The Rudolf Steiner Archive

What every esoteric is heartily interested in is success for his meditative efforts. Everyone is successful, even if he doesn't notice it. Budding esoterics often complain about pains. These pains are disorders that arise in the body because the physical and etheric bodies aren't in the right contact with each other. These pains were already there before, except that the man hadn't felt them since he was coarser and more robust. He feels them now as an esoteric since he's finer and more sensitive. An esoteric must learn to bear such pains. Of course one has to know whether or not the disease should be treated.

Why is it that one knows one's physical body so little? Because one lives in it and only perceives it with one's feelings. One sees with one's eyes and so one can't observe them. Once an esoteric gets to the point where he withdraws from the physical with his soul and spirit he'll be able to observe his physical body. We're helped to do this if we concentrate our thoughts on a point as much as possible and then immerse our self in this point and live in it for awhile. A strengthening of thought power occurs through such concentration and thereby one can gradually get to the point of observing one's physical body.

Then we must become familiar with our etheric body. This is more difficult, for the etheric body does not have a skin like the physical body—it's a fine tissue that sends out its streams everywhere into the outer world and it's imprinted by everything that goes on in the outer world, often without the man's knowledge. One learns to feel the etheric body by doing the second auxiliary exercise. It's outer impressions that ordinarily drive a man to act. He sees a flower on a meadow, and he stretches out a hand to pick it because it pleases him. But as esoterics we must get to the point of doing this or that out of an impulse that we give ourselves. Then one will see that it's the etheric body that induces the hand to move. One feels that one's etheric body awakens in this way. Through this awakening etheric body one gradually learns to experience oneself in an etheric world. Every time I grab something or bump into it this is really an attack on the outer world. A non-esoteric has no inkling of this for the Guardian of the Threshold protects him from this knowledge, but an esoteric makes his etheric body increasingly independent so that it experiences itself in the etheric world. His organs get finer and he gets the feeling that spaces aren't only filled with physical objects but by countless elemental beings who make themselves noticed through bumping, pricking and burning. One must make room for oneself everywhere in this elemental, etheric world by stretching out, withdrawing, pushing, striding forwards, etc., and such movements must occur with the full consciousness that one wants to make them out of one's own being. That's the second thing: initiative actions. One without an initiative will who can't make room for himself in the etheric world can do just as little there as one who wants to dance on a stage that has chairs standing all over it. The chairs must be removed first. That's what one learns in the spiritual realm through the second exercise. We must do just the opposite to become aware of our astral body. We must hold back desires that are living in the astral body, we must develop equanimity with respect to them. We must create absolute calm in us. Only then do we feel the outer astral world bumping into our inner astral world. Just as we bump into the etheric world by reaching into it by ourselves in our will, so we feel the outer astral world by remaining quiet in ourselves, by quieting all wishes and desires. Before the astral body gets to this point it stuns itself with a cry. We know that pain arises when the physical and etheric bodies aren't in the right contact with each other. The astral body feels this as pain. A small child cries when he feels pain. He tries to drown out the pain by crying. An adult might say “ouch.” If a man could let his pain stream completely into the sound's vibrations changes would arise in the etheric body's formation through sound oscillations so that he would become unconscious and feel no pain. But the good Gods made men weaker, and that's good, otherwise there would be no pain and also no articulated speech. An esoteric must get to the point where he can bear pain and everything else that's stimulated in him from outside with equanimity. Then he won't attack the outer world, but it'll attack him. Since he has developed complete calm the attacks only touch his physical and etheric bodies, and the astral body remains untouched. It becomes free and one can observe it. So I get to know my astral body through the equanimity exercise. Finally I must also get to know my ego. I can't feel my ego, because I'm living in it. That's why we must pour it out into the world. I become familiar with my ego through what we call positivity. If we look at a rotting dog's beautiful teeth like Christ Jesus did then we don't see the ugliness, but we dive down so far into everything that we arrive at the good. Thereby we get away from our ego and can observe it. The ego is love and will. Through the developed will we get to know the substance of all things that originate in the divine world. Through love we learn to experience the essence of things. Thus through will and love we press forward to cognition that's free of the personal ego. As a spiritual ego we learn to dive down into the being and substance of all things that come from the spiritual Father ground; that includes our own ego. Our ego looks at us from all created things. The pupil attains the swan stage when he can experience that. At the fifth stage we develop spirit self or manas. There we mustn't cling to what we previously saw, heard and learned. We must learn to ignore all of that, to receive what approaches us as if we were completely emptied of previous things. Manas can only be developed if one learns to feel that everything that we acquired through our own thinking is of little value in comparison with what we can acquire when we open ourselves to the thoughts that stream in out of the cosmos that was woven by the Gods. Everything that surrounds us arose from these thoughts of the Gods. We hadn't been able to find them through our previous thinking. The things concealed them for us. Now we get an inkling of the divine that's behind everything like a hidden riddle. We begin to see how few of these riddles we had fathomed. And we find that we really have to remove everything that we've learned so far from our soul, that we must approach everything quite open-mindedly, like a child—that the divine riddles that surround us are only given to the open-mindedness of the soul. The soul must become childlike to be able to press into the kingdoms of heaven. Then hidden wisdom or manas streams towards the childlike soul like a gift of grace from the spiritual world.

A man doesn't have to go further, since he makes contact with the spiritual world through these five stages. Through continual repetition of these five exercises a harmony of interaction between the various capacities that are to be attained through them must now be produced. This is brought about by the sixth exercise.

These exercises are of the very greatest importance. A soul can find its way into spiritual worlds through them. You'll find references to these five exercises everywhere in the books and lectures. And no esoteric class would have to take place if everyone read them attentively and awakened the forces of these exercises to life in his soul. They serve as a support for the specially given exercises.

An esoteric must be very attentive even to the smallest things. He must observe everything conscientiously in a quite different way than it's done in the physical world, as soon as he approaches spiritual worlds. For things in the spiritual realm are much more subtle and fine than in the physical one. That's why an esoteric must keep on doing these exercises and repeatedly rouse himself to new efforts and observations, for otherwise he can't get insights into the spiritual world. And an esoteric must especially be patient. Many people think that after they've exercised for a short time they should then get into the spiritual world, that all portals to it will be open to them. But just consider that a significant impulse or idea takes 19 years to be inwardly well grasped and understood. If an esoteric thinks that after some exercising he'll soon be mature enough for entry into spiritual worlds, then it's as if a child who'd just learned to speak would say: It's boring to have to wait for years until I become a man. I want to be a man right away.

Another thing that one has to learn in esoteric life is truthfulness. One who hasn't already learned it in physical life will have a lot of trouble in his ascent into the spiritual world since he must leave his logical thinking and everything that's connected with the intellect behind, and he's not corrected by facts in the spiritual world as he is here in the physical world. The good Gods wanted to educate man to be truthful when they placed him in the physical world, where every lie—that is, everything that doesn't correspond to the facts—is corrected by facts. The inclination for truthfulness can only be acquired in the physical world and not in the spiritual one. Finally an esoteric must try to habitually acquire a good memory. The etheric body is the preserver of memory, but without the physical body it wouldn't be able to preserve it very well. The nerves get an impression and this must be written into the physical body. The latter is as it were the recording apparatus for what a man wants to retain. And when he wants to remember something he penetrates the physical body with the etheric body to the place where what's supposed to be remembered is inscribed, the memory picture becomes alive and the man reads it from the physical body. Students repeat something they have to memorize until it has been inscribed. Then it may happen that when they for instance learn: “There stood a castle so high and grand” ... they press it forcibly into the physical body with the help of the sounds.

