that one mustn't be kept from treading an occult path because one has a feeling of fear For someone who gets indications from a proper esoteric school and follows them correctly will also develop properly. The main thing is to awaken the right seriousness in one and to permeate oneself completely with the things one learns in esoteric classes.
It's always good for an esoteric to tell himself that he still has a long way to go. One may have grasped something with one's intellect a while back and yet not have arranged one's life in accordance with the knowledge gained. As an example of this, we can give the statement that should be familiar to all theosophists: "Everything that surrounds us is maya." There are people who find this very enlightening but don't apply it. They let pains and joys work upon them without telling themselves: If everything is maya, then the cause of my pain is also maya.
But it's good that this is so, for if a man would take this statement into his feeling too soon, he might not be able to stand the shock that he would get, thereby. This requires a strong force that must gradually develop, and namely in that a man tries to see the truth in this statement through little everyday things around him rather than through big events in his life. We know that everything that surrounds us looks different than it really is. For instance, let's take a red object. Through what do we see the red color? Through the fact that light falls on it. If the object is in the dark, it doesn't look red. But when light shines on it, a red color arises because the object absorbs all the other colors that light produces and only reflect the red color it can't use, that it doesn't want or like. So it shows what it isn't in its interior.
Now, can a man press into this interior and get to know the true nature of things? He can only do this on a meditative path. If a man sticks to a view or idea he's also being confused by maya. But he usually also does something else. If a color approaches him, let's say a red one, it has an effect on his feeling. He has a freshening feeling when he looks at red. A blue mixed with a little violet will put him in a devotional mood. A man has these feelings in himself and he feels that they are true. The objects that induce these feelings may be maya, may arise and pass away, but the feelings remain the same. Someone can go out into a forest, hear a rustling and be frightened by it because he imagines that it's coming from a snake, whereas it was caused by the wind. Further on he can hear rustling again that is really coming from a snake this time. His fright is the same in both cases, but one time the cause was a deception.
But how do we arrive at the true nature of things through our feelings? When we look at the way plants sprout, shoot and put out vernal flowers, how are we supposed to see the truth behind the maya that they stretch out to us? There is a moment in the life of a plant when it shows us something of its inner nature, and that's when it begins to die. And when does this happen? At fertilization time. Up till then the plant used all of its forces to push back what it doesn't want, but now it has received something from outside, and it turns its life around, as it were. It loses its rejection power and withdraws into itself, it now turns the force that it used outwards inwards. Can we awaken a feeling in us that is like this process in a plant's soul life? When would we like to withdraw into our interior? When do we lose the power to ward off outer things? When we feel shame. If we awaken this feeling without outer cause and look at a fertilized plant, we'll become aware that the very same feeling lives in the plant, that it lives in it so intensely that it makes it die. In the fall a feeling of enormous shame runs through plants. A red rose is a quite special example of this.
Now which color would we use for the feeling of dying, for withdrawal from the outer things to the spirit? Black, and that's why we have the black cross on which red roses bloom. Black, charcoaled wood in which all outer things have died is an expression to us of the fact that the spirit reveals itself behind all dying things. Goethe once spoke of the color that the earth would have to have when it's dying at the end of the present cycle and passes over into a spiritual realm as it's fertilized by the spirit. It would have to "glow in flaming red." This remark arises from keep knowledge. For when the earth is mature enough to be fertilized by the spirit how could the earth do anything else than to glow in deep shame?
If we awaken feelings in us that are induced by outer things in this way we'll get closer to the truth behind these things. We can also awaken pictures and feelings in us without any outer cause, can create ideas and feelings only in us. Then we're together with a world in us that wasn't produced by any outer cause, and thereby we can find the path to absolute truth. This should happen in our meditations. If we look at the sun and meditate on its vitalizing influences, we always have an outer inducement for the meditation. But if we take the words: In pure rays of light … etc. and awaken to an idea of light in us, and then imagine that it's the garment of the godhead, then we've recreated something in us that's not connected with anything external. And then when we awaken a feeling of love for all beings in the next lines, we'll permeate ourselves with this feeling, and it'll become a strong germinating force in us.
Lesson 6
We'll elucidate our meditations from another side today. An esoteric wants to try to approach the Christ Spirit more intensively and to connect himself more closely with him through his meditations than he could through exoteric Christianity. The entry of the Christ principle into our earth evolution was such an incisive event even for outer history that we calculate our division of time in accordance with it. Back when Zoroaster saw the figure of the approaching Sun Spirit in the sun he gathered pupils around him to make them into servants of the great Ahura Mazdao, and he prepared himself ever more to take this Sun Spirit into himself.
When the earth with all of its beings looks up to the sun, it must tell itself that it can't do what the sun can, namely, send out light. It would be a dark, black body if the sun's light didn't permeate it and it couldn't reflect it. Since the Christ became the spirit of the planet earth through the Event of Golgotha, he's in the force that sprouts up through the earth's cover of green plants.
The masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings give us the great world truths in symbols, and here it's mainly the rose cross which — when it's reflected in us — can awaken and strengthen the power of the Christ-spirit in us. In our last esoteric class, we saw that a red cross brings a feeling of shame to expression in its red color. Now we know that all colors produce their counter color in us, which for red is green. So the sight of the black cross awakens the white, radiant sunlight of Christ in us, and the red roses stimulate a force so that green life can sprout out of the Christ-force's bright light. If we imagine a rose cross with this feeling and let it live in us like this, we share in one part of our earth's force, of our earth spirit, of the Christ-spirit.
As esoterics, we must always try to think good thoughts about things that seem to be maya to us. We must be permeated by the feeling that a spark of this force slumbers in everything, which can break forth at some point to outshine all evil things. We should also have the complete trust that all good and positive things on earth will and must be victorious.
The cross is the highest of all symbols. One can get the whole of world history out of it, and even natural science could be built up out of it … In my essay The Education of the Child, it was pointed out that red has a calming effect inwardly. One would be able to see that the soul is then immersed in green … Living, sprouting, shooting green is the working of the Christ-spirit in the earth. The earth is permeated with it, as it were, and it's literally true that we on earth are walking on Christ's body. And the green is his etheric body.
By meditating the rose cross, it also becomes light in us, and the Christ-force will awaken the working of green in our soul, which was also awakened in the earth by this same force. And when this force works in us, we'll then feel a great confidence growing in us that pure love must overcome all evil and that truth can be found. For us this lies in the words: In pure rays of light ...
Lesson 8
Speaking exoterically, theosophy is a knowledge. What we esoterics learn in exoteric lectures we should take into our feeling, willing and thinking in such a way that we can then pour it out again into exoteric life. That's esoteric work. And what happens through the same? How can we carry a quite simple theosophical truth directly into life, for instance, the one about going to sleep and waking up, where the physical and etheric bodies remain behind on going to sleep, while the ego and astral body go into the spiritual worlds?
A primitive man used to receive prayers that he said in the evening before going to sleep, and in the morning after waking up, and that was good, for he strengthened his soul with spiritual forces as he prepared his soul for higher worlds, and after he left them, he again permeated his soul with higher forces, and as it were, sucked out soul forces from spiritual worlds.
The mineral, plant and animal kingdoms below man are permeated with spiritual forces that always become renewed; the same is true of the four elements fire, water, air, and earth. Things are different with men. If a man doesn't connect himself with these spiritual forces, he doesn't receive them. If he goes to sleep without preparation he doesn't get any forces in the worlds he enters then. No matter how learned, scientific and high-ranking a materialist is, if he goes into spiritual worlds unprepared in the evening, he stands far below a simple primitive man who has already connected himself with them through his prayer. Man has increasingly forgotten prayer in our materialistic age with its very admirable scientific achievements. He goes to sleep and wakes up with his everyday thoughts. But what does he do thereby? Something happens through this omission. He kills some of the spiritual life and forces on the physical plane each time.
