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266-I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson 26 Oct 1909, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson 26 Oct 1909, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
An esoteric who meditates and is approached by things from outside could ask: Would this have happened to me if I hadn't become an esoteric? An esoteric should make it his duty to observe life and himself very intimately. The fact that he has set out on this path should stand at the center of his life, for him, for he is a small center of spiritual life, and this radiates out into his environment—more of less unconsciously for him—and brings about the things that approach him. Through his higher development, a pupil leaves his lower self that connects him with the outer world alone—at least for a short time. During meditation he leaves it to itself and qualities that we thought we had overcome already crawl out from all corners of our nature and can make us worse if we don't keep ourselves under firm control. Certain exercises have been given us to support us here, in addition to our meditations. As you know, everything runs cyclically, and this is also true of development. If we begin an esoteric training now, then after seven years all kinds of qualities that were slumbering in us can emerge strongly and set one back. But this can't happen if a man pays enough attention to himself, his life and his surroundings. Anyone who has a hidden opposition to his teacher will find that this feeling soon breaks through and adversely influences the effect of meditation. In an esoteric's daily meditations he should keep it in mind that he's mainly trying to get through to his higher self, and he should reflect on what this higher self is. He shouldn't think that he's supposed to bring something to this higher self—he should have an expectant attitude towards him and expect everything from him. Usually there are three ways in which it approaches a pupil on his path. The first way is a rather flitting one and it requires the attentiveness that an esoteric should have for all things. Namely, this is in a dream, and what happens there is what one calls a doubling of the I. For instance, one has a problem or wants to do something. Then someone appears to one in a dream who tells one what to do or who solves the problem, one who is better and cleverer than oneself. One should pay attention to such dreams. Then in the course of development it may happen in helpless moments or at times when one has made a decision that one hears a quiet voice that, for instance, advises one not to do what one has decided on. It's often a decision that one has made with the best knowledge and conscience, and if one follows the voice that nevertheless advises against it, it may seem as if one has done the wrong thing, but in by far the most cases, one will immediately notice that one did the right thing in following the voice. Now, if one practices paying attention to this, one will notice that one has something in one that's higher than one's own reason, that's cleverer than one is oneself. And the third time that one confronts one's higher self is a very important and sacred one. This is during meditation. One will only unite with him for short moments there. But to attain this, one must silence one's whole lower nature. We must eliminate everything that fills us with antipathy or petty feelings for the world and life. In observing himself, a pupil must always keep the polarity law in mind, that is, if he has a bad quality and wants to get rid of it, he must also look for the opposite quality in himself. It's certainly there. The presence of one quality definitely conditions the existence of the opposite one, whether one believes it or not, and this must be eradicated—then the other one also disappears. For instance, if one feels then there's also the polar hate in one, be it ever so hidden, and one has to drive this out. Then the fear disappears by itself. The higher self will only unite with us if such qualities are eradicated in meditational moments. This union with the higher self is beautifully depicted in the saga of Lohengrin and Elsa. Lohengrin comes to save Elsa, to unite himself with her. Distrust, a negative quality is sown in her soul, and the higher self, Lohengrin, must withdraw to higher worlds, can't unite with her.

266-I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson 26 Oct 1909, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

An esoteric who meditates and is approached by things from outside could ask: Would this have happened to me if I hadn't become an esoteric? An esoteric should make it his duty to observe life and himself very intimately. The fact that he has set out on this path should stand at the center of his life, for him, for he is a small center of spiritual life, and this radiates out into his environment—more of less unconsciously for him—and brings about the things that approach him. Through his higher development, a pupil leaves his lower self that connects him with the outer world alone—at least for a short time. During meditation he leaves it to itself and qualities that we thought we had overcome already crawl out from all corners of our nature and can make us worse if we don't keep ourselves under firm control. Certain exercises have been given us to support us here, in addition to our meditations.

As you know, everything runs cyclically, and this is also true of development. If we begin an esoteric training now, then after seven years all kinds of qualities that were slumbering in us can emerge strongly and set one back. But this can't happen if a man pays enough attention to himself, his life and his surroundings.

Anyone who has a hidden opposition to his teacher will find that this feeling soon breaks through and adversely influences the effect of meditation. In an esoteric's daily meditations he should keep it in mind that he's mainly trying to get through to his higher self, and he should reflect on what this higher self is. He shouldn't think that he's supposed to bring something to this higher self—he should have an expectant attitude towards him and expect everything from him. Usually there are three ways in which it approaches a pupil on his path. The first way is a rather flitting one and it requires the attentiveness that an esoteric should have for all things. Namely, this is in a dream, and what happens there is what one calls a doubling of the I. For instance, one has a problem or wants to do something. Then someone appears to one in a dream who tells one what to do or who solves the problem, one who is better and cleverer than oneself. One should pay attention to such dreams. Then in the course of development it may happen in helpless moments or at times when one has made a decision that one hears a quiet voice that, for instance, advises one not to do what one has decided on. It's often a decision that one has made with the best knowledge and conscience, and if one follows the voice that nevertheless advises against it, it may seem as if one has done the wrong thing, but in by far the most cases, one will immediately notice that one did the right thing in following the voice. Now, if one practices paying attention to this, one will notice that one has something in one that's higher than one's own reason, that's cleverer than one is oneself. And the third time that one confronts one's higher self is a very important and sacred one. This is during meditation. One will only unite with him for short moments there. But to attain this, one must silence one's whole lower nature. We must eliminate everything that fills us with antipathy or petty feelings for the world and life. In observing himself, a pupil must always keep the polarity law in mind, that is, if he has a bad quality and wants to get rid of it, he must also look for the opposite quality in himself. It's certainly there. The presence of one quality definitely conditions the existence of the opposite one, whether one believes it or not, and this must be eradicated—then the other one also disappears. For instance, if one feels then there's also the polar hate in one, be it ever so hidden, and one has to drive this out. Then the fear disappears by itself. The higher self will only unite with us if such qualities are eradicated in meditational moments.

This union with the higher self is beautifully depicted in the saga of Lohengrin and Elsa. Lohengrin comes to save Elsa, to unite himself with her. Distrust, a negative quality is sown in her soul, and the higher self, Lohengrin, must withdraw to higher worlds, can't unite with her.