Such inscribing and reading must become habitual in the sense that it becomes an inner habit to permeate all of one's deeds with attentiveness and reflection.

One can't use the physical body as a memory organ for spiritual experiences; habitual activities must replace it. We must summon the nuance of feeling that belongs to this before our soul.

The content of what flows to a meditator when he makes himself empty after a meditation—also of the meditation's influence—is a matter of merit. A meditation will never be the same twice. What flows to us will depend upon our morality, love of truth, and on how we've lived since the last meditation. If we didn't remain entirely truthful or if we've let anger or aggravation arise in us, then nothing from the spiritual world can stream into us. We get what we deserve. If we trace these things attentively we'll always find the reason why we weren't graced with the spirit in some untruth, in some surging up of anger, or the like.

As soon as one begins to meditate the etheric body contracts. An inner warmth arises thereby, for it's the warmth ether—under light, sound and life ethers—that contracts. If one then pays attention to what one has outside one, one will perceive that it's something flowing, like a kind of religious devotion, like moral warmth in the world ether. And one becomes aware that what one has in oneself is something else—like a having to be ashamed with respect to this moral world warmth. A man doesn't like this very much, he doesn't want to be ashamed, he avoids this. And so he says that he's not making any progress. He hides from himself. He can only get further here by unfolding his will nature. And if he says: I can't, it only means: I don't want to unfold my will. One should often look into and listen in holy silence to one's physical body and try to perceive what's murmuring in there. One must direct one's attentiveness entirely inwards without paying any attention to what's going on around one.

In meditation one perceives everything, everything makes an impression; however one's consciousness shouldn't be focussed on it, but should be entirely directed towards the meditation.

The consciousness soul, intellectual soul and sentient soul shouldn't be completely equated with willing, thinking and feeling, for the latter are to be found in each of the three soul members. People who are more feeling beings come to esotericism, and namely, especially those who have a religious bent. Such people usually get general ideas about the spiritual world and also Imaginations very easily. They're usually spared the things that make it difficult for men to ascend into spiritual worlds. Their worries are taken away from them by an angelic being, they're carried over the threshold by their angel. Such men can experience many beautiful things in the spiritual world, and when they speak about this we should listen well to what they tell us.

Then there's people who come to esoteric development more out of the will that's connected with emotions and passions, and this can be connected with criticism and ridicule. It's more difficult for them than for the feeling type to get into the spiritual world. When they stand before the threshold they're tortured by their passions and emotions so badly that it can become physical torture. In their meditation it's as if they were being tormented and hindered by devils. They would like to enter the spiritual world, but they don't feel that they can.

The third path through thinking is one that one can choose oneself. But very few people tread this path. One hears people say that they can't imagine what things were like during Moon evolution. But that's their own fault. A farmer would easily be able to understand Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution. People who don't understand it just don't want to accept it because they've never seen it. But even if we had never seen a child we would know that an adult couldn't be the way he is if there weren't other stages of development behind him.

Our verse Ex Deo nascimur, In Christo morimur is speaking about the Father God who has a son in Christ. It was a deep thought of Christianity to express this relation with the help of the father-son relationship. For a father can also remain without a son. It's a gift of the Father that he let the Son proceed from him. If one feels united with the Son who is the God in a man's soul one can arrive at a deeper understanding of EDN, ICM and will later also come to a realization of PSSR.

We know that everyone who's on a path of esoteric development must gradually transform his whole thinking, make it different than it is in ordinary sense life, so that he can find his way into the spiritual world. We must learn to rethink, as it were, and our whole life of feeling and perception must also become different than it had been until now. What really is our thinking in ordinary life? We're used to saying that thinking takes place in the physical body, but that's not the case. The etheric body is the real causer of our thoughts. Our physical body only has something to do with it to the extent that it's a mirror for our thoughts that reflects the picture so that we can thereby become aware of it. We can clarify this through an example. When a man looks into a mirror he has his mirror image before him, the mirror gives him the outer impression of his physical shape that is, a shadow of his outer personality. Likewise the thoughts that have their living seat in the etheric body are the reflected shadow pictures of our physical brain when we think them. What do the concentration exercises that are given us bring about? They help us to gradually loosen ourselves from the thought shadows as we concentrate and contract ourselves in our etheric body so that we can press forward to the real origin of our ideas that have their life in the etheric body. It should become ever clearer to us not only that our thoughts are shadows but that all of our percepts are really nothing, and that in reality only the spiritual world exists. A naive man says that what he perceives exists. But what is existence (Sein) really? Philosophers have tried to get behind this entity in various ways. “Sein” is really derived from sehen(seeing); it's really the past participle of “sehen.” No one can see existence in the physical world, because it rests in the spiritual world; but one only sees the spirit when one doesn't see matter. Matter is really nothing, it's enveloped by spirit which is the real thing. The following example can elucidate this. When one has a bottle of seltzer water before one can't really see the water—one sees the glittering bubbles of carbon dioxide that rise like shiny pearls. And what are these sparkling, shiny pearls? They're just empty gas bubbles filled with a substance that's much thinner than water, that's “nothing” in comparison with water. So what one sees here is nothing, whereas one doesn't see the real water in which they're resting.

Thus we must become aware that all space around us is filled with spiritual realities, beings and facts, and that there's nothing there where we perceive the world's things, nothing but a hole. When we stretch out an arm we push it through the spiritual world, but we don't feel it; we only feel resistance when our hand runs into nothing or matter. We don't really see objects in space—we only see the contours of the spiritual world that these objects bound.

We grow into the spiritual world when we've gotten to the point where we've let all the shadowiness of our thoughts and of our outer surroundings fall away. But to be able to rightly place ourselves into the new world we must transform our whole thinking through esoteric development so that we can understand and judge the things and facts of the spiritual world correctly. Because it's an entirely new world for us, but a world that's more real than the one we've known so far. We enter a world that has real things and beings in it, and we connect ourselves with it, we grow into this world. As the beings and things of this world move into us we lose our head thoughts—it's as if we had stuck our head into an anthill. Then we become aware of the elemental world. As our soul life gets stronger through thought concentration and our inner self gets increasingly separate from the physical body, the things of that world appear before our soul's eye in ever clearer Imaginations and visions. We'll see that all the thoughts we've had about good, benevolent and noble things have become transformed into Imaginations that continue to live and to give their value to the universe, and that all bad, evil and low, egotistical thoughts remain behind as waste products. This becomes something that's unproductive by itself but which becomes food for what's supposed to develop from the germ of the good. Just as the mineral soil furnishes food stuffs for plants here on the physical plane, so everything that's thought badly becomes the soil for germinating thoughts of good, true and beautiful things in the elemental world. That's the reason why an occultist can think out bad and wrong things so quickly and imagine them in thought. But he doesn't let it get further. He knows that he's only allowed to get to the point where it remains thought—he doesn't let it pass over into deed, into reality. He only lets it prepare the soil from which the germ of the good can grow.