A man goes into spiritual worlds unconsciously. For instance, if he went to sleep at 11 p.m. unprepared and awakened at 12 in spiritual worlds, he wouldn't know his way around; he'd have the feeling that he was spread out over endless spaces and that he had lost his center. He would be in ecstasy or "beside himself" in the real sense of the word. In ancient Druidic mysteries this ecstasy was artificially induced to let a pupil experience higher worlds consciously. But 12 helpers had to stand at his side so that the pupil didn't lose his ego; they poured the whole power of their pure egos into him. That's how much power was necessary to prevent this dissolution.
This Druidic initiation was the outer way, whereas the inner one was followed in ancient Egyptian mysteries. There the candidate for initiation had to look for the path through the lower astral world for three to five days, that is, to climb into his own interior, and 12 pure priests had to stand beside him, to prevent his lower drives, desires and passions from overpowering him — that slumbered deep in his nature and would otherwise have worked themselves out in the course of his incarnations.
Unheard of vices would have been awakened in him if the 12 priests hadn't protected him from this through their purity. These two paths wouldn't be possible today, for a modern would rebel against such interventions in his ego and against being treated like a child with respect to his drives, desires and passions.
The Rosicrucian school combines both paths in it and also leaves a man completely free. Through the meditations he's given he must himself acquire the forces that helpers used to give him. An esoteric increases the spiritual forces that are necessary for mankind through this work on himself. He combats the desolation that will arise through the terrible materialism in which men have simply forgotten their connection with spiritual worlds and have forgotten how they can get forces out of them for themselves. When souls become ever more desolate, empty and despairing it'll be the task of esoterics to let their spiritual forces work in a living way. They'll maintain their soul's cheerful equilibrium in spite of all blows of destiny and thereby let happiness stream into the rest of mankind to ease their soul pains as torture, as a result of the attainments of materialistic science. Moderns have found many means to anesthetize physical pains to make them disappear. But they haven't really disappeared that way. Exoteric science tells us that no force is lost, and the force of pain doesn't get lost either — it just has an effect in other regions. The pains come back as soul agony. Men will have to go through strong soul pains, and esoterics will then use the spiritual forces that they bring down from the heights to ease these sufferings. Be it ever so unconsciously, each of us resolved to ease mankind's sufferings when we set out on an esoteric path.
Lesson 9
The meditations that the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings have given us are all directed towards the Christ, even if his name doesn't occur in them. The words: In the pure rays of light are arranged in such a way that if one makes oneself deaf and blind for one's immediate environment, one slowly lifts one's etheric body out of the physical one, and thereby one unites oneself with the Christ-etheric aura, which is now our earth's aura. If we would lift ourselves out of the body without our meditation's content, then our soul would be alone with itself. But now it's permeated by Christ and it experiences what Paul called "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me."
In the pure love for all beings. These words remind us that all soul things are woven out of love. This meditation is a slow dying of the lower ego. And we have the connection between the two paths in this dying into Christ and coming to life in him in: In Christo morimur. It's a conscious coming to life in the Christ spirit. That's why we've added the word Sanctum to the words Per Spiritum.
Lesson 10
We must keep in mind that we become different from other men through our occult development. Our interests change, and one often hears esoterics complain that they've lost interest in many things that used to interest them, and that they feel a inner boredom and emptiness. This is a quite normal state that soon passes And the emptiness of their soul will soon be filed with interests that'll replace the other ones a thousandfold. Nevertheless, we should not give up our connection with other men and the interests that filled us previously, and above all things we shouldn't demand that people must change their circle of interests. The difference between exoteric and esoteric men is that an exoteric man permeates his physical body firmly with his other bodies and as it were presses everything toward the outer surface. Thereby the average person who's born into a nation and family inherits certain concepts about good and evil, truth and other virtues that the creator Gods placed into them in the course of evolution. An esoteric will gradually live in accordance with these virtues out of his own knowledge. But he mustn't place himself above the concepts that are present in men about this, for then he would get into serious trouble with respect to his development. The inner man is gradually separated from the outer one in him. His higher parts leave the lower ones by themselves, and if he does not heed the ordinary laws of mankind, for instance about truthfulness, he can get into a dishonesty that of course hinders his development and that can do a lot of harm. All ill feelings and disputes, also among esoterics, are due to this.
We not only leave part of our etheric body and our sentient soul by themselves — we begin esoteric work in the sentient soul — but also, as it were, our physical body, and we experience all possible conditions, also diseases in the latter. We get into conditions that we didn't know before, but which we don't have to look upon as diseases for which we have to run to a doctor right away, for an exoteric doctor can of course not give us anything for these conditions, and in any case, they disappear by themselves. On the other hand, one shouldn't look upon every disease one gets as something that is caused by occult development or think that doctors can't treat one anymore That's spiritual arrogance. One can still get advice from a doctor for a long time. An esoteric should always pay attention to his health in the right way.
No one should let himself be kept from development by the difficulties that one can encounter and that arise through the loosening of the etheric body, or by cowardice and laziness. This loosening is something that must occur if one wants to press into higher worlds. And if we struggle towards it with serious striving, the master of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings will come to meet us with his strength and not fail to help us.
We'll reach the goal of seeing spiritually in the next life for sure, if not in this one.
Lesson 11
Anyone who undertakes an esoteric training must be clear about what he is doing thereby. We're karmically connected with what we are and do; we're placed into the whole of earth existence by leading divine beings. Everything that we think, feel and will in the way of the most sublime beauty and the highest morality is always still connected with general evolution. But by deciding to begin an esoteric training we step out of this general development that's guided by higher beings. Thereby we begin something absolutely new. In an esoteric training we stop being led by spiritual, divine beings and we become independent companions of these creator spirits.
Man on earth consists of the tetralogy: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego, which are kept in harmony by higher beings. If we carry out the resolve to begin an esoteric training we then begin to work independently at the transformation of these individual bodies. This takes place through the exercises that are given to us. They gradually work on our etheric body in such a way that it becomes loosened from the firm structure of the physical body. This influence is not directly on the etheric body but on the astral body or soul which we work on through the regular daily or weekly repetition of exercises and pictures.
Every sound, word and sequence of sounds and concepts in the meditation verses is of some significance; they have an effect through the regular repetition while one completely forgets oneself.
When we wake up in the morning we sometimes have a dim memory of the spiritual world, of the world from which strength flows to us through our exercises, and some of an esoteric student's nicest experiences are these faint memories of the world where we were at the sources of strength. If someone had to leave a friend who was dear to him, it could be that something about this person will flow into the esoteric pupil together with his memory of the spiritual world. Someone who's given something like this should look upon it as grace.
After meditating for some times we notice that we've changed; we no longer say some of the unkind things that we used to and we acquire a much finer logic. We feel that we've improved. We get better.
But because we place ourselves outside of the customary framework we lose the support that's given by convention. We become inwardly freer but thereby your bad sides come out more; then we notice how bad we are. We're really a lot worse than we usually think.
Difficult, unpleasant hours come to every esoteric striver, and then it's good to have some support. We find this support in the New Testament; we find advice and support for every case and situation and in every weakness; we only have to look for it. And if we don't find it, we can comfort ourselves with the conviction that it's our own weakness that keeps us from finding the right thing but that it's nevertheless in the Bible.
Deceptions in clairvoyance can easily occur at first. One thinks that one is seeing something outside, and it's one's own interior that's reflected there. It's even worse with sounds that one thinks one hears; beings who want to pull a meditator down deceive him thereby.
An esoteric striver not only has to do his meditations, to pray in the best sense of the word, but also to watch, to be on the lookout for bad influences that want to interfere when an independent transformation of bodies is undertaken. An occult sentence against all deception is: Every path into the spiritual world goes through the heart. During the meditation one can feel that lines go from every point of the outer physical body towards a center, which is the heart. These lines then go on in the opposite direction and into the spiritual world. This is like a feeling that Christ is in one, and it's a sign that there's no deception.
