Nature and Spirit Beings
Their Effects in Our Visible World
GA 98
7 November 1907, Vienna
II. Esoteric Development and Super-sensible Knowledge
I want to talk to you more in-depth about the previous topic of the day before yesterday, about inner or esoteric development and super-sensible knowledge. It will be quite necessary to treat what we examined then as a prerequisite because we want to build further upon what has touched our soul at that time. You will have understood from what was discussed, that the development of the human being is not something that should be taken as a joke; it is not something that should be taken lightly. Though on the other hand, one has to emphasise repeatedly, that one should not talk about the dangers of occult development in an ordinary, trivial way either. The dangers are great, but the way they are usually talked about is not correct, we have to become very clear about this. Let us just try to imagine more precisely what happens to someone who has developed himself through some kind of exercise, let’s say, by way of the type of exercises mentioned in the last lecture, and let’s compare him with someone who is not involved in such training and follows, just like everyone else, his daily routine. We will arrive at a conscious understanding, if we begin, for example, with what we know about the ordinary state of sleep.
From the previous lecture1Vienna, 6 November 1907. No transcript is available of this lecture. you’ve learnt what the human astral body actually does at night in the normal state of sleep. While a human being is asleep, the physical body and the etheric body lie in bed—but the so-called “astral body” together with the ego rises out of these and leaves them behind. And when the astral body is not in the physical body, and does not use its tools, the sense organs, to observe and reflect upon the external world, and is not kept busy by the movements and work of the physical body, then the astral body can take on a completely different task. It removes the exhaustion of both.2Translator’s Note: the physical and the etheric body. The removal of this exhaustion is its task. A clairvoyant can see how the astral body throughout the whole night works from the outside on the physical and etheric body to restore them so that in the morning the human being feels the renewal of his strength and feels refreshed. For this reason, sleep is such a good doctor, and if someone doesn’t get healthy and sufficient sleep he loses a lot. Many, many things that seem to be sicknesses, are only disturbances in the physical and etheric body. These disturbances remain if the astral body is unable to remove them. It is, however, able to remove these disturbances when it is not in the physical body as in the awake state, but when it is outside of the body.
Where does the astral body get its strength and abilities, that it uses to 'repair' the physical body? In my last public lecture, I have already compared the exit of the astral body out of the physical and the etheric body, to an amount of water contained in a glass. If you have about 1000 drops of water in this glass which form a body of water, then this is different from taking a thousand small sponges and sponging up every drop of water separately—and so you will have individualised each drop separately. In the same way, this happens with the astral body during the night. If all of you were to fall asleep here now, the same thing would happen as when you were to squeeze out the sponges and create one body of water. Your astral body would raise up and would join with the others. By connecting in this way, human beings come into contact with those harmonic magnificent occurrences in the universe. Our souls return in the night to the harmony of the spheres and from these the astral body with the ego—and this is the soul—acquire the strength needed for the restoration of the physical body.
What will happen to a human being who obtains an occult teacher and undergoes occult training? He is given certain tasks. One can only talk about these roughly. He receives tasks to meditate, concentrate, and so on. What is the purpose of the task assigned to the student by the teacher? The purpose is to slowly enable the astral body to see when it is outside of the physical body at night. The astral body of an ordinary human being is, when outside, unconscious within the astral world, as you would be unconscious in the physical world if you had no sense organs. Without sense organs, the world does not exist for you. The moment a human being receives the instructions to awaken the dormant forces of his soul, his astral body receives spiritual or psychic sense organs, those organs that are called Lotus flowers. These are not flowers any more than the lobes of the lungs3Translator’s Note: Lobes of the lungs are called “Lungenflügel” in German i.e., wings of the lungs. are wings. Everyone knows that a hawk has wings that look quite different from the lobes of the lungs.
Lotus flowers are organs, that perform a kind of circling motion. One such organ is located underneath the forehead, one centimetre under where the eyebrows meet, in the brain. Focusing intensely on this point and simultaneously speaking a particular word, triggers a kind of flash, an appearance of light, visible to a clairvoyant from the outside. The sense organ begins to carry out a circling motion. It is said that the wheel is turning, it comes to life.
A normal average person does not have such an organ at this location, or there is at most a subtle hint of it. Through the training, the flashing appears when the astral body is outside of the physical one. The impression one gains as a clairvoyant, observing from the outside, is that of a turning wheel. This wheel is called a “swastika”. This sign, like other real symbols, cannot be explained by speculation. They weren’t randomly invented but can really be seen on the spiritual or astral plane. The swastika is a symbol of this sense organ, and all witty explanations in the theosophical literature are nonsense. One must not provide allegorical or symbolic explanations in theosophy. This would be what one must give up first: all speculation. One has to give up all this pondering about how things could be. It is only important to enter into reality itself. Located close to the larynx is the sixteen-petalled Lotus flower, an organ on which human development depends very much. Close to the heart is the twelve-petalled, and further down the ten-petalled Lotus, and so on.
These organs develop through the exercises that the teacher assigns to the student, in the same way as the sense organs of the physical body develop by practice, for example through the influence of light and sound. You can see one as a physical and the other as a spiritual process of exactly the same duration. You must not believe that any riotous processes, magic, or some such things, could lead someone to develop these sense organs. It is only intimate processes, learning by thinking thoughts that have the strength in them to develop such organs. Hereby it is consistently important that the human being learns what these thoughts are, and that he focuses on a particular bodily organ, for example at a point in his brain located one centimetre below the middle of the eyebrows. If a human being now focuses on this point whilst using a specific combination of words, he will awaken certain abilities inside his astral body. It is all systematically and, one could say, technically determined.
Some people don’t find this very relevant for them at all. Repeatedly, one hears phrases that are an absurdity for a true occultist: “I do not need a teacher; I have to find my teacher inside of myself”. Now, in such talks, the greatest egoism can be found—and it is nonsense. If someone would look at geometry from this perspective, what would be the result? Everyone is able to discover all the laws of geometry by way of inner development: he might need many thousand years to discover them, but he is able to find them. But is it really necessary, to discover geometry anew?
Should one not just connect to what mankind in century-long work has discovered, build upon it, and create something useful for humanity that has provided us with so much knowledge? Humanity is entitled to this. What could we spare humanity from, if we would feel devoted love towards the teachers of early mankind! In the same way, we are also not attempting to search for the sake of our own inner development, but as workers performing a great service to mankind. There were always human beings who were pioneers. They are the ones from whom we have to learn, and if we are worried about submitting to their authority then that is loveless nonsense. Working in the spirit of the teachers of mankind, to seek out those who can lead us, is an immediate and absolute necessity for occult teachers and students alike. Those things that the teachers tell us, and that were tested and known for centuries, tease the sense organs out of the astral body.
If someone gives occult advice—a real teacher won’t do this—then it can easily happen that they instruct the student on how he can gain perceptions in the astral world. It can then be perceived that the student begins to work on his astral body and starts to tease out the sense organs but begins to display worse habits and characteristics than prior to becoming an occult student. People were wondering about the fact that in the early times of theosophy many people made incomprehensible mistakes in regard to their character. Even a slight development of the astral body, instigated by the elementary teachings of theosophy, when these became first known publicly, triggered quite curious phenomena. For example, a student, who was a cashier, took off with the money, and another still did quite different things; also, people who were previously very peace-loving became quarrelsome. This is because even with a bit of occult development flowing from the theosophical concepts, if not followed up properly the bad sides of a character issue forth. However, none should be frightened because of this. Attention should simply be paid to such things as they need to be taken seriously. Using our strength of character, we just want to aim at not falling for such temptations. It will be different once a student is approached by real systematic occult training. Then work on the astral body is more extensive, and it becomes quite necessary to offer a substitute source of energy to replenish the physical and etheric bodies.
How can that be replenished which is taken from the physical and etheric bodies? To achieve this, it will be necessary to develop quite specific characteristics in a human being. In human nature and essence, it is possible to develop traits that allow the physical and etheric body to be maintained so they don’t depend on too extensive restoration. Imagine that you do something during the day that contributes to strengthening and restoring the physical and etheric body so that these will be resonating by way of their own purpose and rhythm in harmony with the great universe. Only then will you be able to use the forces for the astral body itself. This must be done, it doesn’t need to be done right away, but the time will come when it must happen. When the teacher says: “You have to concentrate the thinking”—what is meant by that is not only ordinary thinking. When told: “You have to sit down, think any ordinary thought and do not allow any other thoughts to come in, focus on the thought as intensely as possible whilst rejecting all other thoughts—this will require the human being to make a certain inner conquest—and this inner conquest is what counts. The subject is not meant to be interesting and fascinating. For example, it would be easy to focus on Napoleon, but it would be difficult to focus on a matchstick uninterruptedly for an extended period of time. This is the very essence. You will soon notice, how after some time you will reach a certain inner strength and surety. One can already feel, based on an inner experience, whether it has been effective.