That's what happened in the world order also, that's the way the earth's mineral kingdom arose. The Elohim thought erroneous things on old Moon—that was all right there—and the mineral kingdom on earth arose from this. Jahve-Elohim was able to create man from this dust and give him his physical sheath. But Lucifer who is now about where the Elohim were on old Moon still wants to go on doing the same thing. He can only use men for this, he can only think errors within men.

We want to develop ourselves into an organ of the spiritual world, just as we've developed our physical eyes into organs for sunlight. The germ for it lay in us, and we also have a germ for that spiritual development in us that we can only unfold through strict self-training. Various means are indicated in How Does One Attain Knowledge Of Higher Worlds? to really free ourselves from the physical body through concentration and so on, so that through this splitting of one's nature one can cross the threshold of the spiritual world and behold spiritual reality. The following verses express the position one has to take with respect to the physical world and to this new spiritual world. They can be meditated in any way by people who've already received a verse to meditate on; one who doesn't have such can meditate the first verse in the morning, the second in the evening and the third verse should only be meditated occasionally to check the extent to which one has attained what was striven for in the first two strophes.

To things I turn myself
I turn myself with ray senses;—
Sense existence, you deceive me!—
What flees existence as nothing:
For you it's existence and reality;
May what must seem like nothing to you
Be disclosed to my inner life.—

(I must attain this: it's the taking of a position towards the new, outer world.)

Spirit light warm me
Let me feel myself volitionally in you.
Well thought, truly known things
How does shining I experience you
May weaving of error, badly thought things
Show itself to shining soul
That I may be weaving in myself.

(That's a questioning and experiencing in the new existence within.)

Shining I and luminous soul (- oneself -)
Floats over real developing being
What was thought, what was known
Now becomes dense spirit existence
And what seems like existence to the senses
Lives in the ocean of divine reality
Like aery existential bubbles.

(In anticipation of truth. It's a guessing, a feeling of the new self.)

When elaborated each of these strophes contains the same thing that's successively compressed in our rosicrucian verse in the ten words: Ex Deo nascimur, In Christo morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus

It has often been emphasized that one must distinguish between progress in esoteric development and noticing the progress. Every esoteric gets ahead if he does his esoteric exercises faithfully and regularly, even if he's dissatisfied with the success of the same. Honest endeavour is the important thing. We actually become different men through these exercises. This definitely happens even if we don't notice it. For the forces that loosen the etheric body and pull it out of the physical body are in all of these exercises, whether they're given orally or in books. But it's another matter to also notice these changes. A soul may actually have organs already, but it makes a difference whether it's sleeping or waking in its spiritual surroundings. It requires a strong force and preparation to wake up and become conscious. That's why descriptions are given in these lectures of what a soul experiences on waking up in the spiritual world. Many make it difficult for themselves to become conscious because they keep on thinking that the spirit land is like a second physical world, only finer and more diffuse. This is a big hindrance, because then they don't notice the fine symptoms of awaking. Such prejudices must be eliminated. One who still has them is like a man who goes up in a balloon and thinks that he can get out up there at any time and rest on a mountain top. But one who takes in esoteric explanations rightly can understand how the spiritual world is experienced when the soul awakens. To get to this point one has to ask oneself the question: What is thinking really? What thinks in me? A materialist who denies the existence of the spiritual world says: The body, the brain thinks. But one should ask him: Have you ever perceived thinking with your senses? Of course he hasn't. No one has ever heard or seen or felt thinking as warmth or the like. Therefore it's not corporeal. For what belongs to the body is sense perceptible. And so thinking is super-sensible. So the materialist would either have to accept the spiritual world or he should give up thinking because it's an absurdity—which might even be good. So we're always in the super-sensible world with our thinking, but in such a way that we don't experience it. With man's thinking it's as if someone went out to sea but didn't see himself and his boat. We don't experience it directly, for the thoughts we experience are reflections of thinking in the body. Just as someone facing a mirror sees his reflection, so a thinking soul sees the mirror image of its thinking. The brain is a mirror.

Through esoteric training a man is supposed to experience thinking and not just thoughts. Just as someone standing before a mirror sees the mirror's reflecting surface when he steps to one side, so the soul must learn to look upon the body as a reflecting apparatus. Then the man knows how thoughts come into being, and he experiences himself in the world from which thinking projects into the sense world as thought. All of this can be understood by every healthy intellect. And it's important for a theosophist to make it quite clear to himself to be armed against the objection that theosophy is based on belief, that one must believe in the existence of the super-sensible world. That's not true. Everyone can understand this existence if he uses his thinking properly. One who can't understand it is foolish, even if he's a philosopher. But it's still a big step from this possibility of experiencing thinking and the super-sensible world to a knowing of the latter. This can only be attained if the soul works on itself for a long time, but it is attained.

The first sign of an awakening in the spiritual world is a feeling of expansion, as if one were spreading and flowing out. In the sense world I'm here, the object is over there and it makes an impression on me. Consciousness comes about when we bump into objects through the organs of touching, hearing, seeing. However in the spiritual world the condition of being closed off in oneself ceases. One feels as if one were spread out in other beings. In the physical world we experience everything inside our skin, as for instance the prick of a needle. Not so in the spiritual world. There thinking and feeling flow out. One experiences pleasure and pain in others. For instance if one runs into a deceased person who's in pain, one has to experience the pain with him as long as one is in spiritual contact with him. One's relation to the sense world also becomes quite different through this change. The way in which we ordinarily experience the physical world is conditioned by the fact that the body through which we experience things is sensorial. If we hit our head against a hard object we feel it because the head doesn't yield, that is, because it's hard or similar to the object. But no impression is made if one confronts the sense world with super-sensible experience. Spiritual organs are too soft and flexible, as it were. That's why all physical things seem like empty spaces. A comparison can give one a perception of this. The water in a glass is invisible. The gas pearls in soda water are visible even though the bubbles are much more rarefied than water; they're nothing in comparison with the denser fluid. So the nothing is visible and the something is invisible. For a spiritual gaze that's the way things really are with the physical world. Like these pearls in water, all atoms are holes or empty bubbles in the spiritual world. All physical things are composed of countless numbers of such holes. When we touch things we bump into these holes, this nothing. That's the way things are with man's body also. Seen spiritually, for instance, the brain is a spiritual form. There are countless empty pearls or holes in it, and they make up what a scientist investigates with his instruments. Another thing is that a man feels that all the good, right and true things that he thinks stream out from him. He feels as if they're growing into the future, that they're germ-forming for the future. But the wrong, bad, ugly things that he thinks and feels also grow out like this. He really feels them streaming out of him, and he knows that the bad thoughts streaming from him will later serve as food for the good ones. So they're also necessary. Then he begins to understand why so many bad, wrong and ugly thoughts and feelings assail him during meditation. When he knows that they're necessary forces and food for the future he'll also assess them correctly. He won't have to complain about them if he's strong enough to not let them flow into his willing and action. There is a big secret connected with this. The same forces that underlie our bad thoughts were rayed out by hierarchical beings on old Moon, from angels up to Spirits of Form. Thereby they brought about Moon existence. But Lucifer and Ahriman remained behind and are only raying out these forces now. They now work into physical things that have condensed further, right into man's physical blood, and that's how evil arises. They're not evil in themselves; an esoteric must let them work on him but not let them become physically condensed. Then they remain of value for future good thoughts.