Each of our members is connected with one sign of the Zodiac; forces from Leo flow down into our heart. Forces from the sun also stream into our heart. Likewise, fire spirits work on our heart. Leo, sun, and flame are often used as symbols for the heart. Like the heart every part of us is related to outside forces; we've grown out of the whole world and are imbedded in it.
Lesson 12
We're in divine, etheric spheres at night with our astral body and ego, from which we bring down strength for our physical life. We are connected with divine, spiritual beings there. That's why when we wake up in the morning we should never have banal, everyday, egotistical thoughts right away For if we do, we cut ourselves off from spiritual beings and forces in which we were immersed during sleep. Before we go back to any action in daily life, to any thought about physical existence, we should devote ourselves to our meditation as we forget ourselves and become immersed in those regions. Every meditator should make it his sacred duty to do his meditation right after awakening, or at least his first thought should be to think thankfully about sublime beings.
An even holier duty, if there can be such for every esoteric pupil, is to make it clear to himself that he is doing a great injustice to all men and to higher spiritual beings if he approaches meditation with impure thoughts and feelings. For this pollutes spiritual spheres. The forces that must be used to eliminate this pollution again are withdrawn from mankind's progress.
One can do one's exercises with considerable concentration and yet be unholy within oneself. Doing a meditation like this is merely a matter of will. Of course, the latter should be consolidated and developed. But the whole inner life must be consecrated, so that only sacred, sublime things live in our soul. Just as one shouldn't go into meditation with impure thoughts and feelings, so one shouldn't go to sleep in the evening with such things. We're polluting divine worlds if we take thoughts of pride, vanity and arrogance with us. We should go to sleep with thoughts of reverence and thanks towards divine beings because we couldn't live for a minute while our ego and astral body are outside if such beings did not maintain our physical and etheric bodies in the meantime. We should go to sleep with reverence towards great divine beings.
An esoteric differs from an exoteric in that God lives in him consciously, in that he really lets God's force become active in him. This doesn't happen through the ideas he makes of God. Such ideas can harm a man when he later goes into higher worlds. For instance, he wants to find the Christ there in accordance with the ideas that he's made of him, and thereby doesn't recognize the real Christ, for he's different from the ever so high ideas that one can make of him.
Arrogance, pride and vanity in particular are qualities that an esoteric should get rid of. An esoteric pupil who thinks that he's already gotten rid of arrogance, pride, etc., must know that these qualities are still present in a subtle way. There is a certain vanity in the thought that one has laid these qualities aside and has advanced a great deal in one's development which is much worse than vanity in outer life, for it's intensified and applied to higher spiritual things. We can, however, be proud of a clear, logical and correct thinking — if it's unsubjective.
We're living in a very special, important time. It's a time of preparation for the Christ who will become perceptible in the etheric. We must prepare ourselves so that we can see him there. Men who don't have the good fortune to come to theosophy now won't be able to experience this event.
As we've been hearing for the last few days, we arose from higher spiritual forces. We descended from the laps of the Gods. Knowing this, we can place the Rosicrucian verse before our souls: Ex Deo nascimur — we're born from God. A sentence should stand right next to it that makes us feel very small; we should give ourselves up and lose ourselves entirely and devote ourselves to Christ. And if this mood lives in our soul rightly, we can have Ex Deo nascimur and next to it: In Christo morimur — in Christ we die. And the third sentence of this Rosicrucian saying gives us a wide view of how we can consciously develop the spirit — the Holy Spirit — in us: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus — we'll live again and again in the Holy Spirit. And if we make this Rosicrucian verse the basic mood of our meditation we'll then take in the following verse with full understanding and with holy feelings: In the spirit lay the germ of my body ...
Lesson 13
When we look at the course of our life between birth and death, then from an esoteric viewpoint we see that it's there so that we can learn something for our esoteric path. If we survey our physical life, we see that we bring the organs and pre-requisites for everything that we can do in life with us — except for three things that we must learn here in physical life. We can see color very soon after birth, we do not have to learn it, the ability, for it is simply there; the same is true of hearing, etc. The only three things we have to learn are walking, speaking and thinking or the making of concepts.
The main thing in walking is that we have to learn how to stand. We simply fall down before we can do that; we don't have a feeling of balance yet. We must first learn to feel our way into space's three dimensions And we must also learn to speak and think.
If we've learned to walk in the first year of life, we can go on our way. If we've learned how to make concepts we can give life to truth and do living things through the word. We learn to walk, speak and make concepts in the first three years of our life. We find these three years again, symbolically, in the three years that Christ lived on earth.
Everything that an esoteric pupil needs for his esoteric life is given to him in esoteric classes. He gets answers to all of his questions from what is given to him in mediation exercises; he only has to listen properly. What's given to us as a meditation must acquire life in us. Such as the verse: In pure rays of light ...
We shouldn't just let these words pass before us; they should come to life in us. We should devote ourselves entirely to the meditation's content, forget everything that's around us in physical life, personal interests and so on. As a reward for the fact that we've, as it were, given up physical life, have sacrificed it for the duration of the meditation, a tone will resound in us after the first two lines:
In pure rays of light
Gleams the Godhead of the world ...
That will be maintained for as long as our karma prescribes. It's not a tone that resounds from within, but one that sounds towards us from outside. No more will be said here, everyone must experience and grasp it himself. And while this sound, sacred word and unspeakable name resounds, the pupil should make a vow that he could also make before, but at this moment he must do so. The vow is that the pupil tells himself: I will consider every sound besides this sacred word, if it's not physically caused, to be a work of Ahriman.
This is a withdrawal, a turning away from what's around him, which creates a feeling of coldness in the pupil; a feeling of indifference takes hold of the man; he feels isolated and surrounded by a great frost. The pupil must bring love towards this frosty feeling that's created by pure thought.
When he's heard this sound he thereby gets the direction towards the east; the sound comes from the east. The pupil can orient himself in the spiritual, he no longer falls over like a child who hasn't learned how to stand and walk. He can now stand and walk in the spiritual.
And when the pupil lets the third and fourth lines live in him:
In pure love for all beings
Radiates the godliness of my soul
He will then feel warmth, radiant living warmth. Only experiences that he has during this feeling of warmth have real truth value; everything else is Lucifer's work. And if he has really enlivened the last three lines:
I rest in the Godhead of the world
I will find myself
In the Godhead of the world
he will then grasp the truth.
So in the first two lines the pupil has attained the way, the truth in the last three, and then life, spiritual life flows from the lines in between.
A pupil must develop something that's often talked about in outer life but is not put into practice, and people don't have an inkling of its depth. Many talk about love for men, and yet what people in outer life consider it to be doesn't correspond to this feeling. An esoteric pupil should begin by telling himself in all humility: I know nothing about human love. We love men for various reasons but all of this is not the right thing. We should love a man because he's a human being. Christ set a good example for this.
Lesson 14
...an esoteric's soul isn't left entirely to its own devices on this difficult path; there's things it can hang on to. The rose cross, for instance. We should let it work on us; we should realize that the wood's black is our corporeality that's hardened and withered, that we must let our lower ego that identifies itself with the body become just as dark and dead as the cross's wood. Then the higher, spiritual ego will work in us in the way that the black of the cross is changed into bright, radiant lines of light. Likewise, the red of the roses will change from the color of love working inwardly, to green, the color of life working outwardly.
When we experience symbols it's the ones that make us suffer that are genuine and from the spiritual world, and not the ones that give us joy. We must carry them around with us until we've grasped their meaning. The spiritual from them must be born in us while we suffer.
Another thing we must realize is that we can't be unegoistical. We are never ever unegoistical. And even if we imagine that we've done something that's entirely selfless, we're mistaken. We can't act selflessly. It's world karma that lets us act egoistically. World karma is God.
And if we get to the point where we act in a good and noble way, then it's God in us who's good. As we get more selfless, we'll for instance, notice that we don't get scared or terrified anymore. If there's a sudden loud noise nearby, we won't jump as much as before. The God who lets us act in a good and noble way is our model. Our archetypal model made us into what we are now. And we must become a copy of our archetype again.