Next, one must take the initiative and perform actions that one otherwise would most certainly not have done. It could be something completely unimportant. The importance of an activity is irrelevant, but it must be your own action, derived from your own original initiative. A man I told this to informed me after some time that every day in his office he would take seven steps forwards and seven steps backwards whilst imagining “Evolution and Involution”. Excellent! Not the importance of an action, but that the initiative is uniquely one’s own, is what counts.
I’ve talked to other friends about this and, to give them an example, I mentioned that one could water flowers if one had never done this before. And what did I have to deal with then? When I visited those friends, they were all busy watering flowers! That was the completely wrong thing to do because they weren’t supposed to perform “my” action, but to perform an action that they may not have invented but which is their very own, except for the invention. If this is done over an extended period, you will see its inner effect. It will harmonise and balance everything in the physical and etheric body, so that both resonate by themselves and do not require a lot of restoration work, thus enabling the astral body to withdraw a part of their strength.
Next, the human being must control himself in regard to desire and pain. In ordinary life, he is subjected to the slavery of his feelings. He laughs when someone shares something funny with him, he cries about any sad event. A student, however, has to exercise self-control, he must not allow himself to be dominated, but he himself must control lust and pain. Many think this would make them insensitive, but the opposite is the case. We thus overcome desire and pain, namely, what is egoistical desire and egoistical pain. We must find the way to sort of crawl or put ourselves into other beings, to become empathetic. None should shrink back from this exercise because of a concern about becoming insensitive—everyone will become more sensitive.
The fourth exercise is one I like best to explain by way of a legend. This legend is out of the life of Jesus Christ. Like many others it can’t be found in the Bible, it is Persian.4J.W.v.Goethe, Notes and Treatises for the Better Understanding of the West-Easterly Divan, section: General—Lord Jesus, who wanders through the World (Nisami). When the apostles once walked with Jesus Christ across the countryside, they saw the half-decayed carcass of a dead dog lying around. “What nasty carrion”, the apostles said and turned away in disgust. Jesus Christ alone stopped, looked at the carcass, and after a while said: “What beautiful teeth this animal had.”—He noticed in the ugly, decaying carcass still the beautiful teeth. This gives us a hint that we should adopt and must adopt the habit to discover in all ugliness the grain of beauty, in bad the good, and in error the truth. This positive attitude must be practiced for some time, it will lead to inner harmony and inner rhythm.
The fifth exercise is, that the human being should be reasonably unbiased towards everything new that he encounters in the world. It could also be said that one is not allowed to use anything he is used to from the past to influence the future. The words: “I don’t believe this”, must completely disappear from the mind. If someone comes to you and tells you that the church tower has become crooked overnight, you’ll have to find a corner in your heart where you believe it is possible for anything to really happen. This does not mean that you should become uncritical; you should simply consider nothing to be impossible. Whoever can do this, is able to exert influence very effectively on the physical and the etheric body, so they will fall into a rhythm that feeds the astral body during the night with what has been gained for it through meditation and concentration. Because this will lead human beings gradually to the true theosophy, allowing them to gain insight everywhere into why things happen the way they do, and not in a different way. Whoever knows the mechanism of sleep, also knows why such exercises need to be practised.
Once a human being has taken steps on the occult path for some time under appropriate guidance, many things become to him visible, tangible, and able to be experienced that he would otherwise have missed. Don’t believe that the dangers that one encounters are otherwise not there in life. One just doesn’t see them in advance but goes through life without seeing them. One only learns to see what is around us in the spiritual world when one can enter into the higher planes. What man, for example, must encounter and will always encounter at a higher level, what he must cope with, and what he must prepare himself for, is the “Guardian of the Threshold”. Human beings have usually quite strange ideas about him.
What is this “Guardian of the Threshold”?—Today, we want to turn our attention to this experience by skipping many other things. You have to be clear about what a human being normally does during his whole lifetime. Let’s take the “Kamaloka life” in its true sense, the life after death, where the human being still has a certain inclination to the physical-sensory existence, and compare this life with what happens immediately prior to the beginning of the Kamaloka life. A great tableau of memories will be laid out in front of the soul of one who has just departed the physical body. Then the Kamaloka life begins.
This is very strange. For a start, it has the characteristic that the human being relives his life. In fact, he will live his whole previous life backward, by going back through the events, which happened prior to his death until his birth. In this way, one relives all events backward and will be finished with it once one reaches the own birth. One returns to every point that one has lived through. Let’s say, you’ve reached age sixty, and when you were forty years old you slapped someone in the face. When you reach this point in your backward memory experience, you will be drawn towards that human being and you will be marked, so to speak, with something strange: You will suffer the pain you have inflicted. Whilst throughout your life you might have harbored feelings of revenge, now you are feeling what the person felt, on whom you have taken or intended to take revenge. By way of backward experience, you re-live the emotions and feelings you have spread. Everything you will experience there offers you much that obstructs your further development in the history of mankind. Without the implanted mark of pain, you would get further more easily, because this inhibiting marking stays with you as a force. By absorbing those forces in the Kamaloka backward, you will, in the next life again be led by karma to where you will be able to use them to pay off the debt, to put things right, for compensation. Thus, longing develops to redeem where you have failed, and you will be attracted to do this when the human being again lives with you. This is how Karma plays out.
Another example: Four vigilante5Judges of a Vehmic Court, a form of Court without fixed laws and norms, which occurred in isolation in the 13th Century in Westphalia and survived until the 19th Century. judges have sentenced someone to death and executed the judgment. Why did this happen? When the life of these four men was traced back, it turned out that in a former life the condemned man was a kind of chief who had sentenced those four men to death. The train of events that brought those five men together actually was created in the Kamaloka life. In this way, a human being always has the opportunity during his Kamaloka life, to accept those forces as inhibiting markings that will lead him again into life to pay off his debts.
After a human being has crossed through Devachan and should again return to the physical life, you will find the converse picture of what happens immediately after death. Now you will have a kind of premonition, a kind of preview of the life you are about to experience. Of course, what someone perceives at that time he will forget unless he is trained in the occult. There are verifiable cases, that human beings were so shocked by the preview that they did not want to enter into this life. It turned out that indeed the etheric body did not completely enter the physical body. In such cases, the etheric body of the head protruded quite a bit outside and caused a very specific kind of idiocy.
Now don’t think that karma plays out in such a way that we would be able to immediately pay off all the debts we have incurred in a previous incarnation, in the next one. It is not that simple. Sometimes one will have to go through many, many incarnations. If you would be able to look back for a moment and see everything, all the marks in your astral body that need to be redeemed, prior to your rising to certain heights of occultism, you would see your whole debt account.
What now confronts the student and must confront him in a symbolic and comprehensible form is what we still have to redeem, what still holds us back: the unredeemed karma. This is the Guardian of the Threshold.
It could also confront us in quite an abnormal way. I am aware of a case, where someone was incarnated at the end of the 18th century with quite an extraordinary greed to undertake certain deeds on the physical plane so that he had to experience a strange fate after death. He died; after a very long time, he left the remainder of his astral body. Usually, the astral body falls off after about a third of the time spent on earth, and remains back as an astral corpse, until it dissolves. Such astral corpses are consistently circling around us and exert a negative influence on people. He was unable to stay for longer in the spiritual world but experienced early, the urge to go down into the physical world again. Now he incurred a misfortune that very rarely happens. It is actually possible, that when a human being returns to physical existence, he finds his astral corpse is still around. This then is very bad for him because his current astral body will be penetrated by his earlier astral body, which is a horrible fate. He now has it consistently next to himself as a “doppelgänger”, and this is the abnormal form of the Guardian of the Threshold, which could occur in special exceptional circumstances.
For one, however, who is on the way to occult development, it is necessary that he, at a particular point in time, sees his ordinary astral body with all the marks of its unresolved karma, and he must try, through existing means, to balance out this unreleased karma. This is the true encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold. All of this has not been told to spook you, but to give you an idea of what is meant by “self-knowledge”, in the true sense of the word. Self-knowledge is two-fold: first, it is the recognition of what the true self must do. Second, it is the knowledge of the higher self. But their knowledge is something quite different. You can read in the Bible: Adam knew his wife.61 Moses, Chapter 4, 1, Luther Translation.—This is an expression for “fertilisation”. “Know yourself” means: fertilise yourself with the wisdom inside of you, look at the soul as a feminine organ and fertilise yourself. If you want to gain self-knowledge, search inside of you, where you will be able to recognise all your mistakes. If you want to reach knowledge of the higher self, search outside of you, because there knowledge of the world is knowledge of the self. Everything is in the sun because everything is sun. We have to let go of ourselves. I have been told: “You tell us about development and such things, but we want to achieve an uplifting of the soul, of the feelings.” One who speaks like that is his own enemy. Not by gawking into ourselves, but by learning to know the world in all its parts, bit by bit, will we become selfless and able to find self-knowledge and knowledge of God.