The following formulas are given to promote an experience of these first steps into the spiritual world. Budding esoterics should do the first one in the AM, the second after the day's retrospect and the third once every few days. More advanced esoterics should only do them occasionally, the first and second together and the third maybe only on Sundays.

The 7-line form of the verses arose by itself, that is, the spiritual material reveals itself in such a way that it presses into this form. (The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

Lines one and two of the third formula give one much to think about. They were revealed like that, although it seems to be grammatically incorrect, since it says floats instead of float. Later it became clear that this is intended. “Shining I and luminous soul” should be thought of as a single entity. Likewise “what was thought, what was known” are treated as one. Thinking and knowing are not one in the physical world, but in the spiritual one they flow together. Something that's thought is either wrong—then it destroys itself—or it's right—then it's also something that's revealed: knowledge.

Formulas like these or the ones in Occult Science, for instance, are not made up or fabricated. The intellect isn't involved in this at all to begin with. A seer gets things revealed to him. They stand there. Only then does he elaborate them with his intellect. The first formula describes the experience where physical things seem to consist of nothing, like bubbles in water. The soul sees that ordinary sensory existence is an illusion, and it tries to gain knowledge of what is truly real.

The second formula describes the experience of the raying out of good and bad thoughts.

The third formula should be used as a test of the progress one has made. When one meditates it one must speak the words inwardly so that everything resounds meaningfully. With these lines one tries to see how far one has gotten; whether for instance one already experiences something from:

What was thought, what was known

Now becomes dense spirit existence.

Of course this must be continued patiently and without flagging week after week. One can also look upon these formulas as a different form of what's always said at the end of these classes. The first one describes how sensorial things become non-existent when one grows into the spiritual world, and spiritual reality is seen to be what we come from: Ex Deo nascimur.

The second formula describes the experience of good and bad thoughts as forces that'll work in the future. This is only possible if the soul is embraced and illumined by spiritual light—Christ—after it has released itself from the physical world: In Christo morimur.

And the third formula describes how real knowledge becomes revealed to the soul that's waking up in the spirit: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Last time we spoke about how the soul should spread out ever more and pour out into space, and then contract into itself to see what is weaving within it. For these formulas were given to you, dear sisters and brothers, which can be used at will and also be passed on to other people who didn't attend all classes. Today another thought will be placed before your souls, something concrete, a mood that can help you to get into the spiritual world. Let's recall what happens in sleep. The etheric and physical bodies remain in bed while the astral body and ego are outside in the spiritual world. Why is it that a man doesn't experience the world he's in during sleep consciously like he experiences the physical world in day consciousness? Because during the time a man is asleep he has a strong urge to return to his physical body. This longing is like a darkening of the brightness of the spiritual world, so that he doesn't perceive the latter at all. The astral forces that are active in him there work so strongly that he wouldn't leave the physical body at all, if it wasn't so tired and used up and didn't so urgently need strengthening and refreshment through sleep. This drive or longing for his physical body is what prevents a man from consciously experiencing spiritual worlds during sleep. If he were clairvoyant he would see bright rays going from his astral body and ego to his physical and etheric bodies the longing for reunion is expressed in them. Let's suppose someone suddenly became clairvoyant during sleep; how would he see himself? When we meet someone on the physical plane we encounter his physical form in which an ego lives. Things are different in the spiritual world; we shouldn't think that we see someone there in the same form as on the physical plane. Here in the physical world we see single things separate from each other with sharp contours; but what weaves in the spiritual world are mobile pictures which we recognize to be spirits of higher hierarchies who send out their helpers to give the right expression to the human form. These messengers of the Spirits of Form are as it were still at the childhood stage, but they'll work themselves higher to the degree that they cultivate the human ego. Another host of elemental beings float around man's head and guard the ego-being. They work on his thinking and were sent out by Spirits of Movement and Spirits of Form. Other elemental beings, emissaries of Spirits of Wisdom, work on man's heart and bring about the circulation. Then there are elemental beings who work on man's warmth sense. In the spiritual world warmth arises from the relation between two beings, rather than from a particular source.

Other elemental beings work at the word sense, that is, not on the spoken words that one can hear from others, but these beings stand behind the single consonants and vowels that make up a word; they work on the composition of letters and syllables. One who is outside of his body can't understand words that are spoken; he lacks the physical organ for this; but he watches elemental beings as they bring single letters together to form a word. Man has 12 senses and not just 5, as conventional science would have you believe: sight, thinking, warmth, equilibrium, word, life, smell, taste, hearing, touch, movement and ego senses. Standing behind these 12 senses are elemental beings who are the servants and helpers of Spirits of Form, Movement and Wisdom. These elemental beings are still children, as it were, but to the extent that a man advances and develops himself up to Jupiter these elemental messengers of the higher hierarchies will also develop; some day they'll be Jupiter's zodiac after the earth has gone through its seven rounds and everything emerges again in a new configuration. Just as what previously worked on us on the Moon and now stands behind our senses has become the earth's zodiac. Jupiter will also have a sun and beings who now work into our blood system will stand behind it. It's only with the greatest awe and admiration that we can see how hosts of elemental beings are working on the wonderful temple of the human body.

My dear brothers and sisters, put yourself in this mood in earnest meditation on how countless elemental beings build up the wonderful temple that is to be the dwelling of the human I.

Why is it that we don't see these elemental beings at work? Because the moment we wake up the Guardian of the Threshold conceals the spiritual worlds from us. Waking up means that we shoo away these elemental beings from their working place. And as soon as we're in day consciousness Ahriman sees to it that the spiritual world is covered for us. He paints the picture of the sense world, and as we devote ourselves to maya—the great deceiver—the beings or souls that work on man's spiritual organization disappear for us. The physical body that we know is all a product of Ahriman, whereas we must know that the soul life that we merely experience in the physical body is Lucifer's work. He fills our soul with so much pride and blindness that it gets wrong ideas and feelings about the spiritual world.

Ex Deo nascimur
In ... morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Our exercises are suited to bring us into the spiritual world. We're also in the spiritual world at night, but not consciously. Why not? Because we are in the habit of perceiving through physical senses, and we're too weak to develop consciousness without this. What are these sense perceptions really? They also contain what we can attain with a higher consciousness: imaginations or pictures of higher reality, inspirations through which spiritual beings disclose themselves to us and the intuitions through which we become united with divine beings. All of this is contained in the percept, but it doesn't go into us, and when we investigate why this is so we find that it's Lucifer who burns it with the fire of our passions, drives and desires. Lucifer has made his home in the heart, and that's where the burning of the imaginations, inspirations and intuitions that underlie sensory things takes place, for pictures of spiritual beings press into us with every breath, with every perception. At the beginning of the Lemurian epoch when what the Bible describes as the battle between the Elohim and Lucifer took place, the latter mixed himself and his fire into man's heart.