Once we've understood this rightly, we'll also understand the esoteric Rosicrucian saying: Ex Deo nascimur, in Christo morimur, Per spiritum Sanctum revivscimus.
An esoteric doesn't say what's left out here. When we begin to say this line our feeling must go to what's unutterable. And only when one's feeling comes back can one go on speaking. Anyone who experiences this inwardly with the right feeling will also rightly understand the other esoteric verse:
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
Lesson 15
Esoteric exercises are the technique of spiritual life. Maya = maha-a-ya = great-non-existence.
We've only become dwellers on earth through the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman; otherwise our egos would have remained in spiritual regions, and our bodies on the earth's surface would have been directed from those regions.
Even though Lucifer and Ahriman combat the direct working of the divine spirit, they're nevertheless wanted by the spirit, for it's only through such resistance that the ego becomes fully objective in the physical world. Without Ahriman we wouldn't see a plant's green as such, but only the spiritual being that's in the plant. A single plant is like a hair in the earth's body.
Our egoism only arises through Lucifer and Ahriman. It must live in us and come to full expression, for only in this way can all of life become fully developed physically. But we should be aware that every action of ours has a selfish coloration. Our sympathy drives us to help others, but we don't like to be sympathetic.
There's no point in the world space where there's no force.
Men's etheric brains vary more than leaves on a tree. The shining points in them are like a photo of the heavens that's full of stars.
The effect of atma, buddhi, and manas is elaborated in the human eye (as in the great seal on a one dollar bill, with buddhi on the left, manas on the right, and atma at the apex).
This symbol also works on us at night. There we should try to keep the chaotic impressions of the day as far away as possible.
We shouldn't chatter about theosophy while we're eating or at other everyday occasions. It should be a holy thing for us.
Lesson 16
In our esoteric classes we've often spoken of the paths that an esoteric in the old mystery schools had to tread. At that time a man, as it were, inverted his soul and spiritual qualities more rapidly through certain methods, for he was physically and psychically more robust then. He had a stronger soul, and since this is the architect of the physical body, the latter was also stronger. These were pre-historical times. Men were less complicated and more uniform at that time. Humanity sprang out of the lap of the Gods, and after they had gradually lost their old clairvoyance on their path through matter it's a man's task to raise himself to spirituality again by taking in the Christ impulse, and filled by this, to unite himself with the Godhead.
Men have become ever weaker in body, soul and spirit through increasing materialism, and one can no longer subject the present more delicate constitutions to the trials that pupils in the ancient mysteries underwent. Back then, a candidate for initiation mainly worked at quickly getting to know how untenable egoism and fear are and at putting them aside. One can't judge what egoism really is without ordinary concepts connected with the physical plane.
The candidate for initiation was put into a sleep and his soul was then shown what it had elaborated in the spiritual world until then. His ego was then as it were, sucked up by the macrocosm, and it saw that it was a nothing. Of course this standing before nothingness as before a dark abyss aroused feelings of fear, and he had to get over this. After going through these trials he was either unfit for outer life since he realized that all perishable things were nothing, or he remained strong and decided to use this incarnation to develop as much as possible so that he could some day get to know higher worlds.
A modern shouldn't be grabbed so robustly. If an ordinary modern says that the ground is shaking under his feet, he's already saying a lot. He will always try to stand fast. He doesn't want to jump over the abyss. He must let the ground slip out from under him. For if he wants to press into spiritual worlds the concepts he formed here on the physical plane don't help him at all. He's not allowed to take any of them with him. The only things he may keep are the capacity to make concepts, a sense for truth, and logic. The capacity to form new concepts and a sense for the new truths that he'll get to know.
The masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings send us an analogy to elucidate this matter. It's as if we saw all the objects in our room in a mirror and we would then go behind the mirror to find their reality there. We would see that there's nothing behind it. Here we must let concepts about higher worlds flow into us from higher beings and we must work at ourselves so that we form such concepts. But after we've acquired some through serious and honest work, we must step before the mirror again, make a bold decision, and destroy it. Then darkness and nothingness will yawn towards us. But if we endure steadfastly, light will shine up out of the darkness and reveal an entirely new world to us.
Our esoteric work consists in gradually raising our astral and etheric bodies to spiritual heights. But the lower parts of both bodies remain behind in the physical body. The ego lays a peculiar role between these two parts that have, as it were, been torn apart. Through the fact that we've become so firmly attached to material things, it's as if it were chained to the lower parts and is their slave. Thereby peculiar phenomena arise. The astral body that's left to itself may have had certain vices that we could easily control when its better part was still connected with it, but now such qualities grow enormously and a man often feels like a sensualist. If the ego was united with the higher parts, it would control the lower ones from there and therewith all drives, desires and passions. Then the higher parts would also not be unconscious, as they are when the ego is in the lower ones. Because the higher bodies leave the lower ones the latter often become weak. The physical body then tends to get diseases. But this is a temporary condition. For when the higher parts have taken enough forces out of higher worlds, they'll work in a harmonizing and healing way on the lower ones again With respect to these irregular phenomena in his lower bodies an esoteric must tell himself: I will stand fast; I will go on my way to the spiritual world come hell or high water.
If he sets up a center against his error, he will also master them. Art is supposed to help us in these battles. All true art was given to us for this. An art that doesn't elevate us can't subsist; it's no true art. When artists will know art's mission, when art is permeated by theosophy, it'll become what it should be for us.
When the Gods created man, they gave him defects so that he could test his strength on them. We should thank the Gods for our defects, for combating them makes us strong and free. But we shouldn't love the defects for even a moment. We couldn't thank Gods who made us pure and without defects, because they would have made us into weaklings. We should tell ourselves: And even the world was full of devils we still come from God, Ex Deo nascimur. If we fight seriously and constantly try to get into spiritual worlds, we'll feel that the lower, defective part of us dies. In Christo morimur. And then we'll awaken consciously in higher worlds: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
There's an exoteric and an esoteric version of this verse. Used esoterically, the naming of the most sacred name, if it happens unworthily, can unleash earthquakes, storms, lightning and other tremendous events in nature, for if they're wrong even our most hidden thoughts have a destructive effect in spiritual worlds. That's what's meant in the first mystery drama where it says that "Spirits must break worlds if your temporal creating is not to bring destruction and death to the eternities" that is, to repair the damage that men have done with their thoughts. Therefore the esoteric version of this verse is: Ex Deo nascimur, In … morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum revisiscimus.
Lesson 17
The physical and etheric bodies are closely connected in an ordinary man. Whether he raises a hand or thinks, when he uses his physical body he also sets the corresponding part of the etheric body in motion. This connection should become looser in an esoteric.
A man has a backbone that's connected with the brain and sense organs. When he meditates, he creates a kind of a "forebone" in his etheric body; that's the row of lotus flowers that lies behind the breastbone.
The loosening of the physical and etheric bodies enables a man to heal wounds faster. Diseases of the physical body that remained concealed while the close connection was there, can then appear. One shouldn't pay much attention to small pains and ailments, because they're all transitory. But one can feel very uncomfortable when this loosening begins. Theosophical study already brings about this loosening, whereas scientific training makes the connection between the physical and etheric bodies even tighter.
So through meditation the etheric body gets the tendency to become separated from the physical body. One can intensify this through a suitable diet. Diets give the physical body the tendency to push out the etheric body. This is an aid that however brings about the wrong thing if esoteric exercises aren't added. Then the physical body ejects the etheric body without developed sense organs Then it's like a blind man, and it only sees its own daydreams.
While a man's sheaths undergo a change in this way, his connection with the macrocosm also changes. This connection must be cultivated in the right way, otherwise disasters occur in the whole world, and not just in man. For instance, someone who would utter the sacred, unspeakable name in an unsuitable group would conjure up something worse than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions over the region. Therefore, it makes a big difference how the Rosicrucian verse is spoken, namely with or without the name that's just pseudonym for the highest spiritual being. Only the latter way of speaking the verse is an esoteric one.