There is no phrase worse than that one: “One only has to look within oneself”.—There you will only find the lower self. One should search outside with love and one will discover. I have known people who said: “What do I need? I don’t need anything because I am Atman.” But even if they repeatedly say “Atman, I am Atman” they will not be able to become conscious of it, because they don’t know more about Atman than that it is a five-letter word. This looking within oneself only leads to shutting oneself off. We are nothing but a limb (part) of this world. The finger is only a finger as long as it is part of the organism; if you lose it, it will no longer be a finger.
The finger doesn’t separate itself from the organism, but the human being is so “smart” to believe he could separate himself from Earth, despite the fact that you only have to transport him a few kilometres above Earth, and he will perish. The human being belongs to the sun, according to his etheric and astral body, to a whole world of sun(s). It is the biggest mistake to want to find the self within oneself. Letting go of oneself by immersing oneself in all the details of the world is the right thing. One who fertilises himself with love and humility, will find divine salvation, whilst someone who searches for God inside of himself hardens.
You will see that there is much to learn when one wants to really get to know the esoteric way. It is important to have the right idea about such things. You don’t need to think about this from morning to night, just as it is unnecessary to repeat your own name all the time. It is sufficient to know the thought. There are thoughts without which an esotericist can’t be an esotericist. If he has those thoughts, as in his daily life he has his drives and motives, then these thoughts represent steps for him, that will lead him upwards to the super-sensible plane of knowledge, they will assist him in penetrating into the wisdom of the worlds, knowingly advancing to love.
Esoterische Entwickelung und Übersinnliche Erkenntnis
[ 1 ] Ich möchte heute zu Ihnen sprechen über eine Erweiterung des Themas von vorgestern, über innere oder esoterische Entwickelung und übersinnliche Erkenntnis. Dabei wird es notwendig sein, daß wir durchaus dasjenige, was wir vorgestern betrachtet haben, voraussetzen und sozusagen aufbauen auf dem, was dazumal durch unsere Seele gezogen ist. Sie haben gesehen aus dem, was wir da besprochen haben, daß es sich bei der Entwickelung des Menschen nicht um etwas handelt, was man irgendwie, sagen wir, scherzweise auffassen darf; nicht um irgend etwas handelt es sich, was man leicht nehmen darf. Auf der anderen Seite aber muß immer und immer wieder betont werden, daß man auch nicht in der gewöhnlichen trivialen Weise sprechen darf von den Gefahren der okkulten Entwickelung. Die Gefahren sind groß, aber so wie gewöhnlich gesprochen wird von diesen Gefahren, ist es nicht richtig, und da wird uns vielerlei klarwerden müssen. Machen wir uns zunächst einmal für uns selbst eine genauere Vorstellung davon, was mit demjenigen geschieht, der durch irgendwelche Übungen sich entwickelt hat, sagen wir durch Übungen, die sich in der Linie bewegen, wie im letzten Vortrag angedeutet wurde, und vergleichen wir ihn mit einem Menschen, der nicht in einer solchen Schulung sich befindet und so lebt wie jeder im Alltag. Wir kommen da zu bewußtem Verständnis, wenn wir ausgehen zum Beispiel von dem, was wir wissen über den gewöhnlichen Schlafzustand.
[ 2 ] Aus dem früheren Vortrage haben Sie entnommen, was der Astralleib des Menschen im gewöhnlichen Schlafzustande während der Nacht eigentlich tut. Wenn der Mensch schläft, so liegen im Bette der physische Leib und der Ätherleib; aus diesen ist der sogenannte astralische Leib mit dem Ich heraus; er hat sich herausgehoben, hat sie verlassen. Und wenn dieser astralische Leib nicht im Innern des physischen Leibes ist, nicht durch seine Werkzeuge, die Sinnesorgane, die äußere Welt beobachtet und betrachtet, wenn er nicht durch die Bewegungen und die Arbeit des physischen Leibes beschäftigt ist, dann kann der astralische Leib eine ganz andere Aufgabe übernehmen. Er schafft beiden die Ermüdung fort. Die Fortschaffung dieser Ermüdung, das ist seine Aufgabe, und der Seher kann sehen, wie dieser astralische Leib die ganze Nacht über an dem physischen und Ätherleib arbeitet von außen, um sie wieder instandzusetzen, so daß der Mensch morgens die Aufbesserung seiner Kräfte als Erquickung fühlt. Deshalb ist der Schlaf ein so guter Arzt und verliert der Mensch so viel, der nicht einen gesunden und ausreichenden Schlaf hat. Vieles, viele Dinge, die sich wie Krankheiten ausnehmen, sind ja nur Störungen im physischen und im Ätherleibe. Diese Störungen bleiben dann, wenn der astralische Leib nicht imstande ist, sie wegzuschaffen. Er ist aber imstande, diese Störungen fortzuschaffen, wenn er nicht im Leibe ist wie im wachen Zustande, sondern wenn er außerhalb des Leibes ist.
[ 3 ] Woher nun holt sich der astralische Leib jene Kräfte und Fähigkeiten, durch die er den physischen Leib sozusagen ausbessert? Schon im letzten öffentlichen Vortrag habe ich diesen Austritt des astralischen Leibes aus dem physischen und dem Ätherleib verglichen mit einer Wassermasse, die in einem Glase ist. Wenn Sie in diesem Glas tausend Wassertropfen haben und diese Tropfen alle eine Masse bilden, so ist das etwas anderes, als wenn Sie tausend Schwämmchen nehmen und jeden Wassertropfen einzeln aufsaugen; dann haben Sie diese Tropfen individualisiert, getrennt. So ist es mit dem astralischen Leib in der Nacht. Wenn Sie jetzt hier alle einschlafen, so würde das gleiche geschehen, wie wenn Sie die Schwämmchen ausdrücken und eine Wassermasse machen. Ihr astralischer Leib würde heraustreten und würde sich verbinden mit den anderen. Aber dadurch, daß sie sich verbinden, kommen die Menschen in Verbindung mit jenen harmonischen großen Geschehnissen, welche im Weltall sind. Unsere Seelen kehren in der Nacht zurück zur Harmonie der Sphären und aus diesen holt sich der astralische Leib mit dem Ich - und das ist die Seele - die Kraft, die zur Ausbesserung des physischen Leibes nötig ist.
[ 4 ] Was geschieht nun mit einem Menschen, der einen okkulten Lehrer erhält und eine okkulte Schulung durchmacht? Er bekommt gewisse Aufgaben. Über diese kann man nur annähernd sprechen. Er bekommt Aufgaben zum Meditieren, zum Konzentrieren und so weiter. Was hat die Aufgabe, die der Lehrer dem Schüler gibt, für einen Zweck? - Sie hat den Zweck, allmählich den astralischen Leib, wenn er in der Nacht außerhalb des physischen Leibes ist, sehend zu machen. Beim gewöhnlichen Menschen ist der astralische Leib, wenn er außerhalb ist, unbewußt in der astralischen Welt, so wie Sie unbewußt in der physischen Welt wären, wenn Sie keine Sinne hätten. Haben Sie keine Sinne, dann ist die Welt für Sie nicht da. In dem Augenblick, wo dem Menschen die Anweisungen gegeben werden, die in seiner Seele schlummernden Kräfte zu erwekken, bekommt sein astralischer Leib geistige oder seelische Sinnesorgane, jene Organe, die man Lotusblumen nennt. — Das sind keine Blumen, ebensowenig wie die Lungenflügel Flügel sind; jeder weiß, daß der Habicht Flügel hat, die anders aussehen als die Lungenflügel. - Lotusblumen sind Organe, die eine Art kreisender Bewegung haben. Ein solches Organ ist unter der Stirn, einen Zentimeter unter dem Zusammenstoß der Augenbrauen, im Gehirn. Wenn an diesen Punkt intensiv gedacht wird mit gleichzeitigem Aussprechen eines bestimmten Wortes, findet eine Art Aufblitzen statt, ein Lichtwerden, und dies ist für den Seher von außen sichtbar. Das Sinnesorgan gerät in eine Art kreisender Bewegung. Man sagt, das Rad drehe sich, es wird lebendig. Beim gewöhnlichen Durchschnittsmenschen ist an dieser Stelle ein solches Organ nicht vorhanden oder höchstens in Andeutung; durch die Schulung entsteht dieses Aufblitzen, wenn der astralische Leib aus dem physischen Leib heraus ist. Es macht den Eindruck, wie wenn ein Rad sich dreht, was man als Seher von außen beobachten kann. Dieses Rad heißt Swastika. - Man kann dieses Zeichen, wie überhaupt echte Symbole, nicht spekulativ erklären. Sie sind nicht beliebig erfunden, sondern man sieht sie tatsächlich auf dem geistigen oder astralen Plan. Die Swastika ist ein Abbild dieses Sinnesorgans, und alle mehr oder weniger geistreichen Erklärungen in den theosophischen Schriften sind Unsinn. Man soll nicht allegorisch oder symbolisch in der Theosophie erklären. Das wäre das, was man sich zunächst abgewöhnen soll: alle Spekulation. Alles Herumdenken, wie die Sachen sein können, muß man sich abgewöhnen; es kommt allein nur darauf an, in die Tatsachenwelt selbst einzudringen. In der Nähe des Kehlkopfes ist die sechzehnblättrige Lotusblume, ein Organ, an dem sehr, sehr viel hängt in der menschlichen Entwickelung. In der Nähe des Herzens ist die zwölfblättrige, weiter unten die zehnblättrige und so weiter.
