The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear sisters and brothers! If we heed and do everything that's been given till now in the Mystery dramas and esoteric lessons, if we really do all of this in complete devotion, then we can already get very, very far into high spiritual worlds. Moderns don't need anything more to get into very high spiritual worlds. We must live entirely in meditation, concentration and contemplation, and leave everything else outside. One can only attain something by sticking strictly to the prescribed rules. Meditation time must be looked upon as something beautiful and elevated in our esoteric life. During meditation one should first immerse oneself completely in the content of the exercises. So one must empty the soul of all everyday thoughts and feelings and must live in the content of the given exercises. And then make the consciousness devoid of content—also of the meditation material – and listen while one is awake. It's true that this is quite difficult. Some say that they hear their blood pulsing, and that this disturbs them. That's all right—let them hear the blood pulse. Then they'll sense the life in blood and thereby become aware of a piece of inner life.

Exoteric life takes place in the world of cognition. We know something because we confront an object, look at it and make mental images of it. This changes the moment we meditate. Through meditation we enter another world where we have our ideas, thoughts and concepts before us, outside us: we know that we're connected with them. But we can't get rid of them, we run after them. Thoughts ascend from the soul's depths. We see beings like carnivorous animals that devour them. We connect ourselves completely with the thoughts, etc. So we experience things here, whereas in exoteric life we know them. In meditation we're in a world of experience. We shouldn't immediately make ideas about what approaches us in this world. We should just open ourselves, listen and feel what wants to stream into our soul. This develops the lotus flowers so that they can become active. Further on we arrive at the world of bliss or shapes. But only one who has prepared himself for this world experiences it as a world of bliss. For an immature person it's full of terrifying things and it tears him apart. For him love turns into hate there, beautiful into ugly and he now likes what was disgusting to him before, and so on. Everything is in reverse. One only becomes really mature enough for a correct experience of this world of shapes if one goes through a training in self-discipline. What did the Gods do to protect us from an experience of this world of shapes before we're mature? They gave us pleasure, the enjoyment of creative activity here in the physical world. The beauty that we feel in a work of art, in a Raphael, in a Leonardo, such as were shown in scene three of Guardian of the Threshold isn't the permanent thing, also not the art work itself, but what's eternal is the spiritual part—what went on in the artist's soul as he worked, from which the work of art was created.

What is God in maya? What has to be said now must sound rather paradoxical. God is not what we experience in the spring in up-building forces, in shooting, sprouting things, in all beautiful and luminous things—God is real and active where we see destructive powers of nature; God is in autumn storms, in all shattering, disintegrating and crushing things. It sounds horrible and shocking, but it's a fact: God is most active in all destructive and disintegrating things. We're given pleasure from work with physical things to protect us from entering the world of shapes, of bliss too soon. In waking day consciousness we're separated from it as by a thin layer of ice. While we're in esoteric training we shouldn't bring these esoteric teachings into exoteric life or want to regulate exoteric life in accordance with these teachings. That could only lead to folly. Our education in exoteric life must result from exoteric pedagogical principles. One could set it up as an ideal that esoteric life should run completely independently. We must preserve absolute equanimity with respect to spiritual experiences, just as we should remain calm in everyday life with respect to all events, ideas, etc., so that we don't get excited or upset. One attains this equanimity by reverently thinking, feeling and living oneself into the three mantras, It thinks me—It works me—It weaves me, by letting these 3 sentences go through one's soul over and over again. And then we'll also understand our rosicrucian verse in the right way:

Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

The way we say “I think,” “I feel,” “I will” in ordinary life is really maya. It's only with “I am” that we're saying something that's true. Regarding our thoughts we can often notice that they press in from all sides when we would really like to exclude them. This shows that we don't think ourselves, but that beings are thinking in us. If only the progressive, good Gods had worked in us we would never have been under the illusion that it's we who think. Instead of falling into a deep, dreamless sleep at night we would have seen a big Imagination of our thoughts and ideas around us, permeated completely by the life and substance of higher beings. We would then have remembered this during the day and we'd always know that higher beings' life is in our thoughts. But Lucifer worked and wove himself completely into our thought life. If this imagination would appear it would show us that almost all of our thought life has become luciferic. And during the day we would constantly feel how terrible it is that Lucifer thinks in me. To protect us from this unconscious sleep comes over us at night, and we live in the maya idea that we think ourselves. But we esoterics must learn to face the truth. We get the strength to bear the thought that Lucifer thinks in us if we often meditate on the mantric statement, It thinks me, while we're completely permeated by piety.

It's easier to see that we're not masters of our feeling life. Feelings storm up in us, and we often can't control them very much. If our development had remained connected with progressive powers only here, then nocturnal Imaginations would have shown us that our feelings are of the same substance as the life that weaves through nature's great life realm. We would see plants' etheric archetypes, that are quite different from physical plants, and we would know that what pulses through the etheric life realm is also in our feelings. We would then remember this during the day as we looked at outer nature. But Ahriman has worked into all of this, and so we can say that in favourable cases he lives in maybe two thirds of our feelings, but most often it's more like three quarters of them, and the good Gods only live in a very small part of them. And we would see this in an Imagination at night because we would remain conscious, and during the day when we looked at nature outside we would know that Ahriman lives in our feelings that are related to weaving in the life realm. And we would think that it's terrible that Ahriman feels in us. To get the strength to bear this truth we must meditate on the sentence: It weaves me—with intense thankfulness to the good Gods who haven't left us completely yet. As far as our will impulses go it's very clear that our will is almost always determined by causes outside us, that the outer world's attractions and stimulations drive us to our actions. Here too, if Lucifer and Ahriman hadn't intervened we would have seen the working of spiritual beings at night, and we would have felt that they were united with this. And during the day we would have known nothing else than a working in agreement with what is willed by the good Gods. Our will would be the will of the spiritual world. But Ahriman's influence has also worked into this, and we should also see and know this during the day and we get the strength to bear this by meditating: It works me—with deep reverence for high spiritual beings.