Lesson 19
An esoteric should realize what he is really doing with the exercises that are given to us. We've often mentioned that an esoteric is trying to loosen the etheric body and in general the four bodies from each other. This can happen in an esoteric and an exoteric way.
One can prepare the physical body sufficiently through diet, breathing exercises, etc. so that it ejects or squeezes out the etheric body. Our vegetarian way of living is basically intended to support the physical body in this striving. These are exoteric ways to loosen the bodies. The esoteric ones are our exercises. And here one has to say that the latter are the main thing. In our materialistic age many a materialist would gladly follow the most extensive dietary rules, would do breathing exercises for hours if he could attain something that way. To exert oneself spiritually is much more inconvenient, and here the spiritual inertia often becomes evident.
If we would squeeze out our etheric body by merely physical means the physical body couldn't give it anything to take with it, and it would go out into the unknown empty. Then states arise where for instance we can't grasp something with our thinking when we want to think it through. Our etheric brain can't use the physical one properly. It's as if we were swimming in water and wanted to grab something that kept on eluding us. Under such conditions a sensible esoteric will tell himself that he must first create order here through suitable willed concentrations and thought exercises. Even in normal development some things will arise of which we must tell ourselves that it's a temporary suffering. For through the pulling out of the etheric body and physical body undergoes something similar to a plant that has its sap withheld from it for awhile. It dries up. And although one doesn't see it physically, part of the physical body dries up and if it has predispositions for diseases, they appear. But if the etheric body has permeated itself rightly with spiritual truths it thereby receives new forces, and they have a healing effect on the physical body. One can observe that cuts and other wounds in the physical body heal more easily if the man permeates himself with spiritual truths or if he just lets the theosophical way of thinking work on him.
So at first we work on the astral body through our meditations. This is the builder of our nervous system that runs towards the spinal cord, or as one says today — goes out from it. Through an imprint from the astral body we're now supposed to bring about the unfolding of lotus flowers in the etheric body, which are connected with each other and thereby create a cord up front, as it were.
This front cord is only present etherically-astrally and can only be formed through concentration and meditation. That's why they're the most important part of our esoteric development.
The drinking of alcohol is very harmful for an esoteric. Alcohol must definitely be avoided. It's good to support development through a vegetarian diet, for this lifting out of the etheric body is not at all easy today. Many modern vocations are expressly designed to drive the etheric body firmly into the physical body, so that it often pains a clairvoyant to see something like that. The food one gets in hotels has the same effect.
We're supposed to acquire a new thinking, feeling and willing through esoteric work on ourselves. We must tell ourselves that when we've gotten up the courage to tread the esoteric path we must make a jump over an abyss. We must let a thought that we have thought through pass over into our feelings and then permeate the latter with it completely so that we don't carelessly say something that we haven't fully grasped. A frequently heard statement that's misused more than most is: I am a Christian. An esoteric should realize that being a Christian is a distant ideal that he must constantly try to attain. To live like a Christian mainly means to accept whatever destiny may bring us with equanimity, to never grumble about the Gods' work, and to joyfully accept whatever they send. It means to let the sentence "Look at the birds of the air, they don't sow, reap or store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them" pass over into your flesh and blood. We're living in accordance with this saying if we thankfully accept what's given to us. If we don't do that it becomes blasphemy in our mouth. We should realize that if we don't prepare ourselves sufficiently for the leap over the abyss and into spiritual regions we can do so much damage through words and thoughts that the Gods have to destroy worlds to make the damage good again. For what is ruined must be destroyed in order to be created anew.
We arose from the spirit — Ex Deo nascimur. And when we jump over the abyss we express this through, In Christo morimur — with the firm confidence that we come to live again over there in the Holy Spirit — Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus. But because we should always keep the name of the holiest one — who was always connected with our earth — so holy that we don't say it unworthily, there's an esoteric version of the Rosicrucian verse in which the name is omitted:
Ex Deo nascimur
In … morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
Lesson 20
The word Iachim (Joachim) (Yo-hah [throated] - him) has a pedagogically healing effect. Should be said as a prayer in morn and eve for the sake of children and sick people.
Lesson 23
Meditation has a technical part and one that's carried over into life, that is, the way a man thinks, feels and acts change through correct meditation.
Meditation requires patience and conscientiousness. What does a man do when he meditates? He imitates what divine spiritual beings in the higher hierarchies did millions of years ago, giving rise to our present earth. Everything around us is condensed thoughts of the Gods. The divine spiritual beings thought, and namely they thought rhythmically in cycles according to the principle that steady dripping hollows the stone.
What they thought frequently with brief intervals between has become harder earth substance, such as diamonds. It has a creative effect to imagine things that don't exist in the physical world, but thinking about existing things doesn't.
I'm an egoist. I'm not a Christian. These are two very fruitful sentences for meditation. A man must become acquainted with the monster that he is.
The meeting with the guardian of the threshold is something that's terrible for everyone. One can say this to an esoteric. The seeing of beautiful things and figures is astral maya, is Lucifer. The hearing of masters and the like is etheric maya, is Ahriman. One must investigate what one sees and hears there; then one will see the true state of affairs.
Lesson 24
It's important for a modern to be aware of what he's doing and what changes in him when he takes up an esoteric life.
We've often heard that two paths take us into spiritual worlds; one of them is when a man descends deep within him to find a connection with God; the other is when he tries to go out into the macrocosm. We have the forces in us that we seek, that created us; we look for them because we don't recognize them and not because we don't have them. In theosophy we learn about both paths that are supposed to balance each other, for a modern is no longer suited to go on one path alone Each path has its dangers, that we'll discuss later, and they're both very difficult. We treat the inner path in our meditations in inspiration, and the outer one through a thorough study of theosophical teachings about world evolution in imagination. This study develops our intellect and also influences our feelings, and after years of thorough study of these ideas, we'll notice that we've become different human beings. Theosophy works on men whether they bring a receptivity for it with them or not. Moderns are divided into two groups — those who seek theosophy because it gives them what they were striving for and those who don't know what to do with it and are opposed to it. Since November, 1879, a few men have become mature enough to take in theosophical teachings, but it's only a small host, whereas other moderns are till unable to acquire the teachings, consider them to be fantastic ideas and dreams or even get angry about them.
When people who prove to be receptive for theosophical teachings let the latter work upon them, their etheric body begins to oscillate slightly. Whereas someone who loses himself in external things gets an expanded and rarified etheric body. When such a person hears some spiritual teachings it's as if the wind were blowing through a cleft in the etheric body, which announced itself in him as fear, but appears outwardly as doubt. Such a man only notices the doubts, but they're the expression of fear and anxiety that have moved into his rarified etheric body as into a vacuum and have become noticeable there as doubt. We can't help a man who behaves in a rejective manner. It's better not to bother him with theosophy But wherever an opportunity rises we should quietly let theosophical ideas flow in according to the principle "steady dripping hollows the tone." For we only have another 400 years or so to give these teachings in a theosophical form to all men. So that everyone will have an opportunity those who resisted them now will be born again in the next four centuries. A suitable number of men must be present then who represent theosophy in the right way.
Men could only tread the inner path for a long time before the event of Golgotha. Men who went out into the macrocosm in ancient India would have become lost in it as in darkness and emptiness, because their inner members had a different relationship to each other then. This kind of union with God existed until medieval times, because man changes but slowly. Mystics like Eckhart, Tauler and Molinos teach us the inner path an describe it exactly. Miguel de Molinos speaks of five stages of immersion He says that we must turn away from all creatures that corresponds to the forces of our etheric body, from our talents that correspond to the astral body, and from our ego that coincides with our fourth part and that we must merge with God.