[ 5 ] Diese Organe entwickeln sich durch die Übungen, die der Lehrer dem Schüler gibt, so wie auch die Sinne des physischen Leibes durch Übung entwickelt werden, zum Beispiel durch die Einwirkung von Licht und Ton. Betrachten Sie geradezu das eine als einen physischen, das andere als einen geistigen Vorgang von ganz derselben Dauer. Sie dürfen nicht glauben, daß irgendwelche tumultuarischen Vorgänge, Zauberei und dergleichen den Menschen dazu führen können, diese Sinnesorgane zu entwickeln. Es sind lediglich intime Vorgänge, ein Lernen innerhalb der Gedanken, welche die Kraft in sich haben, solche Organe zu entwickeln. Dabei kommt es immer und immer wieder darauf an, daß der Mensch lernt, welche Gedanken das sind, und daß der Mensch an ein bestimmtes Organ des Leibes denkt, zum Beispiel an einen Punkt im Gehirn, der einen Zentimeter tiefer liegt als die Mitte zwischen den Augenbrauen. Wenn nun der Mensch an diesen Punkt denkt, mit einer ganz bestimmten Wortzusammensetzung, erweckt er im Innern seines astralischen Leibes gewisse Fähigkeiten. Es ist alles systematisch und, man möchte sagen, technisch bestimmt.
[ 6 ] Das findet mancher äußerst wenig für sich entsprechend. Man hört immer und immer wieder Phrasen, die für den wahren Okkultisten ein Unding sind: Ich brauche keinen Lehrer, ich muß selbst im Innern meinen Lehrer finden. - In solchen Reden steckt vorerst der denkbar größte Egoismus; dann ist es auch ein Unsinn. Wenn jemand die Geometrie von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus betrachten würde, was käme da heraus? Jeder kann durch innere Entwickelung alle Bestimmungen der Geometrie finden: er wird viele tausend Jahre dazu brauchen, aber finden kann er sie. Ist aber wirklich Veranlassung dazu da, die Geometrie nochmals zu entdecken? Soll man nicht an das anknüpfen, was die Menschheit in jahrhundertelanger Arbeit gefunden hat, und weiterbauen und Nutzen stiften für die Menschheit, die uns so viel des Wissens gegeben hat? Darauf hat die Menschheit ein Anrecht. Was können wir der Menschheit in hingebungsvoller Liebe an die Lehrer der früheren Menschen ersparen! Genau so suchen wir auch hinsichtlich der inneren Entwickelung nicht für uns selbst, sondern als Arbeiter im großen Menschheitsdienste. Es waren immer Menschen da, die vorausgeeilt waren; von denen haben wir zu lernen, und wenn wir uns fürchten vor dem Beugen unter die Autorität, so ist das ein liebloser Unsinn. Arbeiten im Sinne der Lehrer der Menschheit, aufsuchen diejenigen, welche uns führen können, das ist es, was dem okkulten Lehrer wie Schüler zunächst und unbedingt notwendig ist. Diese Dinge, welche die Lehrer uns sagen, und welche durch Jahrhunderte geprüft und gekannt sind, locken aus dem astralischen Körper die Sinne heraus.
[ 7 ] Wenn irgend jemand okkulte Lehren gibt - ein wirklicher Lehrer wird das nicht machen -, dann kommt es leicht vor, daß er dem Schüler Anweisungen gibt, wie er in der astralischen Welt Wahrnehmungen haben kann. Da kann man wahrnehmen, daß der Schüler anfängt, an seinem astralischen Leibe zu arbeiten, die Sinnesorgane herauszulocken, aber daß er dadurch viel schlechtere Gewohnheiten und Temperamentseigenschaften an den Tag legt als bevor er okkulter Schüler geworden war. Man hat sich darüber gewundert, daß in den ersten Zeiten der Theosophie viele unbegreifliche Fehltritte gemacht haben in bezug auf ihren Charakter. Schon durch die geringe Entwickelung des astralischen Leibes, welche die theosophische Lehre als Elementarlehre bewirkt hat, als sie angefangen hat bekanntzuwerden, traten ganz merkwürdige Erscheinungen auf. Zum Beispiel ein Schüler, der Kassier war, ist mit dem Gelde durchgegangen, ein anderer wieder hat noch ganz andere Sachen gemacht; auch Leute, die früher friedfertig waren, wurden streitsüchtig. Das hängt damit zusammen, daß mit dem bißchen okkulter Entwickelung, das aus den theosophischen Begriffen fließt, die schlimmen Seiten des Charakters hervorgedrängt werden, wenn sonst nichts geschieht. Doch soll niemand Furcht haben deshalb. Solchen Dingen soll eben nur Aufmerksamkeit zugewendet werden, sie sollen ernstgenommen werden. Wir wollen eben trachten, durch unsere Charakterstärke nicht in solche Verlokkungen zu verfallen. Anders ist es aber, wenn eine wirkliche systematische okkulte Schulung an den Schüler herantritt. Da ist das Arbeiten an dem astralischen Leibe ein viel ausgiebigeres, und dann ist es durchaus notwendig, daß dem physischen und dem Ätherleibe Ersatz geboten werde.
[ 8 ] Wie ersetzt man das, was dem physischen und dem Ätherleibe entzogen wird? Dazu ist es notwendig, daß ganz bestimmte Eigenschaften im Menschen ausgebildet werden. Es ist möglich, in der menschlichen Natur und Wesenheit Eigenschaften auszubilden, durch die es der physische Leib und der Ätherleib nicht notwendig haben, in so ausgiebiger Weise ausgebessert zu werden. Denken Sie sich, Sie machen während des "Tages etwas zur Verstärkung des physischen und des Ätherleibes, zur Ausbesserung, so daß sie durch ihren eigenen Sinn und Rhythmus im Einklang mit dem großen Weltall schwingen, dann sind Sie erst imstande, die Kräfte für den astralischen Leib selbst zu verwenden. Und das muß man tun; man braucht es nicht gleich zu tun, aber es kommt die Stunde, wo es geschehen muß. Wenn der Lehrer sagt: Du mußt das Denken konzentrieren —, dann ist nicht bloß das gewöhnliche Denken gemeint. Wenn es heißt: Du mußt dich hinsetzen, einen gewöhnlichen Gedanken nehmen und keinen anderen Gedanken zulassen, ihn mit Abweisung aller anderen Gedanken möglichst intensiv denken -, so muß der Mensch eine gewisse innere Überwindung aufwenden; auf diese Überwindung kommt es an. Nicht der Gegenstand soll da interessieren und fesseln. Leicht ist es zum Beispiel an Napoleon zu denken, sehr schwer aber durch längere Zeit ununterbrochen an ein Zündhölzchen etwa zu denken. Das ist das ganz Wesentliche dabei. Dann werden Sie schon sehen, wie Sie nach einiger Zeit eine gewisse innere Kraft und Sicherheit erhalten. Man fühlt dann schon an einem inneren Erlebnis, ob es seine Wirkung getan hat.