266-I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson 07 Dec 1909, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson 07 Dec 1909, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
When we begin an esoteric life through our meditation, we must resolve to move something new into the center of our life, something that wasn't there till now but that will now become the main thing. The success that our exercises will have will depend on the intensity of this resolve. One can take the exercises that one gets as something that's added to everyday life, so that one does them like some other ordinary work. But one will then notice that the progress one makes isn't especially great. The resolve that an esoteric should make is to connect everything he runs into in ordinary life with his esoteric life, to really feel that this is the center from which he directs all of his other life, from which something is constantly flowing into this life. For what are we supposed to accomplish with our meditations? If we do them in the right way we're supposed to develop a strong force, a force that uses the words of the meditation as an instrument with which we gradually create spiritual organs in our astral body with which we'll perceive the surrounding spiritual world. The impressions that we make in the mass of our astral body only gradually become permanent, for we can compare our astral body with an elastic mass that becomes imprinted but then returns to its previous shape after awhile. We make these impressions during sleep when our ego and astral body have left the etheric and physical bodies. The stronger and more intensively we do our meditations, the more intensive the impressions in the astral body become, until they remain and the organs we call lotus flowers develop from them. This process is described in the verse that comes to us from the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings: In the spirit lay the germ of my body ... But we can only really use these organs when they've become so strong that they can be imprinted from the astral into the etheric body. It's only when the etheric body has received a copy that the portals before which the Cherub with the flame of the whirling sword, stands open for us. We've heard that our physical and etheric bodies couldn't live for a second without an ego and an astral body and that therefore when these two leave the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, higher kinds of beings enter them, beings who are of the same nature as our I and astral body, but who stand much higher. An archangel replaces our astral body, and a spirit of personality, our I. We meet these high spiritual beings when we've developed our astral organs, and esotericism calls this tremendous event that's so sacred to us the “meeting with the higher self.” We should look towards this moment with feelings of highest devotion, with a being intensively permeated by its sacredness. If we don't do our meditation with this attitude of really genuine humility, then the spiritual world won't reveal itself to us in its true form, but all kinds of fantastic formations will appear to us, and the moral result will be a ruinous price. It's a good deed that the world into which we would like to press prepared by a school that rightfully exists, is closed by the Cherub with the fiery sword as long as we're insufficiently prepared. The guardian of Paradise stands exactly at the place where we slide over into deep sleep, where we lose consciousness. If we didn't lose it here we would see him. But a glance into the world of archangels would destroy us, since we're not up to it. Now, why is this archangel who enters our etheric body called our higher self? Why do we try to become united with him? Here we must touch upon a secret that concerns the human being. The man that we see walking around on earth today is really a maya, he is incomplete. There was a time in the ancient Lemurian epoch when only a single pair of human beings remained on earth, that was strong enough to ensoul animal-like formations. The other men had gone to various planets, and so present men originate from this primal pair. The Bible' story about Adam and Eve is right, even though it's presented in the form of an allegorical tale. Now Lucifer overpowered these first human beings and permeated their astral bodies with his influences. This made the later Ahrimanic influences possible and everything that helped men to live in the physical sense world. Thereby the spirit behind matter disappeared for him ever more, and the latter became an unpenetrable cover for him. If man had only remained under the influence of the divine spiritual beings who created him, he wouldn't have become free, but he always would have recognized spiritual things behind matter. Now, these guiding creators didn't want the whole etheric body to be permeated by Luciferic influences. So they held one part of Adam's etheric body back in spiritual worlds. And this part of the etheric body is the higher self with which we should reunite ourself and with which we're a whole human being. An esoteric should tell himself: This higher being that really belongs to me is waiting over there to become reunited with me, and in my meditation I should strive to go to him with all fervor, should form myself into a chalice that takes in this higher element. Paul, who was an initiate in these things, uses exactly the right expressions when he speaks of the old and the new Adam. This union of the etheric body that remained behind with a human being happened for the first time when the Luke Jesus was born. This Jesus boy received Adam's etheric body. The high, guiding creator beings had held back the capacity of individual thinking and speech for men with this part of the etheric body. It's true that a man thinks, but it's no thinking that he produces himself individually—instead he takes some of the divine thinking substance that streams through the world. Man has no individual language either, for high spiritual beings gave groups of men a common language. Men are supposed to acquire their own thinking and language through a reunion with their higher etheric body. Since the ability to speak lies in the etheric body, one can understand the legend that tells us that the Jesus boy didn't have to learn to speak, but that after his birth he spoke to his mother in a language that she understood. Through the connection of Adam's etheric body with a physical human body again, it became subject to the law of number and multiplication that applies to every spiritual thing that descends into matter. Just as a seed that's laid in the earth produces an ear with many kernels, so Jesus' body was the soil for Adam's etheric body, the through-station for multiplication, and it's these multiplied etheric bodies that are waiting for us. When we're immersed in our meditation so that the whole outer world disappears for us, we'll then get the feeling that we're dying, and then united with our higher self we're resurrected. That's why for the more recent esoteric schools that exist rightfully, the cross is the symbol for resurrection to this new life. It's not a birth that's taken to be the starting point of this life, but a death, the death of Christ on the cross of Golgotha, and the symbol for this life is the holy blood that flowed forth. That's why we have the dead plant, the dried wood with the live, red roses sprouting from it united in the rose cross. And in our meditation we should feel that we're born from God, as it says in our main guiding-verse, that's supposed to be the guiding verse of our esoteric life, and that we die in Christ as we let the force of our meditation become a light in us that radiates into higher world; and our higher self comes to meet this warmth, these rays—thereby it unites with us as the Holy spirit in which we come back to life again: Ex Deo nascimur In Christo morimur Per Spiritual Sanctum reviviscimus.

266-I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson 07 Dec 1909, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

When we begin an esoteric life through our meditation, we must resolve to move something new into the center of our life, something that wasn't there till now but that will now become the main thing. The success that our exercises will have will depend on the intensity of this resolve. One can take the exercises that one gets as something that's added to everyday life, so that one does them like some other ordinary work. But one will then notice that the progress one makes isn't especially great. The resolve that an esoteric should make is to connect everything he runs into in ordinary life with his esoteric life, to really feel that this is the center from which he directs all of his other life, from which something is constantly flowing into this life.

For what are we supposed to accomplish with our meditations? If we do them in the right way we're supposed to develop a strong force, a force that uses the words of the meditation as an instrument with which we gradually create spiritual organs in our astral body with which we'll perceive the surrounding spiritual world. The impressions that we make in the mass of our astral body only gradually become permanent, for we can compare our astral body with an elastic mass that becomes imprinted but then returns to its previous shape after awhile. We make these impressions during sleep when our ego and astral body have left the etheric and physical bodies. The stronger and more intensively we do our meditations, the more intensive the impressions in the astral body become, until they remain and the organs we call lotus flowers develop from them. This process is described in the verse that comes to us from the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings:

In the spirit lay the germ of my body ...

But we can only really use these organs when they've become so strong that they can be imprinted from the astral into the etheric body. It's only when the etheric body has received a copy that the portals before which the Cherub with the flame of the whirling sword, stands open for us.

We've heard that our physical and etheric bodies couldn't live for a second without an ego and an astral body and that therefore when these two leave the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, higher kinds of beings enter them, beings who are of the same nature as our I and astral body, but who stand much higher. An archangel replaces our astral body, and a spirit of personality, our I. We meet these high spiritual beings when we've developed our astral organs, and esotericism calls this tremendous event that's so sacred to us the “meeting with the higher self.”

We should look towards this moment with feelings of highest devotion, with a being intensively permeated by its sacredness. If we don't do our meditation with this attitude of really genuine humility, then the spiritual world won't reveal itself to us in its true form, but all kinds of fantastic formations will appear to us, and the moral result will be a ruinous price. It's a good deed that the world into which we would like to press prepared by a school that rightfully exists, is closed by the Cherub with the fiery sword as long as we're insufficiently prepared. The guardian of Paradise stands exactly at the place where we slide over into deep sleep, where we lose consciousness. If we didn't lose it here we would see him. But a glance into the world of archangels would destroy us, since we're not up to it.