But it gradually became necessary for men to tread the inner and outer paths simultaneously, and that's why the Rosicrucian, esoteric schools that taught both ways rose in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The writer of the Apocalypse points to the outer path for the first time. He shows us that we must become entirely separated from our personality to treat it. In a modest way he says that he was caught up by the spirit on Patmos Island. This has a particular meaning. In order to tread this outer path or to find the union with the divine in the macrocosm one must choose a firm point from which one concentrates oneself. So John the theologian calculated the stars' position on September 30, 395 A.D. and he had his visions from this point. On that day the sun stood before the Virgo sign and the moon was under her feet. We showed this picture on one of the seven seals. One can also calculate this time exoterically. Scholars have done this and have concluded that John Chrysostum wrote the Apocalypse around this time. But in reality we're touching upon a great secret here, for of course the Apocalypse arose much earlier, and its writer only moved himself ahead into the year 395.
Both paths have dangers for which an esoteric must watch. One who takes in theosophical teachings is attacked by many doubts; that's only natural and better than accepting things on faith. Of course he must eliminate these doubts and this will make him stronger.
A second danger into which an esoteric can et on this outer path is instability. One who has studied world evolution seriously will have felt that intense interests that he had previously disappear and that he doesn't have a firm hold on anything earthy. The danger here is that one's instability is disguised in the form of a high ideal that one is striving towards or a mission that one has to fulfill. But if we see through this and recognize it as a disguised instability we'll make rapid progress on the right path.
In descents into our interior two dangers threaten us. We can have a certain sensual pleasure, a comfortable feeling from the divine through the immersion in us and can thereby fall prey to a fine egotism, so that we turn away from everything that surrounds us and that should still interest.
The second danger is that a man can take what approaches him on immersion into himself to be spiritual revelations, when they may just be his own feelings.
Medieval mystics didn't have theosophical teachings yet. We don't find the latter anywhere in them. Their union with the divine is like a Neo-Buddhism. They didn't need the outer path yet.
Mystics also use the saying In Christo morimur in the form: In Christ we live.
Lesson 25
One could ask why people want to devote themselves willingly to an esoteric life today, and whether it wouldn't be better to tell oneself that if a divine spiritual will wants to let me enter higher worlds it'll do this by itself, and so I'll wait. But if one asked the present, esoteric leaders of the Rosicrucian stream about this, they would have to reply: You're forgetting that you as a man are placed on a battlefield on earth, and namely in the battle of good spiritual powers against Lucifer and Ahriman. Both are trying to recruit the souls of men for their armies.
What does Lucifer want to make out of men? Looked at one-sidedly, he has a sublime goal. We know that the previous embodiment of our earth Old Moon, was the cosmos of wisdom, that it was completely permeated by wisdom. But Lucifer lacked the force of love that's now incorporated in the earth. And so he's permeated with wisdom but he knows nothing about love at all. He has devoted himself entirely to wisdom, he's gotten high on it as it were, and he wants to fill all of earth's children with wisdom.
And this is a big temptation for men again and again. Lucifer's forces live in us, and he in effect tells us: If you take me completely into yourself you'll see all relationships, you'll know everything, and everything will be clear to you.
He wants to give men wisdom without love, which leads to selfish knowledge. Lucifer still thinks that he'll get human soldiers for his army, and he's working very hard to achieve this.
Lucifer is in all knowledge and perception. There's only one place where he can't get at us, and that's when we quite devotedly immerse ourselves in our meditation in wisdom without outer influences — then we escape Lucifer.
And what does Ahriman want? We wants to give men power. Ahriman is a spirit who fell away even earlier. Archangels were men on old Sun, but quite different ones than we are. At that time, thinking was immediately translated into deeds. Men were mighty beings back then. Thought was reality immediately. Wisdom then was not like it was on old Moon yet — it was power; but power without wisdom leads to black magic, to darkening.
We conquer Ahriman through the attitude that we want to devote ourselves to the World Spirit, that we only want to be his instrument, to only let him work in us. If we do our meditation with this attitude we can conquer Ahriman.
We conquer Lucifer by filling our ego completely with the meditation's content. Lucifer can't get into the ego, only into the astral body.
The Christ impulse is love. But love without wisdom would be very bad. For instance we're told that there was a mother who loved her daughter like an idol and wouldn't refuse her anything. Through this wrong training the daughter became a famous poison mixer at the beginning of the 19th century. The daughter's individuality is now incarnated again as a black magician. It reincarnated so quickly because such beings are practically spit out of the spiritual world.
Lucifer is redeemed by Christ. Men who take Lucifer in on Jupiter will be mighty beings; but it'll be like a burning of these egos in wisdom without love.
Then on Venus one will be dealing with black magic; the condition will be like a spiritual drowning. Men must already have the will for spiritual things now so that pure love can shine on Venus.
Lesson 43
An esoteric must bring two qualities into equilibrium like pendulum swings, first the tolerance of solitude, that is, the strengthening of egoity, and secondly complete devotion to the duty that approaches us from outside, to the point of self-sacrifice or the forgetting of oneself. When we've gotten to the point where our heart longs for solitude in the midst of our surroundings, where the latter makes us suffer and we nevertheless give it our full, devoted love — then we've attained the unification of apparently contradictory qualities.
A third thing we should practice is to be silent about our esoteric experiences. An undeveloped man almost explodes if he has to keep a secret, and he feels very relieved if he can get things off his chest. But an esoteric should consider that this force that threatens to blow one up must be a very strong one if one prefers to store it up inwardly. That's why it says, "Learn to be silent and you'll get the power" — that is, the power to rule things within one. For instance, an occult investigator can perceive how much stronger a man gets when he has to suppress the telling of a secret for some reason. Say that a man has something on his soul that he would like to tell a friend. Intending to rush over to him, he meets another acquaintance at the door, but he doesn't want to tell this one about it. Later it's too late to go to his friend, so he has to suppress his urge to communicate. An occultist will see that the soul in such a person has developed a force that wouldn't have arisen if the man had fulfilled his wish to make his communication. The saying: "The mouth speaks out of the heart's abundance" shouldn't apply to an esoteric.
It might sometimes be good and appropriate for a nonesoteric to tell all, but not for an esoteric. By communicating his innermost feelings and thoughts, he sprays out forces that would have been very necessary for his soul. Every time we're able to keep thoughts and feelings to ourselves, especially ones that are connected with our esoteric experiences and difficulties, we acquire a soul force that we can't lose. One should speak about universally human things and about things that can be useful to people, but not about one's own affairs that are nobody else's business. Where does this need to communicate come from anyway? We seldom feel the need to go to other men because we love them selflessly, but usually because they have qualities that give us something. We should also drop the wish to be coddled. We should be grateful to people if they treat us badly, because then we can exercise our tolerating forces. We should try to love these people anyway, and we'll then notice that this is the right thing to do. An esoteric should also stop complaining. What does he complain about? Mostly about the thoughts that storm in on him from all sides when he begins his meditation. But he should be thankful for this and look upon it as progress that he notices how real the thought world is and that it can assert itself like this. He should just oppose it because he'll get stronger thereby We should figure out how these thoughts do it, look upon them as models of how we can concentrate ourselves and tell ourselves: We should immerse ourselves in meditation with the same intensity — then we'll attract spiritual forces that support us. It would be a very comfortable meditation if angels or other spiritual beings would come beforehand to sweep away the undesired thoughts.