[ 9 ] Dann muß man dazu übergehen, initiative Handlungen vorzunehmen, die man sonst ganz gewiß nicht getan hätte. Eine ganz unbedeutende Handlung mag es sein. Es kommt nicht auf das Bedeutende der Handlung an, aber es muß eine eigene Handlung sein, eine aus ureigenster Initiative. Ein Herr, dem ich dies sagte, teilte mir nach einiger Zeit mit, er habe in seinem Büro täglich sieben Schritte nach vorne und sieben Schritte nach rückwärts getan und sich dabei die Evolution und Involution vorgestellt. Ausgezeichnet - nicht die Größe der Handlung, sondern die ureigenste Initiative ist notwendig.
[ 10 ] Einigen Freunden sprach ich auch davon und erwähnte, um ein Beispiel zu geben, daß man Blumen begießen könne, wenn man nie Blumen begossen habe. Und was mußte ich erleben? Als ich die Freunde besuchte, fand ich sie alle Blumen begießend vor. Das war das Verkehrteste, was sie tun konnten, denn nicht meine Handlung sollten sie tun, sondern eine bis auf die Erfindung ureigene. Wenn man das durch lange Zeit macht, sieht man, was es für eine innere Wirkung hat. Diese Dinge harmonisieren und gleichen derart alles im physischen und im Ätherleib aus, daß beide selbst nachklingen und nicht mehr so des Ausbesserns bedürfen, so daß der astralische Leib einen Teil der Kräfte ihnen entziehen kann.
[ 11 ] Dann muß sich der Mensch in Beziehung auf Lust und Leid beherrschen. Im gewöhnlichen Leben ist er der Sklaverei der Gefühle unterworfen. Er lacht, wenn ihm etwas besonders Lächerliches geboten wird, er weint bei irgendeinem traurigen Anlaß. Der Schüler aber muß sich in der Hand haben, er muß sich nicht beherrschen lassen, sondern seinerseits Lust und Leid beherrschen. Viele meinen, sie würden auf diese Weise stumpf werden, aber das Umgekehrte ist der Fall. Wir überwinden auf diese Weise Lust und Leid, das heißt, dasjenige, was egoistische Lust und egoistischer Schmerz ist. Wir müssen den Weg finden, um gleichsam hineinzukriechen in andere Wesen, um mit ihnen zu fühlen. Es soll sich keiner von dieser Übung abhalten lassen aus Besorgnis, stumpf zu werden; er wird feiner empfinden.
[ 12 ] Eine vierte Übung ist die, die ich am liebsten durch die Erzählung einer Legende charakterisiere. Diese Legende ist aus dem Leben des Christus Jesus; sie ist nicht in der Bibel zu finden, wie viele andere nicht; sie ist aus dem Persischen. Als die Jünger einst mit Christus Jesus über Land gingen, sahen sie auf dem Wege den halbverwesten Kadaver eines verendeten Hundes liegen. Welch scheußliches Aas -—, sagten die Jünger und wendeten sich mit Ekel ab. Christus Jesus aber allein blieb stehen, betrachtete den Kadaver und sagte nach einer Weile: Welch herrliche Zähne hatte das Tier. -— Er sah an dem häßlichen, verwesenden Kadaver noch die schönen Zähne. Das gibt uns einen Fingerzeig, daß wir uns aneignen sollen und aneignen müssen, in allem Häßlichen das Körnchen Schönheit, im Schlechten Gutes, im Irrtum Wahrheit zu erblicken. Diese Eigenschaft der Positivität muß geübt werden durch einige Zeit, sie gibt innere Harmonie und inneren Rhythmus.
[ 13 ] Das fünfte ist, daß der Mensch sich einigermaßen Unbefangenheit erwirbt in bezug auf alles Neue, was ihm in der Welt entgegentritt. Man könnte auch sagen, daß er niemals durch das, was er aus der Vergangenheit gewohnt ist, die Zukunft beeinflussen darf. Das Wort: «Das glaube ich nicht» -, muß völlig aus dem Gemüt verschwinden, und wenn zu Ihnen jemand kommt und sagt, der Kirchturm sei über Nacht schief geworden, müssen Sie einen Winkel in Ihrem Herzen finden, wo Sie für möglich halten, daß wirklich alles eintreten kann. Deshalb aber dürfen Sie nicht kritiklos werden; nur darf Ihnen nichts unmöglich erscheinen. Wer das kann, der kann sehr bedeutsam wirken auf den physischen und den Ätherleib und dadurch kommen diese in einen solchen Rhythmus, daß man dem Astralleib in der Nacht zukommen läßt, was ihm Meditation und Konzentration gibt. Denn das wird erst allmählich die Menschen zur wahren wirklichen Theosophie hinführen, daß sie überall einsehen, warum alles so und nicht anders geschieht. Wer den Mechanismus des Schlafes kennt, der weiß auch, warum solche Übungen gemacht werden müssen.
[ 14 ] Wenn der Mensch eine Weile unter entsprechender Anleitung diese Schritte auf dem okkulten Pfade macht, wird ihm vieles sichtbar, fühlbar, erlebbar, was ihm sonst entgangen wäre. Sie dürfen nicht glauben, daß die Gefahren, die einem begegnen, sonst im Leben nicht da sind. Aber man sieht sie nicht vorher, man geht durch das Leben, aber man sieht sie nicht. Man lernt eben erst sehen, was in der geistigen Welt um uns ist, wenn man eindringen kann in die höheren Gebiete. Dasjenige zum Beispiel, was auf einer höheren Stufe der Mensch finden muß und immer finden wird, und was er ertragen muß, worauf er sich vorbereiten muß, das ist der Hüter der Schwelle. Die Menschen machen sich von ihm zumeist recht sonderbare Vorstellungen.
[ 15 ] Was ist dieser Hüter der Schwelle? - Wir wollen heute einmal sozusagen mit Überspringen von mancherlei anderen Dingen und Erlebnissen auf dieses Erlebnis aufmerksam machen. Sie müssen sich klarsein, was der Mensch in der Regel während seines ganzen Lebens tut. Nehmen wir, in seinem wirklichen Sinne, das Kamalokaleben, das Leben nach dem Tode, wo der Mensch sozusagen noch einen gewissen Hang hat zum physisch-sinnlichen Dasein, und vergleichen wir dieses Leben mit dem, was vorgeht unmittelbar bevor das Kamalokaleben beginnt. Ein großes Erinnerungstableau tritt vor die Seele dessen, der eben den physischen Leib verlassen hat. Dann beginnt das Kamalokaleben.
[ 16 ] Dieses ist sehr eigenartig. Zunächst hat es die Eigenart, daß der Mensch zurückerlebt. In der Tat lebt er sein ganzes voriges Leben rückwärts, indem er durchlebt die Ereignisse, die seinem Tod vorangegangen sind bis zu seiner Geburt. Man lebt so alle Ereignisse zurück und ist damit fertig, wenn man bei seiner Geburt angekommen ist. Man kommt an jede Stelle, die man durchgemacht hat. Sagen wir, Sie seien sechzig Jahre alt geworden, und im vierzigsten Jahr haben Sie jemand eine Ohrfeige gegeben. Wenn Sie an diesen Erinnerungspunkt im Rückwärtserleben kommen, werden Sie zu diesem Menschen hingezogen, und es wird Ihnen sozusagen eine Marke eingeprägt, die etwas Merkwürdiges ist: Sie empfinden den Schmerz, den Sie verursacht haben. Während Ihres Lebens haben Sie vielleicht Rachegefühle geleitet; jetzt empfinden Sie das, was der empfunden hat, an dem Sie sich gerächt haben oder rächen wollten. Sie erleben im Rückwärtserleben, was Sie an Empfindungen und Gefühlen ausgestreut haben. Alles, was Sie da erleben, bietet Ihnen eine Menge dessen, was Ihre Fortentwickelung in der Menschheitsgeschichte hemmt. Und ohne diese eingelagerte Marke des Schmerzes würden Sie leichter vorwärtskommen, denn diese Hemmungsmarke bleibt Ihnen als eine Kraft. Und indem Sie im Kamaloka die Kräfte rückläufig aufnehmen, werden Sie im kommenden Leben wieder durch Karma dahin geführt, die Kräfte zu verwenden zum Tilgen der Schuld, zum Gutmachen, zum Ausgleich. So beginnt dort die Sehnsucht, wieder gutzumachen, was Sie gefehlt haben, und Sie werden hingezogen dazu, wenn der Mensch wieder mit Ihnen lebt, die Sache gutzumachen. So lebt sich Karma aus.