Now, why is this archangel who enters our etheric body called our higher self? Why do we try to become united with him? Here we must touch upon a secret that concerns the human being. The man that we see walking around on earth today is really a maya, he is incomplete. There was a time in the ancient Lemurian epoch when only a single pair of human beings remained on earth, that was strong enough to ensoul animal-like formations. The other men had gone to various planets, and so present men originate from this primal pair. The Bible' story about Adam and Eve is right, even though it's presented in the form of an allegorical tale. Now Lucifer overpowered these first human beings and permeated their astral bodies with his influences. This made the later Ahrimanic influences possible and everything that helped men to live in the physical sense world. Thereby the spirit behind matter disappeared for him ever more, and the latter became an unpenetrable cover for him. If man had only remained under the influence of the divine spiritual beings who created him, he wouldn't have become free, but he always would have recognized spiritual things behind matter. Now, these guiding creators didn't want the whole etheric body to be permeated by Luciferic influences. So they held one part of Adam's etheric body back in spiritual worlds. And this part of the etheric body is the higher self with which we should reunite ourself and with which we're a whole human being. An esoteric should tell himself: This higher being that really belongs to me is waiting over there to become reunited with me, and in my meditation I should strive to go to him with all fervor, should form myself into a chalice that takes in this higher element. Paul, who was an initiate in these things, uses exactly the right expressions when he speaks of the old and the new Adam. This union of the etheric body that remained behind with a human being happened for the first time when the Luke Jesus was born. This Jesus boy received Adam's etheric body. The high, guiding creator beings had held back the capacity of individual thinking and speech for men with this part of the etheric body. It's true that a man thinks, but it's no thinking that he produces himself individually—instead he takes some of the divine thinking substance that streams through the world. Man has no individual language either, for high spiritual beings gave groups of men a common language. Men are supposed to acquire their own thinking and language through a reunion with their higher etheric body. Since the ability to speak lies in the etheric body, one can understand the legend that tells us that the Jesus boy didn't have to learn to speak, but that after his birth he spoke to his mother in a language that she understood. Through the connection of Adam's etheric body with a physical human body again, it became subject to the law of number and multiplication that applies to every spiritual thing that descends into matter. Just as a seed that's laid in the earth produces an ear with many kernels, so Jesus' body was the soil for Adam's etheric body, the through-station for multiplication, and it's these multiplied etheric bodies that are waiting for us. When we're immersed in our meditation so that the whole outer world disappears for us, we'll then get the feeling that we're dying, and then united with our higher self we're resurrected. That's why for the more recent esoteric schools that exist rightfully, the cross is the symbol for resurrection to this new life. It's not a birth that's taken to be the starting point of this life, but a death, the death of Christ on the cross of Golgotha, and the symbol for this life is the holy blood that flowed forth. That's why we have the dead plant, the dried wood with the live, red roses sprouting from it united in the rose cross. And in our meditation we should feel that we're born from God, as it says in our main guiding-verse, that's supposed to be the guiding verse of our esoteric life, and that we die in Christ as we let the force of our meditation become a light in us that radiates into higher world; and our higher self comes to meet this warmth, these rays—thereby it unites with us as the Holy spirit in which we come back to life again:

Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritual Sanctum reviviscimus.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 04 Nov 1910, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 04 Nov 1910, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
Those of you who've been to esoteric classes before know that what is said here isn't said by me only; we'll ask the help of the Spirit of the Day for this—(the Friday verse followed.) When we look at the course of our life between birth and death, then from an esoteric viewpoint we see that it's there so that we can learn something for our esoteric path. If we survey our physical life, we see that we bring the organs and pre-requisites for everything that we can do in life with us—except for three things that we must learn here in physical life. We can see color very soon after birth, we do not have to learn it, the ability, for it is simply there; the same is true of hearing, etc. The only three things we have to learn are walking, speaking and thinking or the making of concepts. The main thing in walking is that we have to learn how to stand. We simply fall down before we can do that; we don't have a feeling of balance yet. We must first learn to feel our way into space's three dimensions And we must also learn to speak and think. If we've learned to walk in the first year of life, we can go on our way. If we've learned how to make concepts we can give life to truth and do living things through the word. We learn to walk, speak and make concepts in the first three years of our life. We find these three years again, symbolically, in the three years that Christ lived on earth. Everything that an esoteric pupil needs for his esoteric life is given to him in esoteric classes. He gets answers to all of his questions from what is given to him in mediation exercises; he only has to listen properly. What's given to us as a meditation must acquire life in us. Such as the verse: In pure rays of light … We shouldn't just let these words pass before us; they should come to life in us. We should devote ourselves entirely to the meditation's content, forget everything that's around us in physical life, personal interests and so on. As a reward for the fact that we've, as it were, given up physical life, have sacrificed it for the duration of the meditation, a tone will resound in us after the first two lines: In pure rays of light Gleams the Godhead of the world … That will be maintained for as long as our karma prescribes. It's not a tone that resounds from within, but one that sounds towards us from outside. No more will be said here, everyone must experience and grasp it himself. And while this sound, sacred word and unspeakable name resounds, the pupil should make a vow that he could also make before, but at this moment he must do so. The vow is that the pupil tells himself: I will consider every sound besides this sacred word, if it's not physically caused, to be a work of Ahriman. This is a withdrawal, a turning away from what's around him, which creates a feeling of coldness in the pupil; a feeling of indifference takes hold of the man; he feels isolated and surrounded by a great frost. The pupil must bring love towards this frosty feeling that's created by pure thought. When he's heard this sound he thereby gets the direction towards the east; the sound comes from the east. The pupil can orient himself in the spiritual, he no longer falls over like a child who hasn't learned how to stand and walk. He can now stand and walk in the spiritual. And when the pupil lets the third and fourth lines live in him: In pure love for all beings Radiates the godliness of my soul He will then feel warmth, radiant living warmth. Only experiences that he has during this feeling of warmth have real truth value; everything else is Lucifer's work. And if he has really enlivened the last three lines: I rest in the Godhead of the world I will find myself In the Godhead of the world he will then grasp the truth. So in the first two lines the pupil has attained the way, the truth in the last three, and then life, spiritual life flows from the lines in between. A pupil must develop something that's often talked about in outer life but is not put into practice, and people don't have an inkling of its depth. Many talk about love for men, and yet what people in outer life consider it to be doesn't correspond to this feeling. An esoteric pupil should begin by telling himself in all humility: I know nothing about human love. We love men for various reasons but all of this is not the right thing. We should love a man because he's a human being. Christ set a good example for this. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. And the spirit has imprinted in my body The eyes of sense, That through them I may see The lights of bodies. And the spirit has imprinted in my body Reason and sensation And feeling and will, That through them I may perceive bodies And act upon them. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. In my body lies the germ of the spirit. And I will incorporate into my spirit The super-sensible eyes That through them I may behold the light of spirits. And I will imprint in my spirit Wisdom and power and love, So that through me the spirits may act And I become a self-conscious organ Of their deeds. In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 04 Nov 1910, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

Those of you who've been to esoteric classes before know that what is said here isn't said by me only; we'll ask the help of the Spirit of the Day for this—(the Friday verse followed.)

When we look at the course of our life between birth and death, then from an esoteric viewpoint we see that it's there so that we can learn something for our esoteric path. If we survey our physical life, we see that we bring the organs and pre-requisites for everything that we can do in life with us—except for three things that we must learn here in physical life. We can see color very soon after birth, we do not have to learn it, the ability, for it is simply there; the same is true of hearing, etc. The only three things we have to learn are walking, speaking and thinking or the making of concepts.