So we see that the above mentioned “I think,” “I feel,” “I will” is really given to us in ordinary life as maya, since we can't bear the truth. Meditation on the mantra: It thinks me—It weaves me—It works me—can give a man a mighty push forwards into the spiritual world all by itself without other meditations.

The following about the letters in these mantras is also of importance.

It thinks me, Es denkt mich = e e i is getting close to another being with shyness and reverence; i is the union with this being whom we're approaching. But the d t indicates a feeling of still being reverentially separated. In It weaves me, Es webt michwe have the same e e i but w instead of d, a much more intimate approach. One weaves and waves completely into the other being; the waviness of the w carries us over all by itself. Everything is completely reversed in It works me, Es wirkt mich: e i i. One is entirely in the other being and works from there; one has united with it completely.

The ten words of the rosicrucian verse are arranged in such a way that the letters are also of importance. In Ex Deo nascimur we have the mood that we can feel on awaking with respect to our body, e e o a i u. In e we have a shyness to approach our physical and etheric bodies that the Gods built up during long world periods, o is a wanting to embrace, a is a stepping back with tremendous reverence, i is a wanting to unite, and u holds all of this together. In ... morimur—the statement in which we have this unspeakable word. We can call this a post-mortem mood, dying in Christ, i i o o i u: being one, embracing, becoming completely united, all of this summarized. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus. This expresses the attainment of self-consciousness in the spheres we enter after death. Here the consonants are more important; p r = feeling that one is placed in something, i stands for the I-feeling, the realizing oneself as an I, self-consciousness in the post-mortem state, s is the spinal column's form. Thus the masters have placed the secrets of the creative word in here, and ever more secrets can be found in it. Ten words: the ten-fold being of man, of which the fifth is the unspeakable name.

Our study today will be devoted to how a soul can raise itself into spiritual worlds. One who does his exercises regularly with patience and enthusiasm must also make progress; it's just a matter of him becoming aware of his progress.

After the meditation it's good to begin a rest period, to make the soul quite empty, to just wait and see what Imaginations come to us from higher worlds. Much also depends on the mood or attitude of our soul; we should always approach our exercises with the greatest devotion. The experiences that set in depend upon the meditator's individuality and karma. I'd like to pick out two of them from a large number. One is of being lifted out into space, into endlessness. One feels as if one were expanded and lifted up; of course a leaving of one's body is connected with this. This experience gives rise to a feeling of bliss and happiness. While one is raised one sees a reddening; yellowish red clouds come towards us from which Shapes gradually crystallize. Then there's a second experience of diving down, of sinking into the depths, accompanied by a feeling of constriction and choking. The spiritual beings one feels in this immersion appear to one in blue-violet gleams. They give a man a feeling of reverent, shuddering fear and induce him to take a look at himself. They show a man what he's really like, all of his defects and mistakes and moral weaknesses in their whole magnitude and abominable nature. It's true that we're already pointed in this direction by the retrospect that we do every evening, but a man can't see things as clearly with his physical consciousness. These beings who emerge from the depths get us to see plainly what habitual mistakes and wrong thinking produce in us. The beings who appear to us in a bluish violet light and show us our errors belong to the angels, whereas the upper, reddish yellow light figures that pronounce their judgment like punishing justice belong to the archangels. These experiences can also approach a man in a different way, namely through sounds. When his judgment is pronounced by an archangel with a thunderous voice it's much more scary, much harder to bear. But when a man has come to this hour that sets in after he's experienced the Guardian of the Threshold then he must have gotten rid of the habit of being afraid.

Just to be understood, let's mention an example, though the Imagination could just as easily take on another form. A man can see the figures that ascend from the depths in blue-violet colour tones with sorrowful, pain-filled faces. These high beings feel sad about us and our mistakes; this arouses a feeling of boundless shame in us. If a man sees his errors and regrets his mistakes he will see that these beings' faces radiate joyfully. A man must feel this connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. The beings who sink down on man as punishing justice and sometimes surround him evoke fear in him. But a feeling of joy can be added to this if these beings show him the possibilities that are in him and that he can develop. We can arrive at these experiences if we meditate it thinks me in the right way. But when a man sees how these figures out of balled-together reddish clouds try to join the bluish violet figures that are striving up from the depths, something like a conflict arises in him. He distinctly hears a voice that says: Don't believe that, believe what comes out of your own soul. That has the same value as what you see out in the cosmos.

That's Lucifer's voice, and this is the greatest temptation that a man can have, since Lucifer outshines all other beings in beauty, cunning and seduction. Like the blue-violet beings he climbs out of the depths. We should also realize that form is no longer of importance in these regions. The Spirits of Form who are called Elohim in the Bible are of importance on the earth. In spiritual worlds we find that we lift ourselves above them and can approach the Spirits of Movement.