Once an esoteric has overcome all of these qualities and has learned to speak the right amount, he'll arrive at what mystics called the portal of death, because he finds himself in the same condition as a man who has turned all of his interests away from the outer world as he gets ready to die. He has turned inwards or toward divine spiritual things. That's what's meant in the second part of our Rosicrucian verse: In Christo morimur; we die in Christ when we transform ourselves completely and turn toward the spiritual world again. Ex Deo nascimur: We're born from God and must incarnate in the physical. Then it's our task to develop so that we can say; In Christo morimur. We turn away from all physical things and raise ourselves to the spiritual that was always called the Holy Spirit, and in this we are reborn: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
The verse that masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feeling gave us:
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
Lesson 44
One feeling that esoteric life can give rise to is that waking life seems to be just a sleeping life. This is not a mood that we could continually arouse in us, and it should never be our intention to let certain momentary esoteric moods spread out over our whole life. If we did that we wouldn't be fit to do our duties in the outer world. To be sure, as an esoteric sees nature's kingdoms around him, he should occasionally experience a mood of longing to press through to what lies behind them, to true reality, to what we're striving for, and compared with which all ordinary sense impressions have no more value than those from sleep. One who wanted to live in such esoteric moods all the time would have to withdraw into a kind of a monk's life. But that is not the kind of esotericism for which Rosicrucianism strives. One who would like to withdraw like that would have to be aware that he acquires certain privileges with respect to his fellow men, so that he can thereby prepare himself for several lives in the outer world, but that if all men wanted to live like him, no progress in human evolution would be possible.
...
One can also have the feeling that the bad thoughts that we have are not just thoughts but are something real. If we thought something bad about a person we see this like a shooting arrow that can inure the person's soul more than a physically shot arrow could hurt his body. As soon as we see what we do, thereby, we notice that the arrow flies back at us an burns us like fire, as if we were in the netherworld's flames. This is the so-called going through the elements. It doesn't have to be seen as a vision, one can feel it on oneself as if one had burn wounds all over one. When we feel like this, we, as it were, send forces out of our etheric body which however can only go to the boundary of our aura. There they meet the cosmos' forces working everywhere in this surroundings that make these forces turn around and direct them to certain centers where they bring out super-sensible organs. It's as with physical eyes that were formed out of indifferent organs by light. As long as light worked on them, one couldn't see yet. This only became possible when they were finished. Likewise we can only use our higher organs after we've built them up in the described way.
Lesson 45
Now what does "I got to know the four elements" mean? The first element in which man was created was warmth. And in earth evolution it was really intended that a man was supposed to send streams of warmth into his body from outside. The heat of summer and winter's cold that he now experiences in his body as a single man he was, as it were, supposed to feel as his ego streaming towards him from outside. He was supposed to feel that this ego was connected with all other egos The fact that warmth has moved into our blood is Lucifer's deed. Air is the second element with which we're closely connected. We should really have the feeling that we are the air that's outside there, that we stream into the body with every breath to re-enliven it. Instead of this, we feel that air is something that comes to us from outside, and we give it back as something that kills. Ahriman comes towards us in this lethal air.
We only identify ourselves with the solid and fluid elements in us — the physical body and its blood. But we should identify ourselves so little with our respective personality that even if we get to know our previous incarnations, we only look upon these as through stations. We should never say that we were this or that personality. For thereby, we combine our eternal I with something perishable.
Lesson 46
When one comes into an esoteric stream, it's quite natural to ask oneself: How do I bring my soul forward, how do I develop it upwards? Here it's of the greatest importance for us to stand firmly at an esoteric center from which we look at life and let it be irradiated from there. We should open ourselves to the streams from the spiritual world that are in accordance with our time. It has absolutely no value to flirt with other lines of thought because they seem to be theosophical — to work with them superficially. This directly hinders our progress. It would be much better to join a mostly wrong line of thought if we think that it gives us more, for then we'll get the corresponding things from it. A true esoteric must look at life with alert eyes from his firm, immoveable standpoint, for life will become increasingly complicated. These complications are created by Luciferic beings who remained behind in their development at the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, they didn't accept the consequences of this Mystery. What's happening now in spiritual worlds is shocking in many respects for one who can see into them. Lucifer brought it about that we moved into our physical and etheric bodies and didn't remain floating above them, and this was actually good for us, for this enabled our ego to attain cognitional power and memory. To be sure, memory is also something that holds us back. But in the way we're in our bodies we would not be able to do without it — mainly we wouldn't be able to distinguish between reality and illusion.
Lesson 47
In our last few lectures we learned that our whole existence is guided by high beings who each in their own way work at world becoming and at our special human features. If we want to connect ourselves with them through concentration and meditation we must fill ourselves with a feeling of humility that can't be compared with the humility that we have in daily life, for this feeling of humility stands too high above every human comprehension, when we connect ourselves with these sublime beings who are also our teachers in the spiritual world. Later on, a man is able to distinguish between real beings and forces that radiate from within him. One can feel in one's heart whether what's seen comes from higher worlds or from within one; it goes through the heart with a warmth and excitement that radiate into it from the cosmos. For the heart is connected with Leo and the sun, and the warmth of these forces participates in spiritual vision.
Now what does it mean to be an esoteric? A man is placed in his karma through all phases of his earth existence. It's impossible for him to escape it, for the consequences of his feeling, thinking and especially of his deeds follow him irrevocably through all of his incarnations, be it sooner or later. He must eradicate the wrongs that he did here on earth, depending on the circumstances into which he's put through his incarnation. Divine guidance sees to this. Before a man takes his own development in hand, everything goes according to regulated laws that nothing can accelerate. But if he begins an esoteric training something quite different happens to him. He frees himself from guidance, takes his development in hand and becomes a different man qualitatively. Through what? Things that he previously thought were desirable mostly lost their value for him, his views and attitudes change, and he sees that he often acted unsympathetically in the past. His feeling of responsibility now becomes much more subtle, and he tries to make his wrongs good in every direction, no matter how many outer and inner sacrifices it may cost him. The meditation and other exercises that are given to an esoteric transform his etheric body through daily repetition, assuming that he experiences them in the right way, that is, with the right feelings and through pictures that arise within. Thereby the etheric body gradually separates itself. After these exercises have been done patiently and by giving up one's whole existence for a short time each day, something wonderful will be faintly noticeable to the man on awakening which he can't express in word, for it's a very delicate feeling of an experience in the spiritual world from which he's just returned. After awhile, he sees colors rising before him in which forms take shape, and something quite unlike what he's used to seeing confronts him. At the beginning of spiritual development the things that appear are similar to things in our daily environment, and they often radiate out of our soul as the latter's qualities — so we shouldn't take them to be spiritual experiences right away. One should emphasize that esoteric training doesn't just make a man better. A man may have moral virtues and be ever so intellectually developed, and yet have disharmonious, bad qualities hidden in his soul that are usually varnished over by conventional morals. A man is really worse than one usually thinks. When a man takes his esoteric development in hand, his vices inevitably appear, and here an esoteric must use his whole strength to master them; he brings up his karma and accelerates it through his development. Let's understand this well for we've entered on another life's path; we've now become companions of our sublime spiritual guides who previously directed us, for now we direct ourselves and also take full responsibility for this.
People often say that it's nothing but egoism if a man wants to develop faster than his fellows. But that's not so. As soon as we realize that we have a divine origin and that we must develop ourselves up again to the primal source of our existence, to divinity, then it's even a sin of omission if we say: I don't want to participate in the Godhead, it'll lead me to the goal someday.
There's a lot of intellectual arrogance in a statement like that, for the Gods have laid the germs of our spiritual capacities in us, and when we're aware of this it must be our duty not to let these forces lie fallow or to leave their germination to the general stream of development. We must take the unfolding of our spiritual organs in hand ourselves, we must no longer let ourselves be led — we must become companions of our leaders. It's a difficult path. There can be no question of egoism here for we have duties with respect to the leaders who've previously shown us the path.
Lesson 48
Now let's raise our thoughts again to the high being who's in charge of today. It's always a favorable constellation if an esoteric lesson can be held on a Friday, because of the great influence that this being ours into our thoughts and feelings. (Venus mantra.)