The main thing in walking is that we have to learn how to stand. We simply fall down before we can do that; we don't have a feeling of balance yet. We must first learn to feel our way into space's three dimensions And we must also learn to speak and think.

If we've learned to walk in the first year of life, we can go on our way. If we've learned how to make concepts we can give life to truth and do living things through the word. We learn to walk, speak and make concepts in the first three years of our life. We find these three years again, symbolically, in the three years that Christ lived on earth.

Everything that an esoteric pupil needs for his esoteric life is given to him in esoteric classes. He gets answers to all of his questions from what is given to him in mediation exercises; he only has to listen properly. What's given to us as a meditation must acquire life in us. Such as the verse: In pure rays of light …

We shouldn't just let these words pass before us; they should come to life in us. We should devote ourselves entirely to the meditation's content, forget everything that's around us in physical life, personal interests and so on. As a reward for the fact that we've, as it were, given up physical life, have sacrificed it for the duration of the meditation, a tone will resound in us after the first two lines:

In pure rays of light
Gleams the Godhead of the world …

That will be maintained for as long as our karma prescribes. It's not a tone that resounds from within, but one that sounds towards us from outside. No more will be said here, everyone must experience and grasp it himself. And while this sound, sacred word and unspeakable name resounds, the pupil should make a vow that he could also make before, but at this moment he must do so. The vow is that the pupil tells himself: I will consider every sound besides this sacred word, if it's not physically caused, to be a work of Ahriman.

This is a withdrawal, a turning away from what's around him, which creates a feeling of coldness in the pupil; a feeling of indifference takes hold of the man; he feels isolated and surrounded by a great frost. The pupil must bring love towards this frosty feeling that's created by pure thought.

When he's heard this sound he thereby gets the direction towards the east; the sound comes from the east. The pupil can orient himself in the spiritual, he no longer falls over like a child who hasn't learned how to stand and walk. He can now stand and walk in the spiritual.

And when the pupil lets the third and fourth lines live in him:

In pure love for all beings
Radiates the godliness of my soul

He will then feel warmth, radiant living warmth. Only experiences that he has during this feeling of warmth have real truth value; everything else is Lucifer's work. And if he has really enlivened the last three lines:

I rest in the Godhead of the world
I will find myself
In the Godhead of the world

he will then grasp the truth.

So in the first two lines the pupil has attained the way, the truth in the last three, and then life, spiritual life flows from the lines in between.

A pupil must develop something that's often talked about in outer life but is not put into practice, and people don't have an inkling of its depth. Many talk about love for men, and yet what people in outer life consider it to be doesn't correspond to this feeling. An esoteric pupil should begin by telling himself in all humility: I know nothing about human love. We love men for various reasons but all of this is not the right thing. We should love a man because he's a human being. Christ set a good example for this.

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 05 Nov 1910, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 05 Nov 1910, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
As always, we'll ask the Spirit of the Day for help in our work. (Saturday) Great embracing Spirit, You who filled endless space when none of my body's members existed yet; You were. I raise my soul to you. I was in you. I was part of your force. You sent out your forces, and the first, original picture of my body's form was reflected in the earth's first beginnings. I was in the forces that you sent out. You were. My archetype looked at you. It looked at me, myself, I who was a part of you. You were. Great embracing Spirit May my I raise itself from below upward, May it get an inkling of you in the all-embracing. May the spirit of my being be illumined By the light of your messengers. May the soul of my being be enkindled by the fire flames of your servants. May the will of my I grasp Your creatorword's force. You are. May your being permeate my will That my I be grasped by an understanding of your light's shining, Your life's love-warmth And your being's creator words. You are. Yesterday we said that a pupil hears a spiritual sound from the east. But if a pupil would now want to say that he knew what the spiritual sounds like, that he had now heard his first spiritual sound, he would be making a big mistake. For this sound is, as it were, the last word out of the physical realm. The spiritual world is for the time being completely colorless, lightless, soundless and so on. Any colors that we might see are nothing spiritual—they come from our own inner life, and, namely, they indicate qualities that we don't have but must acquire. For instance, if we see a red color it means that we don't have love in us, that we must develop it in ourselves. If we see violet, it's telling us that we must acquire devotional piety. If we hear noises, it's nothing spiritual, but something that comes out of us. If someone becomes a vegetarian but his body still has a longing for meat, even if he's unaware of it, then this craving resounds in misleading sounds. All of these noises and sounds are only raven croaks. If a figure from past ages appears to a pupil it's quite wrong for him to want to interpret it right away. He must be able to wait with his interpretation until later. If such an image appears before our soul, it dissipates as soon as we approach it with our thoughts. But if it's a genuine image, it'll rise before us later and remain there in its true form, and we'll know what it means. We must be able to wait and be silent. We should speak about such experiences much less than we think about them. We should look upon and treat our whole spiritual life as something sacred. We must tell ourselves that experiences of sounds, colors, etc. don't come from the spiritual realm but from our own ego that's surged through be a sea of passions an desires, just as Noah's ark had the sea surging around it. As we tell ourselves clearly and relentlessly that these experiences and phenomena are nothing spiritual, we must let our ego go and as it were, let it fly away, just as the dove was released from Noah's ark and didn't return. A pupil then has another occult experience. After we've seen that the spiritual world is empty for us, we then see that these experiences are nevertheless important for us. Colors become warners and advisors. They tell us what we still have to acquire. We realize that sounds reflect our bodily cravings. And when the images that we've let work quietly tell us their significance, our soul becomes enriched by such experiences. That's like the dove that was released the second time and came back with an olive leaf, the emblem of peace. But an esoteric's soul isn't left entirely to its own devices on this difficult path; there's things it can hang on to. The rose cross, for instance. We should let it work on us; we should realize that the wood's black is our corporeality that's hardened and withered, that we must let our lower ego that identifies itself with the body become just as dark and dead as the cross's wood. Then the higher, spiritual ego will work in us in the way that the black of the cross is changed into bright, radiant lines of light. Likewise, the red of the roses will change from the color of love working inwardly, to green, the color of life working outwardly. When we experience symbols it's the ones that make us suffer that are genuine and from the spiritual world, and not the ones that give us joy. We must carry them around with us until we've grasped their meaning. The spiritual from them must be born in us while we suffer. Another thing we must realize is that we can't be unegoistical. We are never ever unegoistical. And even if we imagine that we've done something that's entirely selfless, we're mistaken. We can't act selflessly. It's world karma that lets us act egoistically World karma is God. And if we get to the point where we act in a good and noble way, then it's God in us who's good. As we get more selfless, we'll for instance, notice that we don't get scared or terrified anymore. If there's a sudden loud noise nearby, we won't jump as much as before. The God who lets us act in a good and noble way is our model. Our archetypal model made us into what we are now. And we must become a copy of our archetype again. Once we've understood this rightly, we'll also understand the esoteric Rosicrucian saying: Ex Deo nascimur, in … morimur, Per spiritum Sanctum revivscimus. An esoteric doesn't say what's left out here. When we begin to say this line our feeling must go to what's unutterable. And only when one's feeling comes back can one go on speaking. Anyone who experiences this inwardly with the right feeling will also rightly understand the other esoteric verse: In the spirit lay the germ of my body. And the spirit has imprinted in my body The eyes of sense, That through them I may see The lights of bodies. And the spirit has imprinted in my body Reason and sensation And feeling and will, That through them I may perceive bodies And act upon them. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. In my body lies the germ of the spirit. And I will incorporate into my spirit The super-sensible eyes That through them I may behold the light of spirits. And I will imprint in my spirit Wisdom and power and love, So that through me the spirits may act And I become a self-conscious organ Of their deeds. In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 05 Nov 1910, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

As always, we'll ask the Spirit of the Day for help in our work. (Saturday)

Great embracing Spirit,
You who filled endless space when none of my body's members existed yet;
You were.
I raise my soul to you.
I was in you.
I was part of your force.
You sent out your forces, and the first, original picture of my body's form was reflected in the earth's first beginnings.
I was in the forces that you sent out.
You were.
My archetype looked at you.
It looked at me, myself, I who was a part of you.
You were.