One thing we should never forget: a feeling of deepest thankfulness towards higher beings and spiritual worlds. Just as an Essene saw the day-star approaching every morning full of thankfulness and prayed that it might appear, so we should return to the temple of our physical body every morning with reverent thanks to the spiritual beings who built it up so cleverly during the Saturn, Sun, Moon and earth periods, and in which alone we can acquire earth consciousness: Ex Deo nascimur. And then with this feeling of reverence and thankfulness that we've gained we become familiar with the spiritual, Godly element, with what frees us from the fetters of corporeality, brings us into the spiritual, super-sensible world and gets us into a blissfulness that's so great and tremendous that an esoteric doesn't dare to say the name of the very highest being: In ... morimur. And what's expressed in the last part of our rosicrucian verse: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus is the self-consciousness that brings a man over into a new incarnation. But a living in the vowels and consonants of this wonderful verse will bring us much further than meditation on the three parts that consist of 2x3 and 1x4 words.

Our meditations should gradually bring it about that we press into higher worlds body-free and learn to know and see things there. It's not just a matter of getting into higher worlds but of how we do this—the attitude with which we enter higher worlds must be a good and moral one. Now to begin with it's the case that a man as a sensory-physical being on earth is abandoned by good. He doesn't feel the moral element, the good that could and should speak to him out of the whole of creation any more. To give man freedom Lucifer has as it were pulled the moral element out; a man must now awaken it in himself, find it again and then bring it back to the spiritual, divine worlds.

When a man looks at the sun rising and setting today he doesn't feel any moral impulses streaming to him from it. If it wasn't for Lucifer he would feel: forces flow from the sun that pulse through me in such a way that I know and feel that I'm an I. If a man looks at the moon with what astronomy gives him he then knows that in the time from new moon to full moon and back again there are certain equilibrium constellations, where one first sees a quarter, then a half and then a whole illumined surface. What a man no longer feels is that if the constellations were completely different, if the moon would change its position very slightly beings like men would no longer be able to live in their physical bodies; for reproductive forces flow from the moon. If a man stares at Mercury he can no longer see that without Mercury no connection between sun and moon forces, between ego and reproductive forces would be made. Likewise with Venus he does not feel that without its mild light none of the love relations that make him happy would exist.

Lucifer has completely permeated man's astral body with egoism. This is necessary for the sake of a development towards freedom and independence of the individual. But things should not go so far that a man becomes insensitive to moral things. However this is the case with respect to nature, to the elements, for instance. A man would have to feel from air, fire, water, earth that they're there to create a punishing adjustment for human sins, that living in elemental forces there's a sickening force that we should and must let work on us in order to purify ourselves.-The same words are true or false depending on whose mouth they come from. In Lucifer's mouth “nature is sin, spirit is devil” is mockery. But it's true in the sense developed above, that material nature is supposed to punish us for our sins and that we should feel the spirit in nature as something that makes us sick and brings us suffering. For pains, suffering is the God-given means to recognize egoism and to overcome it. In Lucifer's mouth the word “Ye shall be as Gods” is a lie, but understood correctly it's true. Christ says: “Ye are Gods”—sons of the Godhead. A man is called upon to become a God. What does a modern materialist who divides the world into physical, material atoms want to do? He wants to perpetuate forces of sin. For matter is condensed injustice. Matter must dissolve into spirit again through spiritual development. We must wrest the morality that's placed in nature by divine, world wisdom from it again. Rosicrucian wisdom saw this whole materialistic development coming and so it gave means and showed ways to a heightened morality without which one shouldn't enter higher worlds, for one's own good. Otherwise one might get in, but then one doesn't find Lucifer there as he should approach one as a guide in knowledge of higher worlds, but all the more as a seducer who shows and simulates all kinds of divine spiritual things to one that don't really exist.

We should say Ex Deo nascimur and look up to the moon with an elevated soul, as to the giver of the opportunity to incarnate repeatedly and to perfect oneself on earth in a physical body. In Christo morimur, while looking up to the sun in order to feel oneself as an ego-being, as a spiritual-divine being through Christ, the spirit who is connected with the sun. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus, while looking up to Mercury and Venus that don't appear in physical copies but become manifest purely spiritually. Because the power of the spirit that teaches men about spiritual love is divided between them and the other planets. Plato still felt as an echo that man is abandoned by the good, that the good lives withdrawn in the deep lap of the Gods when he said: God is good. Christ Jesus said: No one is good except God.

We want to strive ceaselessly towards higher morality so that we become capable of feeling moral impulses out of nature, sun, moon, stars and of bringing the moral element back to the spiritual world, that was taken out of it by Lucifer for the sake of our freedom.

Verse for Wednesday. All esoteric life consists in taking in what we can understand and grasp exoterically with the soul with our hearty feelings. We must get to know the realms of Lucifer and Ahriman so we can protect ourselves against attacks. We must especially watch that we don't take concepts that we formed here in the physical-and that rightly exist for this world—with us into the spiritual when we cross the threshold.