[ 17 ] Ein anderes Beispiel. Vier Femerichter haben jemand zum Tode verurteilt und das Urteil ausgeführt. Warum war das geschehen? Als man das Leben aller dieser Männer zurückverfolgte, stellte sich heraus, daß im früheren Leben der Verurteilte eine Art Häuptling gewesen war und diese vier zum Tode verurteilt hatte. Da hat sich tatsächlich jener Zug, der die fünf zusammengebracht hat, im Kamalokaleben ausgebildet. So hat der Mensch immer Gelegenheit, während seines Kamalokalebens diejenigen Kräfte als Hemmungsmarken aufzunehmen, welche ihn wieder ins Leben führen, um sein Schuldkonto zu tilgen.
[ 18 ] Nachdem der Mensch durch das Devachan durchgegangen ist und wieder zum Eintritt in das physische Leben kommen soll, haben Sie das Gegenbild von dem, was gleich nach dem Tode geschieht. Jetzt haben Sie eine Art von Vorhersehen, eine Art Vorschau auf dieses Leben, das Ihnen nun bevorsteht. Was er da wahrnimmt, vergißt er natürlich, wenn er nicht okkult geschult ist. Es sind Fälle nachweisbar, daß Menschen durch die Vorschau einen Schock bekommen haben und nicht hereinwollten in dieses Leben. Da stellte sich heraus, daß tatsächlich der Ätherleib nicht voll in den physischen Leib hineinging. In solchen Fällen blieb der Ätherleib des Kopfes ein ganzes Stück heraußen und bewirkte eine ganz bestimmte Art von Idiotismus.
[ 19 ] Nun müssen Sie aber nicht denken, daß das Karma etwa so verläuft, daß wir alles dasjenige, was wir in einer früheren Verkörperung verursacht haben, gleich in der nächsten abzahlen können. So einfach ist das nicht. Man muß manchmal viele, viele Verkörperungen durchmachen. Wenn Sie in irgendeinem Momente zurückblikken und alles sehen könnten, was in Ihrem Astralleibe an Marken da ist, die ausgeglichen werden müssen, bevor Sie Ihren Aufstieg in gewisse Höhen des Okkulten machen können, würden Sie Ihr ganzes Schuldkonto sehen.
[ 20 ] Dieses nun tritt dem Schüler entgegen und muß ihm entgegentreten in einer sinnbildlichen und greifbaren Gestalt — dasjenige, was wir noch abzutragen haben, was uns noch hemmt: das unausgetragene Karma. Das ist der Hüter der Schwelle.
[ 21 ] Es kann uns auch in ganz abnormer Weise entgegentreten. Es ist mir ein Fall bekannt, wo jemand am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts verkörpert und dazumal mit einer ganz außerordentlichen Gier nach gewissen Taten auf dem physischen Plan behaftet war, so daß er nach dem Tode ein merkwürdiges Schicksal durchzumachen hatte. Er starb; nach sehr langer Zeit verließ er den letzten Rest des astralischen Leibes. -— Gewöhnlich fällt der astralische Leib nach Verlauf eines Drittels der verlebten Erdenzeit ab und bleibt als astralischer Leichnam zurück, bis er vergeht. Solche astralische Leichname umschwirren uns beständig und üben einen schlechten Einfluß auf die Menschen aus. — Er konnte auch nicht lange bleiben in der geistigen Welt, sondern bekam früh den Drang, wieder in das Physische hinabzugehen. Nun ist ihm das Unheil passiert, das allerdings sehr selten eintreten kann. Es kann nämlich der Fall eintreten, wenn der Mensch in das physische Dasein zurückkehrt, daß er seinen astralischen Leichnam noch vorfindet. Das ist dann sehr schlimm für ihn, denn dann wird sein jetziger astralischer Leib von dem früheren astralischen Leibe gleichsam durchtränkt, was ein furchtbares Schicksal ist. Er hat ihn dann beständig neben sich als Doppelgänger und dies ist die abnormale Art des Hüters der Schwelle. Das kann in besonderen Ausnahmefällen vorkommen.
[ 22 ] Bei dem aber, der auf dem Wege der okkulten Entwickelung ist, ist es notwendig, daß er in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt seinen gewöhnlichen astralischen Leib sieht mit allen Marken seines unausgeglichenen Karmas, und er muß durch Mittel, die man dazu hat, sein unausgetragenes Karma auszugleichen suchen. Dies ist die wahre Begegnung mit dem Hüter der Schwelle. Es soll dies alles nicht gesagt sein, um gruseln zu machen, sondern um Ihnen einen Begriff zu geben, was man im wahren Sinne des Wortes Selbsterkenntnis nennt. Diese ist zweifach: Erstens ist es die Erkenntnis dessen, was das wahre Selbst auszutragen hat. Zweitens ist es die Erkenntnis des höheren Selbstes. Aber da ist Erkenntnis etwas ganz anderes. Sie können in der Bibel lesen: Adam erkannte sein Weib. — Das ist ein Ausdruck für die Befruchtung. Erkenne dich selbst, heißt: befruchte dich mit der Weisheit in dir, betrachte die Seele als weibliches Organ und befruchte dich. Willst du die Selbsterkenntnis haben, so suche in dir, dort wirst du erkennen alle deine Fehler; willst du dein höheres Selbst erkennen, dann suche außerhalb von dir, denn da ist Welterkenntnis Selbsterkenntnis. In der Sonne ist alles, denn alles ist Sonne. Wir müssen von uns loskommen. Man sagt mir: Du erzählst uns von der Entwickelung und dergleichen; wir aber wollen Erhebung der Seele, der Gefühle. - Der so spricht, ist sich selbst feind. Nicht dadurch, daß wir in uns hineingaffen, sondern dadurch, daß wir die Welt in allen Stücken, Stück für Stück, kennenlernen, werden wir selbstlos und können wir die Selbst- und Gotteserkenntnis finden.
[ 23 ] Es gibt keine schlechtere Phrase als die: Man braucht nur in sich selbst hineinzuschauen. — Dort findet man aber nur das niedere Selbst. Mit Liebe soll man außen suchen und man wird finden. Ich habe Leute gekannt, die gesagt haben: Was brauche ich? Ich brauche gar nichts, denn ich bin Atma. — Und wenn sie auch fort und fort «Atma, ich bin Atma» sagen, sie bringen es nicht in das Bewußtsein, weil sie vom Atma nicht mehr wissen, als daß das Wort vier Buchstaben hat. Das In-sich-Hineinsehen führt nur zum Abschließen. Wir sind nichts als ein Glied dieser Welt. Der Finger ist nur dadurch Finger, daß er am Organismus bleibt; lösen Sie ihn los, dann ist er nicht mehr Finger. Der Finger trennt sich nicht vom Organismus; aber der Mensch, der ist so «gescheit» zu glauben, daß er sich von der Erde trennen könne, obzwar man ihn nur einige Kilometer über die Erde hinaufbringen müßte, und er vergeht. Der Mensch gehört zur Sonne, seinem Äther- und Astralleibe nach, zu einer ganzen Sonnenwelt. Es ist der größte Irrtum, das Selbst in sich finden zu wollen. Von-sich-Loskommen durch das Sich-Vertiefen in alle Einzelheiten der Welt, das ist das Richtige. Der sich in Liebe und Demut befruchtet, der findet die Gottseligkeit, während der, der Gott in sich sucht, verhärtet. So sehen Sie, daß man viel zu lernen hat, wenn man gerade den esoterischen Weg wirklich kennenlernen will. Und es kommt darauf an, daß wir über eine solche Sache den richtigen Gedanken haben. Sie brauchen nicht von früh bis abends daran zu denken, ebensowenig als es notwendig ist, daß Sie sich stets Ihren eigenen Namen vorsagen. Es genügt, wenn Sie den Gedanken wissen. Es gibt Gedanken, ohne die der Esoteriker nicht Esoteriker sein kann. Hat er sie so, wie er im gewöhnlichen Leben seine Triebe, seine Motive hat, dann bedeuten diese Gedanken Schritte für ihn, die ihn hinaufführen auf den übersinnlichen Erkenntnisplan, bedeuten für ihn ein Eindringen in die Weltenweisheit, ein in Erkenntnis Vordringen zur Liebe.
Esoteric Development and Super-sensory Knowledge
[ 1 ] Today I would like to speak to you about an extension of the topic from the day before yesterday, about inner or esoteric development and super-sensory knowledge. In doing so, it will be necessary to take what we considered the day before yesterday as a given and build upon what passed through our souls at that time. You have seen from what we discussed that human development is not something that can be taken lightly, so to speak; it is not something that can be taken easily. On the other hand, however, it must be emphasized again and again that one must not speak in the usual trivial way about the dangers of occult development. The dangers are great, but the way these dangers are usually spoken of is not correct, and many things will have to become clear to us. Let us first form a more precise idea for ourselves of what happens to someone who has developed through certain exercises, let us say exercises that are along the lines indicated in the last lecture, and let us compare him with a person who is not undergoing such training and lives like everyone else in everyday life. We can gain a conscious understanding of this if we start, for example, from what we know about the ordinary state of sleep.