Great embracing Spirit
May my I raise itself from below upward,
May it get an inkling of you in the all-embracing.
May the spirit of my being be illumined
By the light of your messengers.
May the soul of my being be enkindled by the fire flames of your servants.
May the will of my I grasp
Your creatorword's force.
You are.
May your being permeate my will
That my I be grasped by an understanding of your light's shining,
Your life's love-warmth
And your being's creator words.
You are.

Yesterday we said that a pupil hears a spiritual sound from the east. But if a pupil would now want to say that he knew what the spiritual sounds like, that he had now heard his first spiritual sound, he would be making a big mistake. For this sound is, as it were, the last word out of the physical realm.

The spiritual world is for the time being completely colorless, lightless, soundless and so on. Any colors that we might see are nothing spiritual—they come from our own inner life, and, namely, they indicate qualities that we don't have but must acquire. For instance, if we see a red color it means that we don't have love in us, that we must develop it in ourselves. If we see violet, it's telling us that we must acquire devotional piety.

If we hear noises, it's nothing spiritual, but something that comes out of us. If someone becomes a vegetarian but his body still has a longing for meat, even if he's unaware of it, then this craving resounds in misleading sounds. All of these noises and sounds are only raven croaks.

If a figure from past ages appears to a pupil it's quite wrong for him to want to interpret it right away. He must be able to wait with his interpretation until later. If such an image appears before our soul, it dissipates as soon as we approach it with our thoughts. But if it's a genuine image, it'll rise before us later and remain there in its true form, and we'll know what it means. We must be able to wait and be silent. We should speak about such experiences much less than we think about them. We should look upon and treat our whole spiritual life as something sacred. We must tell ourselves that experiences of sounds, colors, etc. don't come from the spiritual realm but from our own ego that's surged through be a sea of passions an desires, just as Noah's ark had the sea surging around it. As we tell ourselves clearly and relentlessly that these experiences and phenomena are nothing spiritual, we must let our ego go and as it were, let it fly away, just as the dove was released from Noah's ark and didn't return.

A pupil then has another occult experience. After we've seen that the spiritual world is empty for us, we then see that these experiences are nevertheless important for us. Colors become warners and advisors. They tell us what we still have to acquire. We realize that sounds reflect our bodily cravings. And when the images that we've let work quietly tell us their significance, our soul becomes enriched by such experiences. That's like the dove that was released the second time and came back with an olive leaf, the emblem of peace.

But an esoteric's soul isn't left entirely to its own devices on this difficult path; there's things it can hang on to. The rose cross, for instance. We should let it work on us; we should realize that the wood's black is our corporeality that's hardened and withered, that we must let our lower ego that identifies itself with the body become just as dark and dead as the cross's wood. Then the higher, spiritual ego will work in us in the way that the black of the cross is changed into bright, radiant lines of light. Likewise, the red of the roses will change from the color of love working inwardly, to green, the color of life working outwardly.

When we experience symbols it's the ones that make us suffer that are genuine and from the spiritual world, and not the ones that give us joy. We must carry them around with us until we've grasped their meaning. The spiritual from them must be born in us while we suffer.

Another thing we must realize is that we can't be unegoistical. We are never ever unegoistical. And even if we imagine that we've done something that's entirely selfless, we're mistaken. We can't act selflessly. It's world karma that lets us act egoistically World karma is God.

And if we get to the point where we act in a good and noble way, then it's God in us who's good. As we get more selfless, we'll for instance, notice that we don't get scared or terrified anymore. If there's a sudden loud noise nearby, we won't jump as much as before. The God who lets us act in a good and noble way is our model. Our archetypal model made us into what we are now. And we must become a copy of our archetype again.

Once we've understood this rightly, we'll also understand the esoteric Rosicrucian saying: Ex Deo nascimur, in … morimur, Per spiritum Sanctum revivscimus.

An esoteric doesn't say what's left out here. When we begin to say this line our feeling must go to what's unutterable. And only when one's feeling comes back can one go on speaking. Anyone who experiences this inwardly with the right feeling will also rightly understand the other esoteric verse:

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 20 Dec 1910, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 20 Dec 1910, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
The physical and etheric bodies are closely connected in an ordinary man. Whether he raises a hand or thinks, when he uses his physical body he also sets the corresponding part of the etheric body in motion. This connection should become looser in an esoteric. A man has a backbone that's connected with the brain and sense organs. When he meditates, he creates a kind of a “forebone” in his etheric body; that's the row of lotus flowers that lies behind the breastbone. The loosening of the physical and etheric bodies enables a man to heal wounds faster. Diseases of the physical body that remained concealed while the close connection was there, can then appear. One shouldn't pay much attention to small pains and ailments, because they're all transitory. But one can feel very uncomfortable when this loosening begins. Theosophical study already brings about this loosening, whereas scientific training makes the connection between the physical and etheric bodies even tighter. So through meditation the etheric body gets the tendency to become separated from the physical body. One can intensify this through a suitable diet. Diets give the physical body the tendency to push out the etheric body. This is an aid that however brings about the wrong thing if esoteric exercises aren't added. Then the physical body ejects the etheric body without developed sense organs Then it's like a blind man, and it only sees its own daydreams. While a man's sheaths undergo a change in this way, his connection with the macrocosm also changes. This connection must be cultivated in the right way, otherwise disasters occur in the whole world, and not just in man. For instance, someone who would utter the sacred, unspeakable name in an unsuitable group would conjure up something worse than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions over the region. Therefore, it makes a big difference how the Rosicrucian verse is spoken, namely with or without the name that's just pseudonym for the highest spiritual being. Only the latter way of speaking the verse is an esoteric one.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 20 Dec 1910, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

The physical and etheric bodies are closely connected in an ordinary man. Whether he raises a hand or thinks, when he uses his physical body he also sets the corresponding part of the etheric body in motion. This connection should become looser in an esoteric.

A man has a backbone that's connected with the brain and sense organs. When he meditates, he creates a kind of a “forebone” in his etheric body; that's the row of lotus flowers that lies behind the breastbone.

The loosening of the physical and etheric bodies enables a man to heal wounds faster. Diseases of the physical body that remained concealed while the close connection was there, can then appear. One shouldn't pay much attention to small pains and ailments, because they're all transitory. But one can feel very uncomfortable when this loosening begins. Theosophical study already brings about this loosening, whereas scientific training makes the connection between the physical and etheric bodies even tighter.