Philosophy is something that some of you aren't very interested in, but you all know that philosophy tries to give men views about the world and life. In philosophy one mainly speaks about two things. Firstly about multiplicity, where everything is led back to the smallest parts, atoms, monads. For instance Leibniz's philosophy is a monadological-spiritual world view, and Haeckel's materialism is an atomistic one. The second thing that is spoken about in philosophy is unity. Spinoza's philosophy belongs here and Hegel's world view can be put here also. But multiplicity and unity are concepts that are only valid on the physical plane and in the elemental world to some extent, but are of no importance for the spiritual world. Anyone who worships unity and takes these concepts into the spiritual, succumbs to Lucifer. One who looks upon multiplicity as the only right thing falls prey to Ahriman. One who becomes conscious in the spiritual—and that's the main requirement for an advanced esoteric, that he's conscious outside of his body during meditation—first sees himself. He has himself before him as the main impression—his physical body and his relation to his physical being. Here in the physical world one feels that one is a unity with respect to one's surroundings that one looks upon as a multiplicity. One sees clouds, trees, mountains or the various kingdoms of nature around one. If we wanted to think that the clouds up there are part of us, like a finger is a part of us, we'd be making a big mistake. In the spirit one becomes aware of oneself as a multiplicity; we see all the forces and beings that work on our physical body in the elemental world as a multiplicity there. We see this like a hundred thousand fools there, like legions. But if we would only see these hundred thousand fools as a multiplicity and wouldn't say: All you little fellows there altogether are only I myself, all you together in your many-fellowedness only form me as a unity—if we wouldn't say this with all force and energy and self-contemplation, we would fall prey to Ahriman. And we shouldn't just tell ourselves that theoretically—which wouldn't be so difficult—but we must really experience this conviction that many are one in spiritual realms. If we did not do that, if we didn't strengthen our soul to have these feelings, and we looked upon these hundred thousand fools as just that, then pieces would fly out of us and we would be torn into multiplicity. Ahrimanic beings would take pieces of our being and disguise themselves with them and delude us with errors and lies.

Some African people only know lions as a multiplicity. They can't think of them as a unity, as a genus. One must grasp the concepts of unity and multiplicity really correctly and must leave ones that are only suitable for the physical plane behind when one crosses the threshold.

We must strengthen our soul through meditation to such an extent that when beings approach it in the spiritual world it immediately knows whether they want to lead it astray. The soul must be able to say: You (elemental beings) are the builders of my physical body. We often find schemata set up in theosophical literature that are somewhat useful. One starts with a unity which then forks and multiplies. Or one starts with many things and goes up to unity. And even if these things aren't quite right it doesn't harm anything too much as long as it stays on the physical plane. But it can become terrible if one wants to cross the threshold with this concept of a schema. The latter can be instructive if it only serves as a symbol, if one remains aware that one can portray the same thing in a hundred ways; if one isn't aware of this one has fallen prey to Ahriman.

Of course feelings and emotions play into all descriptions and explanations. One has to say things to one person in a vivid way, to another in a quite different way that would arouse antipathy in the first one. It has to be like that. But one must never force an esoteric truth on an esoteric by eloquent means, for then Lucifer would be at work. A pupil must be able to take things in freely.

So one has to keep life on the physical plane apart from the one in spiritual worlds. One must not take concepts that are valid in the physical realm with one when one crosses the threshold.

The working of ahrimanic and luciferic beings is necessary for the world order as long as they stay in their proper boundaries. An esoteric must strengthen his soul so that he recognizes the attacks of these beings and can protect himself from them. A man will only gain self-assurance in the spiritual world if he can keep a balance between Lucifer and Ahriman in physical life, if he knows from where everything that he encounters is coming.

An esoteric is supposed to acquire a different feeling from the one an exoteric has through what's given in esoteric classes and through his meditative life. He must let his entire life and actions be illuminated by spirituality so that quarrelling would be an impossibility in our ranks. That's really possible. In exoteric life an esoteric must behave like an exoteric. But his feeling about exoterics must be like adults' about children, quite objective, without arrogance or feelings of superiority. It's often quite painful to see how disputes, ambition and petty rivalries are present among esoterics also. This is just as if a 40 year old man were playing with children and he wanted to hit the bowling ball or pin that mashed his finger or blackened his eye. This way of expressing one's displeasure would be quite natural in a child. As an adult one can play better than children, but one accompanies this with other feelings; one stands above the play, whereas a child is completely engrossed in his play.

Some of our dear friends told me that my book Theosophy is very hard to understand, couldn't it be written in an easier way. I even lifted my pen several times to do this, but don't think that it's easy to write Theosophy in a popular way. But I always put the pen aside again. If one wanted to take in Theosophy without thought difficulties one would give Lucifer points of attack. It's quite good to torture oneself a little with it.

The idea that light is only based on waves is wrong. And it's quite wrong to speak of waves, oscillations and vibrations in connection with spiritual things. Some people like to talk about the good vibrations in an esoteric class, but one shouldn't do that.

Recently much has been said about the dangers that a pupil is exposed to on the way into the spiritual world. Now if someone wanted to say I don't want to go on this path, I don't want to develop myself into a spirit-bearer because it's too dangerous—then that's just as if someone would say: I'd like to live in a house that will soon collapse—I just don't want to know anything about the collapse. Everyone will have to go on this path sooner or later, and so it's necessary to become acquainted with the dangers. Man must go on this path into the spiritual realm because otherwise he'll dry out and atrophy. And here it's an esoteric's task to strengthen his soul to rightly recognize all of the difficulties—Lucifer and Ahriman and the Guardian of the Threshold—and to look them in the face and not fall prey to the hindering forces but to conquer them in order to show mankind the way. In the spirit lay the germ of my body .. In my body lies the spirit's germ ...