[ 2 ] From the previous lecture, you learned what the human astral body actually does during the night in the ordinary state of sleep. When a person sleeps, the physical body and the etheric body lie in bed; from these, the so-called astral body with the I has emerged; it has lifted itself out, has left them. And when this astral body is not inside the physical body, not observing and contemplating the outer world through its instruments, the sense organs, when it is not occupied by the movements and work of the physical body, then the astral body can take on a completely different task. It removes fatigue from both. The removal of this fatigue is its task, and the seer can see how this astral body works on the physical and etheric bodies from outside throughout the night to restore them, so that in the morning the human being feels the improvement of his powers as refreshment. That is why sleep is such a good doctor and why people who do not have healthy and sufficient sleep lose so much. Many things that appear to be illnesses are really just disturbances in the physical and etheric bodies. These disturbances remain when the astral body is unable to remove them. However, it is able to remove these disturbances when it is not in the body as in the waking state, but when it is outside the body.
[ 3 ] Where does the astral body get the powers and abilities with which it repairs the physical body, so to speak? In my last public lecture, I compared the astral body's exit from the physical and etheric bodies to a mass of water in a glass. If you have a thousand drops of water in this glass and these drops all form a mass, it is different from taking a thousand sponges and absorbing each drop of water individually; then you have individualized these drops, separated them. So it is with the astral body at night. If you all fall asleep now, the same thing would happen as if you squeezed the sponges and made a mass of water. Your astral body would emerge and connect with the others. But by connecting, people come into contact with those harmonious, great events that are happening in the universe. At night, our souls return to the harmony of the spheres, and from there the astral body, together with the I — which is the soul — draws the energy needed to repair the physical body.
[ 4 ] What happens to a person who receives an occult teacher and undergoes occult training? He is given certain tasks. These can only be described in general terms. He is given tasks to meditate on, to concentrate on, and so on. What is the purpose of the tasks that the teacher gives the student? - Its purpose is to gradually enable the astral body to see when it is outside the physical body at night. In ordinary human beings, when the astral body is outside, it is unconscious in the astral world, just as you would be unconscious in the physical world if you had no senses. If you have no senses, the world does not exist for you. The moment a person is given instructions to awaken the powers slumbering in their soul, their astral body receives spiritual or soul sense organs, those organs called lotus flowers. These are not flowers, any more than the lungs are wings; everyone knows that a hawk has wings that look different from the lungs. Lotus flowers are organs that have a kind of circular movement. One such organ is located under the forehead, one centimeter below the point where the eyebrows meet, in the brain. When one thinks intensely at this point while simultaneously uttering a certain word, a kind of flash occurs, a becoming light, and this is visible to the seer from outside. The sense organ enters into a kind of circular movement. It is said that the wheel turns, it comes to life. In the average person, such an organ does not exist at this point, or at most only in a rudimentary form; through training, this flash occurs when the astral body is outside the physical body. It gives the impression of a wheel turning, which can be observed from the outside by the seer. This wheel is called the swastika. Like all genuine symbols, this sign cannot be explained speculatively. They are not arbitrarily invented, but can actually be seen on the spiritual or astral plane. The swastika is a representation of this sense organ, and all more or less ingenious explanations in theosophical writings are nonsense. One should not explain things allegorically or symbolically in theosophy. That is what one must first learn to avoid: all speculation. One must learn to avoid thinking about how things might be; the only thing that matters is to penetrate into the world of facts itself. Near the larynx is the sixteen-petaled lotus flower, an organ that is very, very important in human development. Near the heart is the twelve-petaled flower, further down the ten-petaled flower, and so on.
[ 5 ] These organs develop through the exercises that the teacher gives the student, just as the senses of the physical body are developed through exercise, for example through the influence of light and sound. Consider one as a physical process and the other as a spiritual process of exactly the same duration. You must not believe that any tumultuous processes, magic, or the like can lead human beings to develop these sense organs. They are merely intimate processes, a learning within the thoughts, which have the power to develop such organs. It is always and again and again important that the human being learns what these thoughts are and that the human being thinks of a specific organ of the body, for example, a point in the brain that lies one centimeter deeper than the middle between the eyebrows. When a person thinks of this point with a very specific combination of words, they awaken certain abilities within their astral body. Everything is systematic and, one might say, technically determined.
[ 6 ] Some people find this extremely unsuitable for themselves. One hears phrases over and over again that are absurd to the true occultist: “I don't need a teacher; I must find my teacher within myself.” Such statements reveal, first of all, the greatest conceivable egoism; secondly, they are nonsense. If someone were to consider geometry from this point of view, what would be the result? Anyone can discover all the laws of geometry through inner development: it will take many thousands of years, but they can be found. But is there really any reason to rediscover geometry? Should we not build on what humanity has discovered over centuries of work and continue to develop it for the benefit of humanity, which has given us so much knowledge? Humanity has a right to this. What can we spare humanity in devoted love for the teachers of earlier generations! In the same way, we do not seek inner development for ourselves, but as workers in the great service of humanity. There have always been people who have gone before us; we have to learn from them, and if we are afraid of bowing to authority, that is unloving nonsense. Working in the spirit of the teachers of humanity, seeking out those who can guide us—this is what is first and foremost necessary for the occult teacher and the student. These things, which the teachers tell us and which have been tested and known for centuries, draw the senses out of the astral body.
[ 7 ] If anyone gives occult teachings—a real teacher will not do this—it is easy for them to give the student instructions on how to have perceptions in the astral world. One can perceive that the student begins to work on his astral body, to draw out the sense organs, but that in doing so he displays much worse habits and temperamental characteristics than before he became an occult student. It has been wondered why, in the early days of Theosophy, many incomprehensible missteps were made in relation to their character. Even the slight development of the astral body, which the theosophical teaching brought about as elementary teaching when it first became known, gave rise to very strange phenomena. For example, one student who was a cashier ran off with the money, another did quite different things; even people who had previously been peaceful became quarrelsome. This is related to the fact that with the little occult development that flows from theosophical concepts, the bad sides of the character are brought to the fore if nothing else happens. But no one should be afraid of this. Such things should simply be given attention and taken seriously. We should strive not to fall into such temptations through our strength of character. However, it is different when a real systematic occult training is given to the student. In that case, the work on the astral body is much more extensive, and then it is absolutely necessary that the physical and etheric bodies be given something to replace what has been taken away.
[ 8 ] How can we replace what is taken from the physical and etheric bodies? To do this, it is necessary to develop certain qualities in human beings. It is possible to develop qualities in human nature and essence that make it unnecessary for the physical and etheric bodies to be repaired in such an extensive manner. Imagine that during the day you do something to strengthen the physical and etheric bodies, to repair them so that they vibrate in harmony with the great universe through their own meaning and rhythm. Only then will you be able to use the forces for the astral body itself. And this must be done; it does not have to be done immediately, but the time will come when it must be done. When the teacher says, “You must concentrate your thinking,” he does not mean ordinary thinking. When he says, “You must sit down, take an ordinary thought and not allow any other thoughts to enter your mind, and think about it as intensely as possible, rejecting all other thoughts,” the person must make a certain inner effort; it is this effort that is important. It is not the object that should interest and captivate you. It is easy, for example, to think about Napoleon, but very difficult to think about a matchstick for a long time without interruption. That is the essential point. Then you will see how, after a while, you will gain a certain inner strength and confidence. You will then feel from an inner experience whether it has had an effect.
[ 9 ] Then you must move on to taking initiative in actions that you would certainly not have taken otherwise. It may be a completely insignificant action. It does not matter how significant the action is, but it must be your own action, one that comes from your own initiative. A gentleman to whom I told this told me after some time that he had taken seven steps forward and seven steps backward every day in his office, imagining evolution and involution. Excellent—it is not the magnitude of the action that is necessary, but your own initiative.
[ 10 ] I also mentioned this to some friends and gave the example that one could water flowers if one had never watered flowers before. And what did I experience? When I visited my friends, I found them all watering flowers. That was the worst thing they could have done, because they should not have done what I did, but something entirely their own, except for the invention. If you do this for a long time, you will see what kind of inner effect it has. These things harmonize and balance everything in the physical and etheric bodies to such an extent that both continue to resonate and no longer need to be repaired, so that the astral body can withdraw some of its forces from them.