So through meditation the etheric body gets the tendency to become separated from the physical body. One can intensify this through a suitable diet. Diets give the physical body the tendency to push out the etheric body. This is an aid that however brings about the wrong thing if esoteric exercises aren't added. Then the physical body ejects the etheric body without developed sense organs Then it's like a blind man, and it only sees its own daydreams.

While a man's sheaths undergo a change in this way, his connection with the macrocosm also changes. This connection must be cultivated in the right way, otherwise disasters occur in the whole world, and not just in man. For instance, someone who would utter the sacred, unspeakable name in an unsuitable group would conjure up something worse than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions over the region. Therefore, it makes a big difference how the Rosicrucian verse is spoken, namely with or without the name that's just pseudonym for the highest spiritual being. Only the latter way of speaking the verse is an esoteric one.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 17 Jan 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 17 Jan 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
The techniques of esoteric life is, as it were, given in our meditation. Here one lets thoughts work upon one that awaken feelings and sensations that aren't derived from the physical plane. There are two kinds of thoughts: the ones that are awakened in us through the perception of the physical world, and thoughts such as theosophy gives us. Everything in that physical world is maya, including our physical body. Through what, is this really there? Through what do the animals, plants and stones around us exist? Through the fact that higher beings took a thought many millions of years ago and thought it over and over again. In these things it's as the proverb says; steady dripping hollows the stone. The same thoughts cover each other and eventually form physical objects. The harder a stone is, the longer beings thought it. Our physical body is nothing else than the thought of many higher beings. If we only think the ordinary thoughts of the physical plane, then this is really no thought, but the mirror image, the illusion of a thought. For everything that's from the physical world was already thought a long time ago, and all we do is to repeat these thoughts, but in the wrong way. For instance, if someone hears a bell ringing, then the sounds is nothing real, but it's like this: millions of years ago what became the bell and also what became our brain was thought, and the knocking together of these two gives the sound that we hear. All physical thoughts are unproductive and eventually have a destructive effect. They bring our astral body into a certain oscillation, but this was already put into it by higher beings. So one who never thinks supersensibly never brings new formations into the astral body. What happens in the astral body works back upon the etheric body, but the etheric body is inclined to take new forms and thoughts into itself. Old forms have a destructive effect on it and from there into the physical strands of our nervous system. All of this must be restored again in sleep. The astral body is inserted into the higher hierarchies for awhile and thereby gets forces; the etheric body is separated from the astral body and becomes regenerated thereby. One couldn't live long without sleep. However, nonsensorial thoughts have a productive and upbuilding effect They enable a man to fit himself into the hierarchies. New forms, the lotus flowers, are created in his astral body. That's why it's necessary to repeat a meditation hundreds of time. The ideas we form about theosophical teachings—for our thinking about them is also meditation—will at first not be entirely sense-free. For instance, if one says that Saturn is a warmth sphere, and that the harmony of the spheres resounds in Devachan, one will imagine this in sensory pictures at first—as the heat in our blood, a beautiful symphony, and the like. But if the thought is repeated, the sensory element that is still attached to it falls away by itself and the super-sensible part remains. Out in the world mathematical thoughts are the most sense-free ones; but when a modern thinks a triangle, he thinks it with color and a certain thickness, that is, not abstractly enough. But one gets closer to super-sensible thoughts when one notes relations. Remembering a sound is a memory of a sensory things, but remembering a melody is something that consists in relations of sounds that don't as such belong to the sense world. And imagine two scoundrels or two good people, where in the first instance one is worse than the other, or one man does more good deeds than the other—then there's something in this relation that's not from the physical sense world, something that leads us up into the spiritual world. If a man thinks of a scoundrel or sees one, it'll give him an unpleasant feeling; but if he sees two scoundrels next to each other in a play, the worst scoundrel will always please him more than the lesser one, because greatness is always attractive. For instance, this is what the effect of various Shakespeare plays is based on. So it's important to see and to study relations in the outer world, for this leads us away from sensory things. Another way to develop sense-free thinking is to let processes run in the reverse direction, for instance, by saying the Lord's Prayer backwards or by looking backwards through our meditation. That's the only way that a man can improve his memory. Man's memory has gotten much worse in the last four to five centuries, and this will be the case even more if they don't avail themselves of the opportunities that are now being offered. The time for these opportunities is particularly favorable now, and later on they'll simply not be there anymore. Memory will no longer be a mere waiting to see whether things want to emerge from a dark ground. It'll be like a groping towards the past or like a sending out of feelers that'll grasp for the past like towards some thing that's real. Our time is particularly favorable for this development and for esoteric development in general. Thus, we see that our body is an illusion; it's thoughts of beings who are also thoughts. Thought thinks thoughts—that's a meditational statement that's very important. It's not our brain or etheric body or astral body that thinks—thoughts think thoughts. That's something that also emerges clearly from our verse: In the spirit lay the germ of my body. And the spirit has imprinted in my body The eyes of sense, That through them I may see The lights of bodies. And the spirit has imprinted in my body Reason and sensation And feeling and will, That through them I may perceive bodies And act upon them. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. In my body lies the germ of the spirit. And I will incorporate into my spirit The super-sensible eyes That through them I may behold the light of spirits. And I will imprint in my spirit Wisdom and power and love, So that through me the spirits may act And I become a self-conscious organ Of their deeds. In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 17 Jan 1911, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

The techniques of esoteric life is, as it were, given in our meditation. Here one lets thoughts work upon one that awaken feelings and sensations that aren't derived from the physical plane. There are two kinds of thoughts: the ones that are awakened in us through the perception of the physical world, and thoughts such as theosophy gives us. Everything in that physical world is maya, including our physical body. Through what, is this really there? Through what do the animals, plants and stones around us exist? Through the fact that higher beings took a thought many millions of years ago and thought it over and over again. In these things it's as the proverb says; steady dripping hollows the stone. The same thoughts cover each other and eventually form physical objects. The harder a stone is, the longer beings thought it. Our physical body is nothing else than the thought of many higher beings.

If we only think the ordinary thoughts of the physical plane, then this is really no thought, but the mirror image, the illusion of a thought. For everything that's from the physical world was already thought a long time ago, and all we do is to repeat these thoughts, but in the wrong way. For instance, if someone hears a bell ringing, then the sounds is nothing real, but it's like this: millions of years ago what became the bell and also what became our brain was thought, and the knocking together of these two gives the sound that we hear. All physical thoughts are unproductive and eventually have a destructive effect. They bring our astral body into a certain oscillation, but this was already put into it by higher beings. So one who never thinks supersensibly never brings new formations into the astral body. What happens in the astral body works back upon the etheric body, but the etheric body is inclined to take new forms and thoughts into itself. Old forms have a destructive effect on it and from there into the physical strands of our nervous system. All of this must be restored again in sleep. The astral body is inserted into the higher hierarchies for awhile and thereby gets forces; the etheric body is separated from the astral body and becomes regenerated thereby. One couldn't live long without sleep.

However, nonsensorial thoughts have a productive and upbuilding effect They enable a man to fit himself into the hierarchies. New forms, the lotus flowers, are created in his astral body. That's why it's necessary to repeat a meditation hundreds of time.

The ideas we form about theosophical teachings—for our thinking about them is also meditation—will at first not be entirely sense-free. For instance, if one says that Saturn is a warmth sphere, and that the harmony of the spheres resounds in Devachan, one will imagine this in sensory pictures at first—as the heat in our blood, a beautiful symphony, and the like. But if the thought is repeated, the sensory element that is still attached to it falls away by itself and the super-sensible part remains.