Last time we discussed why we should become esoterics; today I'd like to tell you the real significance of daily mediation. The meditations are tested and given to us by the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings for esoteric work. Their force is irresistible if they're done in the right way with the most sacred devotion. One should do the meditation shortly before going to sleep and after one has banished all thoughts from our soul that still connect us with daily life with it joys and pleasure, work and sorrows. The meditation must be our last thought that we take into the other world so that spiritual beings can connect themselves with it. We dive down into their etheric bodies and they permeate us with their force so that we can receive new forces and fresh health from them for the new day. Unfortunately, many men go over into sleep life with thoughts of material life's everyday pleasures. These thoughts that stream out create oscillations that repel spiritual beings, and such men counteract their spiritual development and health. Just as we dive down into a spiritual atmosphere in the evening, so on awakening in the morn we shouldn't immediately get caught up in the worries, desires and passions that filled us the previous day. If we suppress all of this and let our thoughts still stay in the regions from which we just descended for awhile, then after a little practice, we'll feel how this promotes our development and not just for our own inner being, for the radiant forces that flowed into us will also go out of our eyes and hands and into our deeds for the good of mankind.
Lesson 56
We get an increase in spiritual knowledge and forces through hard work at esoteric exercises such as the ones described in How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds? and in other books. But we must heed certain practical hints that help us to get ahead.
A healthy condition of tiredness doesn't have to prevent us from carrying out concentration and mediation with great willpower. On the contrary. Nature does one part of the work for us, since it dulls the outer sense organs and lessens our ability to take in sense impressions. For the goal is to see without physical eyes, to hear without physical ears and to think without a physical brain. It's precisely when we are tired that we can illumine and warm our being with the luminous thoughts of meditation.
Abstention from alcohol is necessary, for this works on the ego that lives and works in the blood. Meditation pulls the spirit up and loosens its connection with the physical body; alcohol pulls it down and consolidates it in the same. Eating meat makes the spirit heavy. Eating plants makes greater demands on the physical body so that it's busy and can't hinder the spirit's work. But what else is brought about by abstention of fish and meat? The bad about eating meat is the lasting effect of hurting and killing animals. These martyred animals return in the form of creatures who turn their forces against the bodies of the descendents of those who once killed them. Bacteria are re-embodied tortured, killed and eaten animals.
Exercises bring about changes in an esoteric that he must pay attention to if he is to avoid injuries. Firstly, the intellect changes; the guidance of thought becomes different and so does judgment and memory. It becomes difficult for an esoteric to give logical and readily understandable reasons for his actions to an ordinary man. Such grounds aren't at all necessary, for at the decisive moment a real esoteric knows the right thing to do. But if he doesn't pull himself together and lazily avoids doing thought-control exercises, his thoughts may get confused.
Some immature people force their esoteric development and gain a certain power over others; but at the decisive moment they're stopped before they can do greater damage.
Secondly the way one speaks and makes gestures changes. A man must have himself under control so that his nervous system doesn't take over and he does all kinds of impermissible things.
Thirdly the physical body must not become injured by a forced, greedy tempo in esoteric development, otherwise an acute disease may set in, which however is curable and that warns the one who get it.
In the Hebrew mysteries, they spoke of two men who tried to go through the temple's portal — but only one got to it. Only one developed normally through particularly patient and consequent methods and reached the goal. The others who forced their esoteric development were harmed. This shows how necessary a rigorous execution of the accessory exercises is for the harmonizing and consolidating effect on man's whole being.
There are many powerful meditation materials, especially in the Bible. For instance, there's a description of creation's six days, the words at the beginning of John's Gospel, the appearance of Yahweh to Moses in the burning bush, the Gospel stories, "I am the light of the world," and a particularly effective meditation is 1 Timothy 3:16 in the following translation: The mystery of God's path can be known. He who revealed himself through flesh, although in itself his being is spiritual, who is only fully knowable by angels, but could nevertheless be preached to heathens, who is alive in the faith of the world; he is raised to the Wisdom Spirits' sphere.
What bodhisattvas could give to men was inspired by Spirits of Movement. The lowest things that radiated from the Christ came from the sphere of the hierarchy of the Spirits of Movement. The Christ is above all hierarchies — he belongs to the Trinity.
Lesson 58
Why is it that you're here? From where does your urge for esoteric development come? About 4000 years ago, and so before the Event of Golgotha, the etheric body enlivened the physical body in such a way that not all of the etheric body's forces were used to permeate the physical body, and it was to these forces that an esoteric turned, with these he turned to spiritual worlds. Then about 3000 years ago, all etheric bodies had sunk into the physical bodies, especially in Greece, and those who developed the greatest things in the physical realm felt that the spiritual world was a realm of shades. But now the physical body no longer absorbs all of the etheric body's forces, it rejects them, it is withering, for we are past the middle of earth evolution, and it's only through these force that the physical body can no longer take in that we can live in the spiritual world. And you who felt this urge for esoteric development, who were not satisfied with mere physical life and knowledge, you sensed these unused forces in you; they drove you to seek an esoteric life.
What's the difference between esoteric and exoteric? In exoteric life we get communications that are taken from esoteric life as food for our souls. In esoteric life we try to look into the worlds from which esoteric communications are taken ourselves.
What's given here is not just communications — it's advice that flows from spiritual inspiration. It's not just words, concepts, ideals — it's words, concepts and ideals that are permeated with life, life germs that are sunk into our etheric forces and that should blossom there — they're realities. They've been tested repeatedly by those whom we call the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings.
Esoteric is a source of life and of forces that flow through the world and that should also stream through us. And so every Sunday morn at 9 o'clock you should meditate on: In the Spirit of Mankind I feel united with all esoterics. When we begin our exercises it's of great importance that we first create inner quiet. It can be attained through patience. The only thing we have to combat is the thought: I won't attain it. We should reject this as a temptation. And even if it takes ever so long, the time will come when our thought horizon will become clear, if we just push away the sense impressions and thought that distract us with all the willpower that we muster. We should let the formulas and symbols live in us vigorously and energizingly, shouldn't form thoughts about them but should experience them and feel them to be like an inner light. They must take hold of us strongly, for they are drawn from the unspeakable word that has creative power. This is the Indians' mahavach; it's inspirations from words that sound through spiritual worlds; it's supposed to radiate in us like an inner sun.
Then we must create an inner void by erasing and suppressing everything that arises from memory, including theosophical contents, and just wait for what can rise in our soul — either something entirely new that we've never heard or had a inkling of, or a lively vision of occult facts that we received in exoteric life. Much more strength is needed for independent discoveries than for an intelligent understanding of the Pythagorean theorem or some other already found fact. What's communicated to us now we can also find ourselves, but probably only after 25 incarnations. We have the duty to work along with the present state of evolution by shortening the path as much as possible.
Lesson 60
If you love nature's beauty and enjoy its small things you won't just feel nature in majestic oceans or mountains — like sensation-seeking modern materialists — but in things that can be found anywhere. When higher worlds open up to a man, he shouldn't close himself off from the outer world. He should become familiar with nature and try to understand it, and not criticize it without sympathy. Then every little animal can teach him something. A man shouldn't say: it's only maya. One would have to answer him: Yes, it's only maya but it's Gods' maya and that's beautiful. Why can a man be glad about a tree today? Because the Gods were once gladdened by what was around them. It would be bad for the future if a man walked through the world indifferently, for he would leave a joyless world behind him. Every joy that one has had from small things will give rise to something for others in the future, and not just for oneself. What's true here is that all concealed things will become manifest.
These three things are supposed to have a healing effect on thinking, feeling and willing. In ancient times, men were much more robust and the exercises were more drastic than the one nervous people do today. Ancient Hebrews spoke about four rabbis who went into the garden of maturity; the first became a megalomaniac, the second did mad things, and the third died. That's drastically expressed to point to the corporeal difficulties that can arise in an esoteric from moral and intellectual defects. This also arise in an ordinary person, but not as directly, and he doesn't know about the connection between lies and disease, for instance. An esoteric makes his body much more receptive. He should see a warning in all difficulties and ailments, which the Gods send him to show that something isn't in order; then he should be even more attentive and careful. A man should only say what's been checked and is true. It's not enough for him to excuse himself with an "I said it in good faith." That's not enough. An esoteric should also never say: "It's not my fault." That's a denial of karma and it doesn't help, for karma appears anyway. One should be responsible for one's deeds and improve them.