A number of changes take place in our soul life when we esoterics move up from one step to the next. For one thing, one can no longer think the robust thoughts that an exoteric can. I'll give you an example. William Crookes thought a lot in his life. He may have accomplished more in the spiritist realm than others. No doubt one of his most interesting problems is that of microscopic man. He imagines how a man shrinks to a kind of a homunculus. Finally he's only as big as a beetle who crawls around on a cabbage leaf. This cabbage leaf is the world and the leaf's edges are like high mountains for him. They seem higher than the Himalayas are for ordinary men. People also imagined a man who lives very fast, whose life span—that's about 75 years today—is only two months. The world view of such a man must be quite different, since everything an ordinary man experiences in many years is compressed into 2 months. He doesn't get to know the transition from one season to another at all. He would see the sun like a fiery circle, [about] as if someone swung a glowing coal and saw a closed circle. Flowers shoot out of the earth for him and disappear again immediately. People also imagined a man with an 80,000 year life span. For him flower growth is like a modern investigation of geological evolution and the sun hardly seems to move from its place. Such images are of interest to an esoteric, to the extent that they show him how wild moderns' exoteric thinking can get. Of the three soul forces it's thinking that can go wild the most. An esoteric can't copy this; he lacks robustness for this kind of thinking. Why? Because images like those of microscopic man and the man who lives fast don't lie within the necessities and lawfulness's of world existence. The good Gods were certainly more concerned about a man's life than he is himself, but they created him not as a microcosmic man but as a macrocosmic one, for this alone fitted in the world existence that the Gods created. Now if Crookes could have become a God he might have created such a microscopic man—the good Gods didn't do it, they were too weak. But a modern exoteric is strong. He paints a thought picture like the one of a microscopic man. He's stronger in his thinking than angels are—of whom an ancient document says: And they covered their faces. Why do they do that? Out of embarrassment for men's errors. The Gods created man as a thinking being and the whole world is arranged the way it is because he's supposed to be a thinking being. But if a man believes that thinking could exist by itself when he lets it run wild, he must then fall prey to errors and lose the connection with universal thinking, the primal source of thinking. Then the angels cover their faces. That's how profound these old religious documents are. That's why the exercises that were given to you contain thought pictures like the ones that're contained in the great world plan. And an esoteric will reject ideas like the ones about microscopic or slow or fast-living men. Such thoughts give him a pain, because he feels that they're unhealthy and that they don't lie in the necessity of world existence. He feels something like a burning sensation with respect to microscopic man; he gets hot—as if everything streamed together into a point. Whereas a feeling of coldness comes over him, he freezes from everything that wants to spread out far into the world when he's supposed to imagine a man who gets to be 80,000 years old.

One can also have such a cold feeling with respect to various philosophers. One gets an icy feeling from Anaxagoras and to a lesser extent from Empedocles. Leibniz gives one a feeling of agreeable warmth. He's a pleasant philosopher if his way of expressing himself is understood properly. One also has a burning, hot feeling if one meditates on a point. This is also a good test for esoteric development. If it's easy for me to imagine a point, as it's taught to children today, then it's still not the right thing. But if an esoteric finds it hard to do this, if he has a hot, burning feeling, then this shows that he's making progress in his training.

An image that's good to meditate on is a bowl filled with oil in which a flame is burning and shining. The bowl stands there, the oil is consumed. This gives one a true image of a human being. The bowl is the physical body, the oil is the etheric body, the flame that consumes the oil is the astral body, the shining light is man's ego. This human being varies a great deal depending on climate and location. A man's etheric body expands if he travels to the northeast, as to Finland and it contracts on the way down to Sicily. Strong healing forces can be unleashed thereby, karma permitting.

During meditation or after it one could ask oneself: Where is the Christ? Where do I have to look for him?

A man's memory goes back to a time between birth and the change of teeth; that's when ego-consciousness began. The physical body's form is already finished then, it only grows some more. One could ask what things would be like if one's memory only went back to age ten. Suppose that someone who awakened to self-consciousness at 10 asked to be awakened at a certain time. Then on waking he would have the impression that he went to his door himself, knocked, and woke himself up. Or on awaking by himself he would see himself coming in as a light figure, walking towards himself, opening his eyes and awaking himself thereby. He would be able to know: In the realm from which his light form comes to him, there the Christ is also.

Many people will experience this in the near future, even though man's self-consciousness arises already during the first seven years. We're standing at an important turning point, and this must be pointed out. A man will then experience that the light form of his astral body is floating towards him, and he'll know that this light form is consuming his physical body, and that every time it leaves the latter it takes a piece of it along, as it were. And when the apparition takes possession of the physical body again in the morning, the man will see that he's living at the cost of a dying process. This knowledge can make men very sad and melancholic. They'll no longer value their physical body. And whereas men's courage will be tremendously increased by outer culture, air vehicles and other technological attainments, at the same time life will be considered to be of little value. Men will be overcome by deep sadness and melancholy, and the number of suicides will rise sharply. While outer courage is growing in sensory life, inner courage will necessarily decline and give way to a disguised cowardice. Men become ever more materialistic and don't want to know anything about the soul and spirit. Angels inspired Kant to set up his limits to knowledge, so that men could develop outer courage. But just as a compressed rubber ball springs back, so this will produce a reaction in souls, and then men's courage will want to turn to the attainment of knowledge of spiritual worlds again.

Men who don't find their way to the Christ see the figure of death walking beside them. But we know that Christ lives in the earth's aura and that we're always connected with him. If we know this and keep it alive in us, the picture of death takes on Christ's features and he walks beside us like a man, even if we don't see him clairvoyantly. Then we know where to look for the Christ. We can't escape the spirit of the times, it works everywhere. But the knowledge that Christ lives and that we can get to him will keep our souls from desolation, deep melancholy and disdain of life. We'll understand the word in our rosicrucian verse: In Christo morimur. If we let all of this become really alive in our souls in quiet moments it can become a big help to us.