Out in the world mathematical thoughts are the most sense-free ones; but when a modern thinks a triangle, he thinks it with color and a certain thickness, that is, not abstractly enough. But one gets closer to super-sensible thoughts when one notes relations. Remembering a sound is a memory of a sensory things, but remembering a melody is something that consists in relations of sounds that don't as such belong to the sense world. And imagine two scoundrels or two good people, where in the first instance one is worse than the other, or one man does more good deeds than the other—then there's something in this relation that's not from the physical sense world, something that leads us up into the spiritual world. If a man thinks of a scoundrel or sees one, it'll give him an unpleasant feeling; but if he sees two scoundrels next to each other in a play, the worst scoundrel will always please him more than the lesser one, because greatness is always attractive. For instance, this is what the effect of various Shakespeare plays is based on. So it's important to see and to study relations in the outer world, for this leads us away from sensory things.

Another way to develop sense-free thinking is to let processes run in the reverse direction, for instance, by saying the Lord's Prayer backwards or by looking backwards through our meditation. That's the only way that a man can improve his memory. Man's memory has gotten much worse in the last four to five centuries, and this will be the case even more if they don't avail themselves of the opportunities that are now being offered. The time for these opportunities is particularly favorable now, and later on they'll simply not be there anymore. Memory will no longer be a mere waiting to see whether things want to emerge from a dark ground. It'll be like a groping towards the past or like a sending out of feelers that'll grasp for the past like towards some thing that's real. Our time is particularly favorable for this development and for esoteric development in general.

Thus, we see that our body is an illusion; it's thoughts of beings who are also thoughts. Thought thinks thoughts—that's a meditational statement that's very important. It's not our brain or etheric body or astral body that thinks—thoughts think thoughts. That's something that also emerges clearly from our verse:

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 15 Mar 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 15 Mar 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
Our meditation should stand in the sign: Steady dripping hollows the tone. A study of theosophical works is an effective preparation for exercises. It's better to have read a book 25 times than to read five books five times each, and one who has read a book two or three times shouldn't imagine that he's read it at all. If on a particular day of the year, we have experienced this or that in our meditation, then if we've really studied hard in between, we'll be able to experience much more on the same day a year later. It's good to keep on doing the same exercise for long periods; that's much better than continual changes. We should develop certain feelings and not just get more thoughts through study. One can find starting points for something much deeper in simple sensations. For instance, we should begin to pay attention to the feeling of grasping an object or of being grasped by the hand. We can feel a distinct difference if we imagine the sensation that's aroused in us when we grasp a snail or when a snail unexpectedly crosses our hand. If we develop the two feelings well, we can form a concept of the difference between the subsensible and the super-sensible worlds. The whole physical world and our feelings about it is an illusion or maya. We can picture it as a field or plane with the super-sensible world above and the subsensible world below it. The super-sensible world is one that can be connected with the feeling of being grasped and the subsensible one with the feeling of grasping. In Rosicrucian teachings the subsensible region was always called the elemental world, the world of the elements fire, air, water and earth. One presses through to the element of earth if one meditates on triangles, rectangles, pentagons, and geometrical figures in general. One should do this by writing these figures on the palm of one's hand with a finger. Then eliminate all thoughts about the hand and writing and only think about feeling the writing on the palm as if were floating freely in space, and immerse yourself in this feeling. That's how one gradually grasps the earth element. One grasps the water element by thinking a fixed, material point and another mobile point that moves in a circle around the first one. Then one should write this in one's hand and proceed as with the first figure. One should think of the second point as one that rotates continuously. For the air element, one thinks of two fixed points that want to fly away from each other after they first describe a kind of a semicircle round each other and then fly apart into endless distances. If we work with this figure exactly as with the preceding ones, we then grasp the air element—we don't just feel air caressing us, we really grasp it. For the fire element, one thinks of a closed figure such as a loop or a figure 8. One should especially feel that there's an intersecting point where the curve touches itself. One should keep on doing these exercises for some time. They're not easy; one must acquire a certain skill in the feeling of sensations in space, without using one's hands, and also in holding on to the figure. But then this exercise leads to a grasping of the elemental world; one learns how to grasp it. However it's a rule without exceptions that these exercises also make one egotistical. That's why one must never do them without also developing a great sympathy for everything that gives men joy and sorrow. When we go up into the super-sensible world, we're actually taken hold of by higher beings who use us as their instruments, just as we use our eyes, ears, etc. The danger with this experience is that one loses oneself ever more, in the bad sense of the word. Therefore, it's also necessary to develop courage and fearlessness. Then we can calmly let ourselves be grasped by beings in the spiritual world, so that we feel: now we're being inspired by an angelic being, now by an archangelic beings, and so on. Imaginations lead into the super-sensible world. One sees that these two directions towards above and below are combined on the Rosicrucian path. As a clairvoyant, one must learn to strictly distinguish between the elemental world and the super-sensible beings—between two things that appear to be united in the physical world. Someone who saw a being and its elemental expression in one picture would be making a big mistake and would be mixing everything up. It isn't easy to separate the two regions at first because they can be seen by both astral and Devachanic vision, but when one ascends and sees a being, one gradually learns to descend immediately to find the elemental part of this being below the physical world, just as when one sees an object one can immediately look down and see its reflection in the water. One couldn't describe the Saturn condition if one couldn't raise oneself up to beings such as the spirits of Will and Spirits of Personality, and also press through to the fire element. Likewise for the Sun condition, one must know Spirits of Wisdom, archangels, and also the air element. Both of these are described together in Occult Science—how the thrones let Saturn warmth stream out, etc. but in observing it, it's necessary to feel it as a duality. One must be prepared to see and hear things in the spiritual world that one has never seen or heard here below. One who just expects to find things he's familiar with over there will never be able to press into the spiritual world. That's what's expressed in the second line of our Rosicrucian verse: In … morimur. It's only when a dying in Christo takes place in us that we can be reawakened by the Holy Spirit. In a way, this is a commentary on the two-part verse that's given to us by the masters: In the spirit lay the germ of my body. And the spirit has imprinted in my body The eyes of sense, That through them I may see The lights of bodies. And the spirit has imprinted in my body Reason and sensation And feeling and will, That through them I may perceive bodies And act upon them. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. In my body lies the germ of the spirit. And I will incorporate into my spirit The super-sensible eyes That through them I may behold the light of spirits. And I will imprint in my spirit Wisdom and power and love, So that through me the spirits may act And I become a self-conscious organ Of their deeds. In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 15 Mar 1911, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

Our meditation should stand in the sign: Steady dripping hollows the tone. A study of theosophical works is an effective preparation for exercises. It's better to have read a book 25 times than to read five books five times each, and one who has read a book two or three times shouldn't imagine that he's read it at all. If on a particular day of the year, we have experienced this or that in our meditation, then if we've really studied hard in between, we'll be able to experience much more on the same day a year later. It's good to keep on doing the same exercise for long periods; that's much better than continual changes.

We should develop certain feelings and not just get more thoughts through study. One can find starting points for something much deeper in simple sensations. For instance, we should begin to pay attention to the feeling of grasping an object or of being grasped by the hand.