[ 11 ] Then the human being must control himself in relation to pleasure and pain. In ordinary life, he is subject to the slavery of his feelings. He laughs when something particularly ridiculous is presented to him, he cries on some sad occasion. But the student must have himself under control; he must not allow himself to be controlled, but must control pleasure and pain himself. Many people think that this will make them dull, but the opposite is true. In this way, we overcome pleasure and pain, that is, what is selfish pleasure and selfish pain. We must find a way to crawl into other beings, as it were, to feel with them. No one should be deterred from this exercise by concern about becoming dull; they will feel more sensitively.
[ 12 ] A fourth exercise is one that I prefer to characterize through the telling of a legend. This legend is from the life of Jesus Christ; it is not found in the Bible, like many others; it is from Persia. Once, when the disciples were walking with Jesus Christ across the country, they saw the half-decayed carcass of a dead dog lying on the path. What a horrible carcass, said the disciples, and turned away in disgust. But Jesus Christ alone remained standing, looked at the carcass, and after a while said: What beautiful teeth the animal had. He saw the beautiful teeth in the ugly, decaying carcass. This gives us a hint that we should and must learn to see the grain of beauty in everything ugly, the good in the bad, and the truth in error. This quality of positivity must be practiced for some time; it gives inner harmony and inner rhythm.
[ 13 ] The fifth is that man acquires a certain impartiality in relation to everything new that comes his way in the world. One could also say that he must never allow the future to be influenced by what he is accustomed to from the past. The words, “I don't believe that,” must disappear completely from the mind, and if someone comes to you and says that the church tower has become crooked overnight, you must find a corner in your heart where you consider it possible that anything can really happen. But that does not mean you should become uncritical; it just means that nothing should seem impossible to you. Those who can do this can have a very significant effect on the physical and etheric bodies, bringing them into such a rhythm that the astral body is given what it needs at night in the form of meditation and concentration. For it is only gradually that this will lead people to true, real theosophy, so that they will understand everywhere why everything happens as it does and not otherwise. Those who know the mechanism of sleep also know why such exercises must be done.
[ 14 ] When a person takes these steps on the occult path for a while under appropriate guidance, much becomes visible, tangible, and experiential that would otherwise have escaped them. You must not believe that the dangers one encounters are not otherwise present in life. But you don't see them beforehand; you go through life, but you don't see them. You only learn to see what is in the spiritual world around us when you can penetrate into the higher realms. For example, what a person must find and will always find on a higher level, and what he must endure, what he must prepare himself for, is the guardian of the threshold. People usually have rather strange ideas about him.
[ 15 ] What is this guardian of the threshold? Today, let us draw attention to this experience, so to speak, by skipping over many other things and experiences. You must be clear about what human beings generally do throughout their lives. Let us take, in its true sense, the Kamaloka life, the life after death, where the human being still has a certain attachment to physical and sensory existence, and compare this life with what happens immediately before the Kamaloka life begins. A great tableau of memories appears before the soul of the person who has just left the physical body. Then the kamaloka life begins.
[ 16 ] This is very peculiar. First of all, it has the peculiarity that the human being relives his past life. In fact, they relive their entire previous life backwards, experiencing the events that preceded their death, right back to their birth. They relive all events in this way and are finished when they reach their birth. They arrive at every point they have passed through. Let's say you have reached the age of sixty, and in your fortieth year you slapped someone in the face. When you reach this point in your backward life, you are drawn to this person, and something strange happens: you feel the pain you caused. During your life, you may have harbored feelings of revenge; now you feel what the person you took revenge on or wanted to take revenge on felt. In your backward experience, you experience the feelings and emotions you have scattered around. Everything you experience there offers you a great deal of what is hindering your further development in human history. And without this stored mark of pain, you would find it easier to move forward, because this mark of inhibition remains with you as a force. And by absorbing the forces in reverse in Kamaloka, you will be guided by karma in your next life to use these forces to atone for your guilt, to make amends, to compensate. Thus, the longing to make amends for what you have failed to do begins there, and you will be drawn to make amends when the person lives with you again. This is how karma is lived out.
[ 17 ] Another example. Four judges sentenced someone to death and carried out the sentence. Why did this happen? When the lives of all these men were traced back, it turned out that in a previous life, the condemned man had been a kind of chieftain and had sentenced these four to death. The trait that brought the five together had actually developed in their previous lives. Thus, during their previous lives, people always have the opportunity to absorb those forces as inhibitions that will lead them back to life in order to pay off their debt.
[ 18 ] After a person has passed through Devachan and is about to re-enter physical life, you have the opposite image of what happens immediately after death. Now you have a kind of foresight, a kind of preview of the life that now lies ahead of you. Of course, unless they have been trained in the occult, they forget what they perceive there. There are documented cases of people who were so shocked by this preview that they did not want to enter this life. It turned out that their etheric body did not fully enter the physical body. In such cases, the etheric body of the head remained outside for quite some time and caused a very specific type of idiocy.
[ 19 ] Now, however, you must not think that karma works in such a way that we can pay off everything we caused in a previous incarnation in the next one. It is not that simple. Sometimes you have to go through many, many incarnations. If you could look back at any moment and see all the marks in your astral body that need to be balanced before you can ascend to certain heights of the occult, you would see your entire debt account.
[ 20 ] This now confronts the student and must confront him in a symbolic and tangible form — that which we still have to pay off, that which still hinders us: the unresolved karma. This is the guardian of the threshold.
[ 21 ] It can also confront us in a completely abnormal way. I know of a case where someone incarnated at the end of the 18th century and was afflicted with such an extraordinary greed for certain deeds on the physical plane that he had to undergo a strange fate after death. He died; after a very long time, he left the last remnants of his astral body. Usually, the astral body falls away after a third of the time spent on earth and remains as an astral corpse until it disappears. Such astral corpses constantly swirl around us and exert a bad influence on people. He could not remain long in the spiritual world, but soon felt the urge to descend again into the physical world. Now the disaster has befallen him, which, however, can occur very rarely. For when a person returns to physical existence, it can happen that he still finds his astral corpse. This is very bad for him, because then his present astral body is, as it were, saturated by his former astral body, which is a terrible fate. He then has it constantly beside him as a doppelganger, and this is the abnormal form of the guardian of the threshold. This can happen in special exceptional cases.
[ 22 ] But for those who are on the path of occult development, it is necessary that at a certain point in time they see their ordinary astral body with all the marks of their unbalanced karma, and they must seek to balance their unresolved karma by the means available to them. This is the true encounter with the guardian of the threshold. This is not said to frighten you, but to give you an idea of what is meant by self-knowledge in the true sense of the word. This is twofold: first, it is the knowledge of what the true self has to accomplish. Second, it is the realization of the higher self. But here, realization is something completely different. You can read in the Bible: Adam knew his wife. This is an expression for fertilization. Know thyself means: fertilize yourself with the wisdom within you, regard the soul as a female organ and fertilize yourself. If you want to have self-knowledge, search within yourself, there you will recognize all your mistakes; if you want to recognize your higher self, then search outside yourself, for there is world knowledge and self-knowledge. Everything is in the sun, for everything is sun. We must detach ourselves from ourselves. People say to me: You tell us about development and such things; but we want elevation of the soul, of the feelings. Those who speak thus are their own enemies. It is not by gazing into ourselves that we become selfless and find self-knowledge and knowledge of God, but by getting to know the world in all its parts, piece by piece.
[ 23 ] There is no worse phrase than this: One need only look within oneself. — But there one finds only the lower self. One should seek with love outside, and one will find. I have known people who said: What do I need? I need nothing, for I am Atma. — And even if they say “Atma, I am Atma” over and over again, they do not bring it into consciousness, because they know no more about Atma than that the word has four letters. Looking within oneself only leads to isolation. We are nothing but a limb of this world. The finger is only a finger because it remains part of the organism; detach it and it is no longer a finger. The finger does not separate itself from the organism; but man is so “clever” as to believe that he can separate himself from the earth, even though one would only have to lift him a few kilometers above the earth and he would perish. Man belongs to the sun, to his etheric and astral bodies, to an entire solar world. It is the greatest mistake to want to find the self within oneself. The right thing to do is to detach oneself by immersing oneself in all the details of the world. Those who enrich themselves with love and humility find godliness, while those who seek God within themselves become hardened. So you see that there is much to learn if you really want to get to know the esoteric path. And it is important that we have the right thoughts about such things. You do not need to think about it from morning till night, any more than it is necessary to constantly repeat your own name to yourself. It is enough to know the thought. There are thoughts without which the esotericist cannot be an esotericist. If he has them in the same way that he has his instincts and motives in ordinary life, then these thoughts are steps for him that lead him up to the supersensible plane of knowledge, meaning for him a penetration into world wisdom, an advance in knowledge toward love.