But the heart had been created by the Elohim to be their dwelling. Something can be small in the physical world and be big in the spiritual world and vice versa. Thus the heart is only a small thing physically, and anatomists think that it's still the same thing when it's taken out of the body, but in reality the heart is something that's very big in the spiritual world, and it was supposed to be the Elohim's dwelling. But when Lucifer moved into the human heart the Elohim kept a place for themselves in it, they can still live in it and this becomes manifest in human life as the voice of conscience. Where this speaks something is speaking that doesn't belong to Lucifer with his consuming fire; a direct inspiration of the Gods still gets to men in it. And we see that this voice of conscience became objective for men at important points in human history and stood before them. That is how it was with Moses, on whose soul the destiny of his whole tribe pressed. He climbed up Mt. Sinai; he heard the voice of his God in the burning thorn bush (in the fire that Lucifer kindled), who later gave him the commandments on Mt. Sinai that became the foundation of all later human laws.

After Lucifer had taken over the human heart in this way the Elohim had to place a counterweight on the other scale pan of the cosmic world order. This happened in the Atlantean epoch when Ahriman with all munitions was entrenched in man's brain by the Elohim to bring his cooling effect against luciferic fire to bear there. And the part of the fire that burns the imaginations, inspirations and intuitions of percepts that Ahriman cools down becomes thoughts and ideas in men.

Lovelessness is a particularly good fuel for Lucifer. Ancient initiates always knew that Lucifer with his fire thrones in our heart and that Ahriman in the head cools this fire, and a last remnant of this is in Aristotle's statement that warmth goes from the heart to the head and is cooled there.

Now one could object that it's rather strange that both Lucifer and Gods live in our heart. It sounds as if there was only one heart in the world, and yet there are just as many hearts as there are men. We run into a riddle here that's one of the smallest ones an occultist encounters, and that is: How have many arisen out of one? We don't intend to give the solution to this riddle here, but one can try to press ever further into it through meditative reflection.

(The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

To things I turn myself
I turn myself with ray senses;—
Sense existence, you deceive me!—
What flees existence as nothing:
For you it's existence and reality;
May what must seem like nothing to you
Be disclosed to my inner life.—

(I must attain this: it's the taking of a position towards the new, outer world.)

Spirit light warm me
Let me feel myself volitionally in you.
Well thought, truly known things
How does shining I experience you
May weaving of error, badly thought things
Show itself to shining soul
That I may be weaving in myself.

(That's a questioning and experiencing in the new existence within.)

Shining I and luminous soul (- oneself -)
Floats over real developing being
What was thought, what was known
Now becomes dense spirit existence
And what seems like existence to the senses
Lives in the ocean of divine reality
Like aery existential bubbles.

(In anticipation of truth. It's a guessing, a feeling of the new self.)

When elaborated each of these strophes contains the same thing that's successively compressed in our rosicrucian verse in the ten words:

Ex Deo nascimur,
In Christo morimur,
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus

My dear sisters and brothers, it would be good if everyone who participates in an esoteric class were completely aware of the importance of the same. We're supposed to step out of everyday life consciously; it must seem to us as if the veil that separates us from the spiritual world is completely pulled away so that we can place ourselves in it. In a proper meditation we should become body-free, leave everything that's connected with corporeal things, extinguish all interests in corporeal life and only be devoted to the object of our meditation. We should step out of our body and leave it behind completely, as in sleep, except that in meditation it happens consciously. One thing we do take with us, and that's the effect of lungs and heart, the breath of life that Jahve Elohim once blew into earth man. While we're entirely devoted to our meditation we'll have the feeling that our brain is only an etheric brain. When a man thinks it has nothing to do with his brain. When he feels it has nothing to do with the heart organ. Just as when a carriage leaves deep ruts in a dirt road this has nothing to do with the wheels as such but is dependent on the road's consistency, so one can't judge organs by what one sees, as physiologists and anatomists do. It's not the organs that think and feel, it's the spiritual beings and forces that work into them. Just as letters are only characters for a word's content, so organs are only signs through which higher beings express themselves in men.

Our cerebellum is a remnant of the Moon stage of evolution; it sits there as a sign of the battles that the Gods fought for us. The cerebellum arose from what was thought on old Moon. There were no errors in our thoughts then, for divine powers thought for us and guided our thoughts. Man had no freedom yet; divine beings directed him. Now that he's become independent he must be responsible for what he thinks. There are also remnants of old Moon in the cerebrum's pineal and pituitary glands; on old Moon they were what the lung and heart are in man today. And what a man does now will form his cerebrum on Jupiter. What he thinks in connection with his cerebrum now will form his cerebellum on Jupiter. A man must bear the consequences of his thinking now that he's become free, and the cerebellum sits in the back of his head like a judge, for it will take the effects of everything that he thought on earth over to Jupiter. And so I ask you: Do we still need a Judgement? Isn't this judgement much more gripping and powerful than the one Michelangelo could portray in his Last Judgement? Just estimate the tragedy that lies in the fact that a man now has to bear the consequences of his deeds, feeling and thinking himself.

But we have a consolation, a support in the fact that Christ has entered earth evolution: if we entrust ourselves to him he will bear our deeds, feelings and thoughts over to Jupiter. That's why it's so important that spiritual science should enter our age, so that an understanding for the true Christ can become alive again.

In her Secret Doctrine Blavatsky speaks of Jahve as a moon God, but because she mixed in her own feelings there are errors in there, and much of the bad karma that burdens the Theosophical Society arose from this. And since Jahve was understood so little it's not surprising that one understands the Christ being so little now. To correct this Lucifer and Ahriman had to be spoken of right at the beginning of our Movement, for one can only get a right estimation of Jahve through a knowledge of their nature and activities. One only leads men into spiritual worlds properly if one leads them past Lucifer and Ahriman so that they get to the Christ there. If one doesn't place Christ at the centre of esoteric life one leads them to Lucifer. But one doesn't like to call these things by the right name, one deceives oneself about their true nature. What one calls scientific in certain circles is really ahrimanic. For instance, a Theosophist said that Occult Science is psychic-mystical, whereas the writings of Besant and Leadbeater are occult and scientific. But they're ahrimanic, and what he calls psychic and mystical should be called Christian. For Occult Science and our whole work was inspired by the Christ being himself. We should always keep this in mind, my dear sisters and brothers.

We came over from the Moon where we were still in the lap of the Gods: Ex Deo nascimur. We unite ourselves with Christ on earth and die into him: In ... morimur. Then the Holy Spirit will lead us over to the reincarnation of the earth—Jupiter: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Many of those who have heard me speak and who read about the means stated in the theosophical books as a means to lead to seeing, recognizing, and beholding that which Theosophy reports, will say that these means - mind control, tolerance and what I have called the longing for freedom - do not look like they can really lead to such insights.