Why is it that an esoteric still hasn't arrived at vision in higher worlds even though he's done his concentration and meditation exercises for years? To answer this question clearly we'll now imagine what meditating really is. When we want to meditate we want to turn away from outer things, we don't want them to have any influence on our thoughts any more, they're not supposed to disturb us in our devotion to spiritual things. But, outer events and thoughts about them constantly push in front of our meditating soul; they want to divert us from our meditation, they defend themselves against our devotion, so that we have to fight this with all of our willpower. Now if we want to find out who is defending himself against our better will the following example can perhaps clarify things. Let's imagine that a stranger approaches us and says: You are a fickle person. In 99 out of 100 cases we would be very disturbed about this, because until now we thought that we were a very good esoteric, who had seriously examined his inner life as far as his defects are concerned, and now a stranger comes and says the opposite.

Just as the stranger steps before us, so in all the thoughts that push in between our meditation something is placing itself before us which we think that we don't know, and yet it's our own self that reveals itself in all these thoughts and shows us how fickle we really are and how little we can free ourselves from our daily worries and desires. For what always presses into us during our meditation, when we have the wish to separate ourselves from outer things and to unite ourselves with spiritual things, is our streaming desire life. It constantly streams into our thinking in pictures of our daily life and it defends itself when we want to connect ourselves with the spiritual realm.

It can be good for us that this is so, since we get to know ourselves in our continually inflowing desire life, in all of these pictures and thoughts; it must bring us to self-knowledge—that we've exercised very cursorily till now. But mostly we'll still look for all kinds of excuses, because we don't want to accuse ourselves, and that's why we still can't look into the spiritual world. Our desire-ego pulls a veil in front of it. If we would turn our attention away from the events and experiences of our desire life, if we would turn our ego towards the spiritual and direct our whole devotion towards it, we would then have been successful a long time ago. If we would only direct as much attention to our meditation as one uses for all kinds of conversations that one has in social life or for news about one's dear fellow men, we would then make rapid progress in our knowledge of higher worlds, we would then push back our ego that's defending itself.

Our thoughts are nothing but memories of previous events, and these events are nothing but the desires that we've felt. If they hadn't become pleasure for us we wouldn't have preserved them in our memory. If one examines one's memory one will find that everything that gave one the most pleasure is engraved in it. Everything that we remained indifferent to, that we didn't enjoy has disappeared from our memory, just as a child no longer remembers the little details of what he learned in school later on, because he wasn't interested in them, and so they don't become very deeply imprinted in his memory.

What we must also apply in our esoteric development is devotion. The method that we use in meditation isn't that important, and we shouldn't want to meditate a lot so that we can have a lot of experiences in the spiritual world, for thereby we would only see our own wishes, and Lucifer would gain control over us. It's not easy to get away from this world of Lucifer and Ahriman. If we think that we've exercised thorough self-knowledge, but are still looking for excuses, then it's Ahriman who's standing beside us. When we look for excuses if someone tells us: You did this or that badly,—then that's Ahriman just as much. We love Lucifer and Ahriman too much, they accompany us our whole life long just because we love them so. And why do we like them so much? An example may clarify this. With what does a mother quiet her crying child? She caresses him and produces a pleasant awareness of his body in him. Likewise Ahriman and Lucifer bring us in contact with the world's things around us that give us so much pleasure. We feel a pleasant stimulation through the light rays that they let fall on objects and that then radiate back from the things and touch us, just as the crying child feels his mother's caresses. Lucifer and Ahriman caress us by magically weaving light rays over the world's things, and our eyes become aware of things by touching the rays.

These powers also assert themselves in modern science and philosophy, as for instance in a conversation of one of Schopenhauer's pupils with Nietzsche. Deussen says that denial of the will conditions life, whereas Nietzsche said that ennoblement of the will leads to life. Now if one would look at the first statement exactly and think about it one would have to say that denial of the will doesn't lead to life but to death, for a drinker or tramp who lives out denial of the will in his desires and doesn't keep them under control, who affirms every pleasure that's offered to him in life—he will not attain life, but will come to an early death, whereas one who strives for ennoblement of the will, who rays out the forces of a healing germ with which his rays unite,—he'll be healthy and in tune with life. Scholars thought that they were looking through good glasses in Deussen's statement, whereas they were really looking through wooden glasses. Here again we see how Ahriman places himself before men, for they love him so much that they don't let go of him. Men go to church and pray to the beings they love. We often have Christ's name on our lips when we mean Ahriman. We have to make all of this clear to ourselves, for we must see Lucifer and Ahriman in all of our deeds and omissions and namely there where these two powers want to place themselves before our meditation to keep us from looking into the spiritual world. For the moment has come when we must try to form spiritual organs of clairvoyance in us and develop ourselves for spiritual knowledge, so that these organs don't dry up and waste away. We must slowly and gradually grow into the spirit out of which we're born: Ex Deo nascimur.