Most people have completely false ideas about this. They think that one must ascend to the knowledge of the higher worlds through special feats, through special spiritual training. Many will say: How often have I tried to control my thoughts; how often have I tried to apply the means that are given: I have achieved nothing at all. I am quite willing to believe all that. After all, I did not intend to create the conviction through my remarks that it is particularly difficult to enter the path on which we acquire higher knowledge, nor did I want to create the conviction that it is particularly easy in the sense that many people think. Because neither is fundamentally correct. I would therefore like to explain myself a little more precisely, especially to those who keep objecting: how can I believe that I will attain, through mind control, tolerance, and so on, what is called being a seer in the astral realm, a seer in Devachan?

Those who hold this view seem to me like those who wanted to claim: It is incomprehensible how the trains move forward, since we see nothing but a man throwing coal into the engine.

Now, the man is indeed doing something that bears no resemblance to the movement of a train; and yet, by stoking the fire, he generates the heat that causes the steam to rise, which in turn causes the movement. This image clearly shows what also happens in the spiritual realm. If we really strive to control our thoughts, then the activity of thought control increases in relation to what is achieved at the end, in a similar proportion to the stoker to the locomotive of an express train traveling, say, from St. Petersburg to Paris.

We can expand on this image even further. Imagine that the man is always heating and heating, but always lets the heat escape into the environment, so that nothing is done to convert the heat into a forward-moving force: how much power is wasted. In fact, people in our culture squander an infinite amount of energy, just as heat is wasted when it is released into the environment. This energy develops in our thoughts and feelings. What is lost daily and flows into the void could be used to gain direct supersensible knowledge. Then we would make rapid progress in development, which is the aim of the theosophical movement.

Allow me to describe in a few words how this wasting of forces takes place. Our Western culture is designed to allow people to waste a vast amount of energy simply because we develop more thoughts in the West than anywhere else. But almost all of these thoughts are uncontrolled: uncontrolled in how they arise, uncontrolled in how they are carried forward, and uncontrolled in how they are taken up again. So they are lost without leading us to a goal of knowledge. The difficulty in achieving what is called thought control, although it is child's play when seriously attempted, lies in the fact that you are opposed by an infinite number of prejudices. I would like to illustrate this with a concrete example.

You will admit that an infinite amount of thought is being expended today to improve social conditions. An infinite amount is being thought about it. But for someone who really knows, because it is part of his flesh and blood, what thought control is, all this thought power is largely wasted.¹

Anyone who does not think his thoughts through to the end, who does not endeavor to also realize the controlling thought, who does not consider that at the moment something is being thought in the world, another thought must also be thought, which complements and controls the first thought, cannot control his thoughts. For what use is it when the benefactor does good deeds and does not think about where the money came from?

This is not meant as a reproach, because it depends on our circumstances. It is made tremendously difficult for people to control their thoughts because we cannot, so to speak, help but live under millions and millions of prejudices. Is not almost every concept we have simply a prejudice? If we do not make an effort to clearly visualize these prejudices in order to at least inwardly free ourselves from the world of prejudices that flow into us daily, then thought control is not possible; it is not possible to truly see.

Those who really practice mind control and acquire the gift of vision know that through mind control, what we call astral and devachanic vision is acquired. This is simply an experience. But the whole of modern life is designed to be a drain on the power of thought. It is as if it were drawing the power of thought away from the outside with magnetic force. It is the destroyer of the truly seeing power. I would like to give a significant example.

Some time ago I spoke with a writer who is highly esteemed here in Berlin. I spoke of the vast amount of energy that could be used for humanity, but is lost through vanity. He understood so little the significance of what was said that he replied: “We are all vain anyway, and that is also the drive for success!” These people know that they are vain to the point of excess, they know that what makes our present art great and significant can also be achieved under the influence of stormy vanities. But great vanity cannot make a person inwardly whole. Overcoming vanity is as easy as pie for anyone who aspires to it, just as it is as easy as pie to exercise control over one's thoughts for anyone who does not want to get stuck in the prejudices of the world.

Curiosity, like ambition, has a devastating effect on the gift of foresight. How curiously people read the newspapers, even in the early hours of the morning. The curious desire to know what has happened must be overcome. People do not believe that curiosity is so detrimental to the gift of sight; perhaps they cannot distinguish how one and how the other perceives things. One does not perceive them because he is curious, but because he uses them like an effective instrument. He does not do it for its own sake, but perhaps just the opposite, in order to be able to intervene when it is necessary to help people.

To give another example by way of illustration, take the first sentences in “Light on the Path”. They are intended to train the power of vision and are so incredibly easy to follow:

1. Kill ambition.

2. Kill love of life.

3. Kill desire for comfort.

These three are deeply ingrained in our lives; but they, too, do not give rise to the gift. And then:

4. Work like those who are ambitious. Cherish life like those who love it. Be happy like those who live only for happiness.

The seer does not become useless for life. He just does not waste his strength; he puts even the smallest things at the service of his higher work. This becomes a matter of course for him.

These four sentences in “Light on the Path” are preceded by a series of conditions:

Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears. Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must fade. Before the voice can speak to the masters, it must unlearn woundedness. And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must moisten its feet.

We must make our deeds, our actions fruitful, so that they help everyone, that they inspire to strive, since they are deeds of living power.

All this is almost impossible in our culture, where everyone believes they can pass judgment on everything, believes they are entitled to find one thing good and great and another thing bad. As a result, our culture does not even reach the first step on the path to higher knowledge, the step of the “raven”. “Raven” means in the language of the initiated one who strives unselfishly not to judge. It does not mean that he blunts his own judgment, but only that he refrains from judging. By “raven” we mean someone who does not say to himself, “It is the most important thing you think about people and things,” but who says to himself, “You must find out what others think about it, you must delve into the soul of others and fathom what lives in them.” If you are capable of doing that, you have reached the first step. This is again child's play for anyone who does not live in prejudices, but difficult for anyone who lives in modern culture, and who is supposed to refrain from criticizing.

The “Raven” is the first stage of the Persian Mithras initiation. The higher initiates have all passed through this stage. They first had to be able to immerse themselves in every soul. They had to understand why a person does this and why he does that. Look around you in your world: one person does this, another that. People are so quick to say: he did that, he shouldn't have done that. But what matters is not to judge why a person did this or that. So the one who wants to grasp the inner life must have gone through the life of the “raven”. He must have searched every soul without prejudice to discover the motives. Of such a one it is said: “He sends out the ravens”. Something of this still echoes in the Kyffhäuser saga when it says: “Emperor Rotbart sends out the ravens”. But this does not mean to send out scouts from the surrounding area, but to explore the souls of men in order to see if he can intervene himself.

One must learn to “understand”, and in the higher sense this is what tolerance is. He who starts out pointedly and boldly from his own point of view will come to seership just as little as he who strives for success in impatient expectation. Think of all the striving out of vanity, all the curiosity - all that flows out into space like the heat of a steam boiler. Innumerable forces are lost as a result. You must regard that as a basic rule. The moment you strive to satisfy your curiosity, you waste your forces. If you kept them to yourself, you would be able to transform them into higher knowledge. If you could just once manage not to see something you would like to see, you would save energy, energy that remains for you, that does not get lost. Likewise, if you could curb your urge to communicate. Usually, when something is said somewhere, it must be said further so that those around you can also benefit from it. But one should not communicate things for the sake of talking, but for each word only express what should be said. If this becomes a principle, then the gift of higher vision gradually develops. This is an experience of those who see. Those who always want to communicate everything, although it is quite insubstantial, will not get very far. Only by overcoming the meaningless and insubstantial urge to communicate can we store up forces within us.