At life's beginning that originates in the Godhead we were still permeated by divine-spiritual forces that work up to the change of teeth at age seven. That's the way everything is renewed in man, the old is pushed out by the new, new hairs push out the old ones, the nails are cut and they grow again. The spiritual forces that worked at the up-building and growth of the child have come to an end with the milk teeth, and now other forces or beings begin to work at an up-building for the present incarnation, but with this the deterioration and dying of organs begins immediately. They gradually die, and also every thought that a man thinks causes destruction in brain cells, so that matter is dedicated to slow dying: In Christo morimur. We grow towards the spirit slowly. Our hair becomes white, all our organs pass over into the spirit slowly, our whole body strives towards spiritualization and it'll arise again in the spirit: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

In order to get ahead in our esoteric life we must become more attentive to things that usually escape our everyday consciousness. We must also revise our ideas about what we'll experience. For instance we complain that thoughts storm into our meditation that bother and disturb us. If we would think about it we would see that it's progress that we've become more sensitive, because we notice that these thoughts are stronger than we are. They induce us to use more strength in our meditation, for it's luciferic beings who bring up our own thoughts in us. Luciferic beings are always in us, but they're drowned out by the surging of everyday life. When we walk through a quiet woods at night we'll hear the leaves falling, animals flitting by and distant footsteps, but in a city's bustle such quiet noises will be imperceptible.

That's how things are with our meditation also. The quiet that we create let's us notice what submerges in the everyday hubbub. All kinds of things can enter our consciousness, such as physical pains that we don't feel otherwise. We can concentrate on our body—although this is only a good idea in special cases—and look for all of its pains. One begins somewhat over the head, excludes all other thoughts and concentrates on this one point. Then one goes further down, focuses on one part of the brain, and so on. Here one will notice that one can have pains in various parts of the body. The more egotistical a man is the more distinctly he'll feel pains here and there. But we shouldn't get hypochondriacal or scared about this—we should stay cool. We also have to do this with other things, for strange and surprising things can happen to us, but we have to get to the bottom of them. The relation between members of our being changes through meditation. Even when we do it ever so badly and awkwardly we nevertheless pull the ego, astral body and part of the etheric body out of the physical body, and so we can have strange experiences in our etheric body in the moments after meditation. This body is a faithful preserver of everything we encountered in life, consciously or not. For instance as a child we may have experienced that a dog was run over by a train. Over the years we have overcome the horrible scene. But the etheric body preserved it and through our development 30 or 40 years later we can suddenly perceive the yelping and whimpering out of us, or it can even be the case that the person concerned can make yelping sounds himself and then of course is rather scared about this. This happens when the etheric body is loosened in development, appears suddenly with especially strong force and works on the physical body.

Another example: An esoteric can have pains from an inflammation of the middle ear that lead to visions of a gruesome scene, and he can't explain its origin. This comes about as follows. Pains are seated in the astral body and not in the physical body. We know that the astral body can experience great pain in kamaloca. These pains in the astral body are reflected in the etheric body. The esoteric experiences the vibrations that are generated in the etheric body thereby, but also vibrations of a similar kind that were generated in it during childhood through soul pains, when he experienced the horrible scene. He had forgotten the latter long ago, but the experience emerges from the etheric body through his esoteric training and the outer earache.

Something even stranger is possible. Say we live on the other side of a house's wall with a family that liked to read and tell tall tales. Our physical ear didn't hear them, but our etheric body took them in. And in spiritual development it can happen that we experience them in our etheric body. Such things can scare us if we don't understand them. Say that someone goes to sleep in a public lecture through lack of interest. His ego and astral body are nevertheless there. Then when he wakes up it may happen that the physical body does not want to adapt itself to what the ego and astral body took in. Thereby the person is dissatisfied with himself, reproaches himself severely or even feels pain from his physical body. Or it may happen that someone takes in esoteric teachings with great attentiveness and does his exercises well, but he has to be among people who reject theosophy and esotericism either silently or openly. This has an effect on the esoteric, and it can happen after meditation that voices within him say: “That's all nonsense” or much more terrible things that give him great pain. It's the thoughts of his environment that he may not have heard with physical ears but with which he's obsessed. When we lift out the ego we take all of our good qualities with us and refine them more and more; the bad qualities we push down and they acquire a kind of independent life. Then it may happen that we begin to scold and to use expressions that we're too well trained to use in ordinary life. This then fills us with amazement and horror, and we may tell ourselves: I'm not like that at all, I'm too decent a person for that. But we should, admit that we are like that, for such things only disappear when we finally put them aside. And yet all of these experiences are steps forward, and it's just a matter of knowing their significance. It's especially important to realize that it's our own fault that it's so hard for us to press into spiritual worlds. But when we get up there we meet the one who took our sins upon him through the Mystery of Golgotha. He took our weaknesses upon him; that's a true word in the Bible, as everything in the Bible is true. And one who refuses to have his sins expiated by the Christ hasn't pressed to the depth of this truth, just as little as one who believes in it as a “good Christian” but who thinks that the matter is very simple. World evolution is very complicated and hides riddles in every little thing, and every little thing can become a whole world. The example of otitis media can teach us this. What is experienced there in the etheric body arose like a world out of a small thing.

Inspirations for the material world can also come from higher worlds. A thing that's noted too little, that many people read over when they read the life of Darwin's friend Wallace is that a thought that led to one of the most important discoveries in connection with physical heredity came to him in a feverish dream. That this thought came to him in a condition in which his physical brain was unsuited for thinking should give the materialists who consider thinking to be a function of the brain much to think about. Darwin also travelled a lot in the tropics and it's quite possible that he made some discoveries about physical conditions in a fever.

One will only notice such things when things are found in such abnormal states, as if through inspiration that can be used materialistically, when for instance someone discovers something that can make him rich. Up till then one will consider all such things to be figments of a sick fantasy. Let's continue our meditation with industry, perseverance and energy, for the help of the one who brought his impulse into earth evolution will always come to meet us. This help is always there.