These are paths that are easy to follow in and of themselves if one wants to follow them, but which are nevertheless followed very little because they are considered meaningless. But it does not depend on special training, but on our inner life being further developed in everyday life. In this way, one advanced to the second degree in the schools for the initiated, to the degree of the Occult.

Those who examine every word to see whether it should be said thus or otherwise, who through constant testing have forgotten how to wind, who spread a veil around themselves and speak, as it were, through the veil, were the veiled ones. They had progressed so far that they made themselves the creators of their own personality, testing themselves with every hand movement, with every word. Without another being aware of it, such a one could pass through the first and second degrees. But he must not think: now I have reached the stage where I can penetrate the souls of others, now I can also say something. For anyone who wants to say something, who wants to be a teacher, who wants to have an authoritative significance, must wait until he has reached the third degree of initiation: the degree of the “warriors”. What is written in the second chapter of “Light on the Path” about the “Warriors” applies to them. The first chapter is written for every human being; the second chapter is written for those who want to teach their fellow human beings. But in a sense it is also written for all people, because every person should teach their fellow human beings. Only he who observes these rules can hope that his words will find the right response. No theosophical teacher should ever utter a word without observing the principle:

1. Stand aside in the coming battle, and even if you also fight, do not be the fighter.

2. Look for the fighter; let him fight in you.

3. Await his instruction for battle; follow it.

These three are deeply rooted in our lives; but they also make it impossible for the gift of prophecy to arise. And then:

The greatest enemies of a higher inner development are thus curiosity, vanity, insubstantial talkativeness - where one speaks in order to speak, instead of waiting to see if the word is necessary and one wants to hear it - and finally the falling prey to temptation.

The true theosophist and mystic does not avoid temptation from approaching him. He lets it approach him as much as anyone, and then follows the voice within despite the temptation. As soon as he becomes a teacher, he has to step aside. If he yields to even the slightest temptation, his powers will be wasted, flowing out like heat from a steam boiler. But if he succeeds in resisting the smallest, most insignificant temptation, he retains his strength and it will bear fruit.

Thus, by storing up what would otherwise be lost, by accumulating it through the means indicated, we can gradually and quite imperceptibly acquire the gift of inner vision.

• 1. The following remarks are so poorly recorded that the original wording can no longer be reconstructed. The gist of the problem of exploitation was that those who suffer from exploitation also exploit. For example: a seamstress who works for a pittance wears clothes that have been made for a pittance. On this point, see the sections on the problem of exploitation in Rudolf Steiner's essay “Geisteswissenschaft und soziale Frage in GA 34 ‘Lucifer - Gnosis’. Fundamental essays on anthroposophy and reports from the magazines ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Lucifer - Gnosis’ 1903 to 1908.

Within Western culture, the development must start primarily from so-called thought control. Although all of the disorderly, highly arbitrary Western thinking is not at all suited to develop controlled thoughts, thoughts of strict sequence, this is nevertheless necessary first. And with this I would like to come back to what I have already mentioned: that we must develop sensitivity for the perception of illogical, poorly controlled sequences of thoughts. The ordinary person will feel a kind of pain at every opportunity when his senses are strongly stimulated; but people who are receptive to the pain of uncontrolled, illogical thoughts are very rare. And yet this is a stage that everyone has to go through at some point, and not only in terms of thinking, but also in terms of reading in our Western literature. I am not excluding a large number of books of Theosophical literature. There, too, you come across many uncontrolled thoughts.

Most people today think in an uncontrolled way. And every uncontrolled thought means an unfulfilled balancing, an inability to relate to the phenomenon. It is like slipping, and slipping in the physical world is also an inability to relate to the physical world. We have to develop such a strong sense of right, complete thoughts within us that we feel a kind of physical pain when an incorrect thought occurs to us or to someone else.

In ordinary life, it is not possible to control one's thoughts in this way. Consider that if you are in the professional world, you are forced to think illogically all the time. Because illogical thinking is everywhere. In daily life, in business, in the higher professions, in natural science, in history, everywhere you encounter illogical thoughts; and you find the most illogical thoughts in jurisprudence, where you would expect the most logical thinking.

So anyone who wants to come to higher realizations themselves and not just hear about them from others who have them must begin to live from within. To do this, one must, at least for a very short time during the day, shut oneself off from all the rest of life. Even if it is only for five or ten minutes, or just three or four, you must devote yourself entirely to your own inner life and to thoughts that do not come from our immediate culture, from our daily lives, but that you know have a higher origin and are thoughts in which you can trust.

This retreat, this living and weaving in a world of thoughts that is strictly ordered, this devotion to such a world of thoughts, even if only for a short time, is what compensates us for all the distractions and disruptions in the external culture. Then we go strengthened through the everyday world with an inner center and lead ourselves through the everyday world by bringing a thought, if it does not belong to our ordered life, out of our field of vision again. Do not think that you are always capable of doing this! Just remember that when you cross the street, you are not the master of your thoughts; that from all sides, without you doing anything about it, thoughts from the environment rush in on you, affect your consciousness and play through it, so that you are a plaything of your consciousness. As long as you do not have the power to roll up your thoughts as if on a string, you cannot expect the inner self to reveal itself. We can only expect to gain control over our world of thoughts if we succeed in detaching ourselves from everyday life for a short time and rising to our ideals. When we become attached to an ideal thought, we achieve inner strength. It is not important to have grasped a thought with the mind.

Take the first thought in “Light on the Path”: “Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.” Take it today, tomorrow, and again and again — then it will begin to come to life. And if you dismiss everything else that tries to intrude, it will become the center of your being. It lives and moves within you. It will show you that it gives rise to other thoughts, that it is infinitely fruitful. And you will overcome whatever you have to overcome from within. You must develop a sensitivity to wrong thoughts. It must be as if you are pricked with needles by wrong thoughts. You must also feel this when you read books. If you cannot feel pain when you encounter illogical thinking, then you cannot develop right thinking.

You must not only understand right thinking, but also love it. You must love a thought as you love a child. You have seen your child today, yesterday and the day before yesterday, and you still love it. That is how you must treat the world of thought. When you think you have understood a thought, you must not push it out of your consciousness, but keep dealing with it. When you can do that, then you are provided with a kind of thought armor, then what was there as a transitional stage stops: the fight against what was illogical; it stops when a thought is as much a fact to you as a chair, a table and so on. You become positive. He who lives in the spiritual world knows that. He also knows that he is always surrounded by thoughts as by powers and forces that affect us. Those who are receptive to it see what thoughts of hatred or goodwill people send to each other. He sees how they draw into them, and he sees how they rebound. There are people who stand strangely before us; they stand as if surrounded by a crystal body, in the center of which they live. And all unsuitable thoughts rebound from this crystal shell. These are people who know how to live in such a meditative way, who know how to regulate their lives from within.

You can test whether your thought control is successful. But not by saying to yourself: I am now thinking correctly – but by acquiring a barometer that can show you how your thoughts are controlled from within. And for those who are on the path of knowledge, that is the life of dreams. For the one who recognizes things in reality, it is not valued in the same way as it is by other superstitious people. For him, it has a completely different significance than for the one who has not yet mastered the control of his thought life.