There would be no esotericism if the view that medieval soul investigators had and that is shared by modern psychologists were correct. Back then they said: Everything that goes on in the soul is intentional, that is, a particular intention underlies all soul processes; when I think, then my thinking has a particular content, I have to think something; when I feel, hope, imagine, will then I must feel, hope, imagine or will something. Medieval soul investigators expressed this much more clearly than modern psychologists, for our age is the age of fuzzy concepts. If this medieval view were correct no esoteric thinking would be possible, for an esoteric wants to remove this something from his soul also and make it completely empty, so that divine thinking can then stream into his soul. In a way this is also not produced by our exercises, for in them we concentrate on particular words, pictures, etc. that are given us by occult teachers. That is, on something that isn't taken from the sense world. Our soul becomes prepared to receive divine existence when it has matured through these exercises.

What's the purpose of this concentrated thinking? To divert us from the material thoughts that whiz around us and to get us to rest in a particular thought content. We must get to the point of ignoring a particular object of our thinking, of freeing ourselves completely from it and of developing the forces that are necessary for thinking. Medieval soul investigators knew that quite well, but they obeyed a rule that's still followed by many people and that's become a basic principle in all cognitional theory today. They said that it's very difficult to attain thinking, feeling and willing that is devoid of intentions, and that what's difficult is impossible for men. That's how all these ideas about limits to cognitional capacity came into philosophy.

Of course it isn't easy for an esoteric to remove all thinking, feeling and willing content from his soul during meditation and to only develop forces. He'll only attain this through steady, strenuous meditation. A meditator is really in the same position as a sleeping man, except that he keeps himself conscious.

For what happens in sleep? The astral body and ego leave the body, and the physical and etheric bodies remain lying on their resting place, but as I've often mentioned this is only correct to a certain extent. Just as the sun only sets for one part of the globe and arises anew for the other half, so only one part of the physical body rests. The sun of the astral body and ego begins to unfold its activity in the other part. For the astral body and ego are withdrawn from the nervous and blood systems, but they begin to work on the senses and glands during sleep. Many of you have gone to sleep in a room that's not very warm and have then felt cold on awaking. That's because the astral body and ego aren't in your blood and nervous system during sleep. It may seem strange, but senses are awake the most during sleep. For instance, while our eyes are closed at night the forces of the ego and astral body work into them. Whereas our eyes are really sleeping during the day when we're awake. A man wouldn't be able to use them if they weren't asleep. The fact is that the sun of the astral body and ego rises at night on the hemisphere of the sense and glandular systems. One who wakes up consciously in sleep can experience the light that works on eyes and the building up of senses that must stop in daytime so that a man can see. Such a man can see the image of an angel who's floating towards him when the lens expands and contracts again. If he could expand his gaze he would see an angel fighting with a demon, projected out of him. This imagination arises because in sleep the blood is taking care of the eyes. For generations of archangels and Gods have worked on the human eye. When one makes this clear to oneself one will also feel how irreverently physiologists are probing into what was created over a very long time by hierarchies of divine beings.

When a meditator looks at himself from outside he can have the feeling of a space that's filled with warmth only, like an oven. What lives in there is what weaves in a man's own soul life. We must feel the warmth ether that fills and surrounds the physical body. This takes a lot of attentiveness. Inexperienced esoterics won't notice this ether, they notice something quite different, namely, thoughts that storm in on them, often long forgotten images, feelings and worries press in on them. Then they come and complain. A more experienced esoteric can say: I congratulate you on the progress that you're making now.

This fits in with the word in John's Gospel, “And the light shone into the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not.” For this warmth that's in us is darkness. Light wants to press in from outside, but it can't, because there's a battle going on between two kinds of warmth. It's hard for a man to see that there are two kinds of warmth. Once when a thunder storm was approaching an old shepherd told me: Those are two weathers that are gathering against each other. Modern physicists speak abstractly of positive and negative electricity, but that's as far as it goes. The old shepherd still felt and knew out of the depths of his soul that when a thunderstorm comes up two powers are fighting each other, that a battle is taking place there.

A modern isn't aware of two kinds of warmth anymore. It's easier for him to imagine that there are two kinds of light: the inner luciferic light and the outer divine light that he sees coming towards him in meditation. But aside from man's warmth that's luciferic there's another warmth that can irradiate him from outside, but which he'll feel to be cold in meditation to begin with. In meditation it's a good sign to feel breathed on by cold, which is warmth in spiritual worlds. If we focus on this cold we feel our own warmth like a sphere around and in us. We seem to go through a fiery oven in which everything luciferic is burned, and yet this fire of divine wrath—which is really love—is felt to be cold that's breathing on us. Once one has become aware of this happening one tells oneself: Thank God that I'm punished and tortured and have to experience God's wrath that burns up the things in me that shouldn't be in me any more.

Then warmth that's initially felt to be cold comes to us from outside. and this comes with light—which is also from Lucifer, but from Lucifer's good side. Spirits in the good hierarchies use Lucifer to let this light radiate into us.

Thereby we can arrive at a soul life that's not intentional, at a spiritual world that's not just a continuation of the physical one, but a quite different one. The rose cross can be a symbol of this for us.

People often say: The rose cross remains a mere symbol for me. But that's their own fault. The feelings with which a man should permeate himself so that the red rose cross becomes a live force and not just a symbol were already indicated in Occult Science. We can also convert what was said today into a feeling: We're born from God. But since Lucifer mixed himself into creation the cross's wood must become burnt charcoal and black. In ... morimur. If we've died in Christ like this then the world forces, the forces of the seven red heavenly roses that radiate into us as light and warmth can approach us from outside from the seven planets.