For most people, the dream life is a wild, chaotic surge. But this completely stops when we have devoted ourselves to meditative life for a while. Then dreams take on a deep, symbolic meaning. The regularity and beauty of dreams is a barometer of our control over our thoughts.

As long as we stagger about in the external world, our dreams are a wild reflection of our outer life. But in the moment when we withdraw for at least a short time to become strong and powerful against everything that rushes upon us, our dreams take on a symbolic meaning. Then we must make a conscious effort to ask ourselves: What might this dream, which presents itself in this way, represent to me?

This is also the difference between the higher dreams and the lower ones. It is not true that dreams and dreams can be written on the same sheet. The life that a person unfolds in a state of sleep is completely different for someone who develops his spiritual body and for someone who does not. This is known by anyone who has had spiritual experiences. Anyone who knows nothing but what the eyes, the ears, the tongue say to him, anyone who is completely absorbed in this world of the senses, can experience nothing during sleep but a wild reminiscence of sensory impressions. But what you work on spiritually in those five minutes is something that arouses the spirit and sets it in motion; something that you take with you everywhere, whether your body is there or not. When our dreams begin to become regular, to become little dramas with a development and regular actions, then what we call our true inner spiritual life is active.

But this is only the lowest level. What must follow from this is this: If you use the moments that you set aside – but which you must not withdraw from your professional life, because a theosophist must not withdraw anything from their professional life – and use them for your inner progress, then you will notice something that occurs very soon in those who spend some time meditating, in their inner spiritual life. You will notice that you remember your dreams in a completely different way than was previously the case. This is the continuity of consciousness that occurs more and more the further a person develops, and it occurs in such a way that you become aware of yourself in a concrete way. As long as you identify yourself completely with the body, as long as it is not the spirit with which you have become one, you cannot develop consciousness when you are disembodied, that is, in a state of sleep. Hence the unconscious state of the majority of humanity during sleep. Only very slowly does such continuity of consciousness occur that you are just awake in your sleep, as you are awake in your physical body, and that you bring this waking consciousness back into your everyday waking consciousness.

This gives you a yardstick, something by which you can gain a barometer against the physical life. The resistance to ordinary life is increased. The body must become like a tool. You can then look at the body lying beside you, outside yourself. But you live in the spirit when you begin to withdraw from what is connected with the body. This does not make you less capable, but more capable for life, because he who knows the spirit is always more capable.

It is therefore important that you set aside part of the day to devote yourself to lofty thoughts that have nothing to do with everyday selfishness, with ambition, with ordinary sensual comfort, and that you let the light of such thoughts shine into everyday life.

This is how we understand the very first teachings in “Light on the Path”. They do not want to lead people to asceticism, to make them strangers in this world. It is not the one who comes to asceticism who corresponds to the theosophical ideal, but the one who comes to the spirit from ordinary life.

So when “Light on the Path” says:

1. Kill ambition.

2. Kill the love of life.

3. Kill the desire for comfort.

it says immediately afterwards:

4. Act like those who are ambitious. Value life like those who love it. Be happy like those who live only for happiness.

And further:

Seek out the root of evil in the heart and tear it out.

The theosophist must feel that we are a part of the whole, that we are jointly responsible for everything that exists. He who is not capable of feeling that he is partly to blame when someone steals tomorrow is also incapable of knowing how he is connected to the whole; he is incapable of seeking the root of evil. Because we do not have the possibility and ability to start with other people, it is said:

Seek in your heart the root of evil and tear it out. For it thrives and proliferates in the heart of the zealous disciple as it does in the hearts of the children of the world.

No one should imagine that they are good – as if we could do that, as if we could do that for even a moment – or much better than others. The thought that we cannot be much better than anyone else must fill us completely. What have we done, for example, if we make people happy while, because of the way we live, we make many people unhappy? Ignorance is the root of suffering in life. Ignorant, as we often are, it is we who have sharpened the knife for the one who uses it for evil.

Only the strong can kill it. The weak, however, must expect its growth, its ripening, its dying.

Through the ages this herb grows in man. It proliferates, but it only comes into flower when it has gone through the myriad lives of many.

There are things that only appear in very late incarnations: that someone who had already risen high later fell low. It has not been uncommon for those who recognized the depths to become the lowest of the fallen. Those adventurer natures could not be distinguished from the great.

Whoever wants to enter the path of mastery must tear this herb from his heart. Then the heart's blood will flow abundantly, and the whole life will seem destroyed.

Take this saying almost literally, but in a spiritual sense. Take what is worth in the highest sense and style of life. Say to yourself: How infinitely much of value have I contemplated, and how infinitely much, for the sake of which I have lived, is perhaps completely worthless. I must begin a new life if I do not want to live as I am accustomed to living; if I do not want to shape it from foreign influence, but through my own inner life. We will then seemingly be no different on the outside, but we will lead life under different impulses. We will not live out of vanity, not out of ambition, not for the sake of sensual pleasure, for we will no longer be able to do so, but out of duty, because it must be done out of the highest insight.

But the test must be passed. Perhaps it will approach you at the very first step of the daring climb up the path of life, perhaps at the last. Remember well: it must be passed, and put all your strength into accomplishing it. Not in the moment may you live, not in the future, only in the eternal.

The seer can perceive that the thoughts of the outside world pierce the one who lives in the moment like spears. Thoughts that may be unfavorable to him rebound from the one who lives in the eternal. It is not external success, not what we can achieve, that brings us forward, but that we live in the eternal in every moment. We will achieve nothing if we strive for it with greed. We should not live in the future, only in the eternal.

There this giant weed cannot flourish: the breath of even one thought of eternity wipes this stain out of your existence.

Then comes the training of the astral body. Just as we work on the mental body through mind control, so we must work on the astral body by ordering the memory. It must also be controlled, must be made the subject of examination. This has a great and significant influence on your whole life. You must get out of the habit of feeling selfish remorse when you look back on your actions. The things you remember must be there for you to learn from and do better. We must learn from the past and use our memory to make our soul more capable. If we regulate our memory in such a way that we do not look back in an arbitrary way, but look back even at the seemingly most insignificant thing so that it becomes a school of learning for us, then we strengthen our soul's backbone.

When we control our memory in this way, we develop astral vision. This turns the astral body into an organ of will that we can use. We have to get over tears, overcome antipathy and sympathy, so that we can have the right attitude towards our memories.

If we are the master of our memory and imagination, then we have achieved our preliminary goal. We recognize that the one who does not practice this must continually feel within himself that he is dependent on every spiritual breath in his environment, like a swaying reed that is blown this way and that by every thought. There is no other way to enter the astral and mental worlds than to train oneself from within. In the one who organizes his memory, who in the evenings forms the cloud-like structures into regular ray formations, especially in the upper sections that emanate from the heart and head, it will be seen that this person lives from the inside out. When a person has reached this stage, nothing can harm him anymore. In his presence, we can send him thoughts of the worst kind, but they recede as if they had not touched him. Through his meditation work, he has formed a spiritual shell around himself.