We can feel a distinct difference if we imagine the sensation that's aroused in us when we grasp a snail or when a snail unexpectedly crosses our hand. If we develop the two feelings well, we can form a concept of the difference between the subsensible and the super-sensible worlds.

The whole physical world and our feelings about it is an illusion or maya. We can picture it as a field or plane with the super-sensible world above and the subsensible world below it. The super-sensible world is one that can be connected with the feeling of being grasped and the subsensible one with the feeling of grasping.

In Rosicrucian teachings the subsensible region was always called the elemental world, the world of the elements fire, air, water and earth.

One presses through to the element of earth if one meditates on triangles, rectangles, pentagons, and geometrical figures in general. One should do this by writing these figures on the palm of one's hand with a finger. Then eliminate all thoughts about the hand and writing and only think about feeling the writing on the palm as if were floating freely in space, and immerse yourself in this feeling. That's how one gradually grasps the earth element.

One grasps the water element by thinking a fixed, material point and another mobile point that moves in a circle around the first one. Then one should write this in one's hand and proceed as with the first figure. One should think of the second point as one that rotates continuously.

For the air element, one thinks of two fixed points that want to fly away from each other after they first describe a kind of a semicircle round each other and then fly apart into endless distances. If we work with this figure exactly as with the preceding ones, we then grasp the air element—we don't just feel air caressing us, we really grasp it.

Diagram 1

For the fire element, one thinks of a closed figure such as a loop or a figure 8. One should especially feel that there's an intersecting point where the curve touches itself.

One should keep on doing these exercises for some time. They're not easy; one must acquire a certain skill in the feeling of sensations in space, without using one's hands, and also in holding on to the figure. But then this exercise leads to a grasping of the elemental world; one learns how to grasp it.

However it's a rule without exceptions that these exercises also make one egotistical. That's why one must never do them without also developing a great sympathy for everything that gives men joy and sorrow.

When we go up into the super-sensible world, we're actually taken hold of by higher beings who use us as their instruments, just as we use our eyes, ears, etc. The danger with this experience is that one loses oneself ever more, in the bad sense of the word. Therefore, it's also necessary to develop courage and fearlessness. Then we can calmly let ourselves be grasped by beings in the spiritual world, so that we feel: now we're being inspired by an angelic being, now by an archangelic beings, and so on. Imaginations lead into the super-sensible world. One sees that these two directions towards above and below are combined on the Rosicrucian path. As a clairvoyant, one must learn to strictly distinguish between the elemental world and the super-sensible beings—between two things that appear to be united in the physical world. Someone who saw a being and its elemental expression in one picture would be making a big mistake and would be mixing everything up. It isn't easy to separate the two regions at first because they can be seen by both astral and Devachanic vision, but when one ascends and sees a being, one gradually learns to descend immediately to find the elemental part of this being below the physical world, just as when one sees an object one can immediately look down and see its reflection in the water.

One couldn't describe the Saturn condition if one couldn't raise oneself up to beings such as the spirits of Will and Spirits of Personality, and also press through to the fire element. Likewise for the Sun condition, one must know Spirits of Wisdom, archangels, and also the air element. Both of these are described together in Occult Science—how the thrones let Saturn warmth stream out, etc. but in observing it, it's necessary to feel it as a duality.

One must be prepared to see and hear things in the spiritual world that one has never seen or heard here below. One who just expects to find things he's familiar with over there will never be able to press into the spiritual world. That's what's expressed in the second line of our Rosicrucian verse: In … morimur. It's only when a dying in Christo takes place in us that we can be reawakened by the Holy Spirit. In a way, this is a commentary on the two-part verse that's given to us by the masters:

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 12 Jun 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 12 Jun 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
My dear sisters and brothers! We should realize that there's a big difference between outer, exoteric knowledge and the knowledge that theosophy gives us. When we let an outer perception work on us, ideas and concepts form in us; we get to know the thing we're looking at; thereby, we know something about it. Are things the same with theosophical knowledge? We also form concepts and ideas about man's four members, the earth's planetary conditions or the Akashic rcord when we're told about them, but there's something else connected with this. Whereas exoteric knowledge doesn't enrich us or leave anything behind after death, the same cannot be said about esoteric knowledge. It flows into our astral body and forms certain new members there; new threads become woven into the astral body and remain connected with our being. We know that a man's astral body surrounds him in an egg form. Since an ego is working in it, it radiates. New threads and knowledge are woven in there, so that we can call it the “cognition body.” This knowledge body will become ever denser and stronger and will eventually be spirit self. Another planetary evolution of the earth is only possible through the fact that we develop it. On Jupiter this cognition body will be as dense as our astral body, on Venus as our etheric body, and on Vulcan it'll have become about as physical as our blood. Now through what can this theosophical knowledge become so fruitful that the cognition body develops in the astral body? Let's clarify this through an example. We're surrounded by physical, material air. We inhale it. That's how we live. In the bible we hear: God blew living breath into man, and he became a living soul. But the carbonic acid we exhale can't maintain life, it's lethal air. Death began because we were released from the lap of the Gods. Man ate from the tree of knowledge, that is, he had acquired his freedom and independence with Lucifer's help. That's why he was driven from paradise, that is, he's become a water man and then an earth man, and he's not an air man anymore as in the Lemurian epoch. Lucifer will have power over him as long as he's on earth. But the tragic thing about this being is that Lucifer's power doesn't extend beyond the earth. All pain and suffering arise through Lucifer and are connected with this tragedy. There'll be no exoteric knowledge on Jupiter anymore. If man had remained in paradise, he would also have eaten of the tree of life. The latter was kept away from him through Lucifer's influence, and thereby the possibility of sinking much lower than he did by eating from the tree of knowledge. But now the tree of life becomes transformed into the symbol that initially means earth but that conceals a life that's all the greater and that a man can attain if he acquires the cross with the red roses. Just as the earth is enveloped by the air that men breathe, so there's a special substance in the this air that wants to flow into men. It depends on us whether we exhale this spiritual substance again as lethal air or whether we connect it with our theosophical knowledge and weave the product into our astral body. This is important for the whole cosmos and not just for us. If we inhale this spiritual substance without making it productive in us, we take something from the cosmos but give it nothing in return and thereby prevent evolution. Whether the Jupiter condition can follow the earth condition depends on whether we increase these spiritual forces around the earth. If we look at old Saturn we know that the first germ of our physical body arose there. It arose from Gods' thoughts, which condensed to what we are today. But on Saturn it was already counted upon that men would continue the work of the Gods, and we do this when we let the spiritual substance around us flow into us, to build up our cognition body from it. It was the purpose of the Mystery of Golgotha to give men this opportunity. What is it that we take in with this spiritual substance? It's the Christ himself. This wasn't the case before the Mystery of Golgotha. Then men could say, Ex Deo nascimur. At that time candidates for initiation were prepared in such a way that they went back to what was handed down by the old Gods. But we know that with the Mystery of Golgotha the aura of our earth has changed, because Christ has become the spirit of our earth. He has poured himself substantially into this earth aura and is contained in it since then. Now is the point in time when this poured out Christ substance has become condensed, so that it can be taken in by men. Therefore: In Christo morimur means nothing else than to immerse oneself in this spiritual substance and to take in Christ completely with it, so that one can say: Not I, But Christ in me. But one shouldn't forget that a light is always surrounded by a lot of shadows. Many errors will also creep in with the new wise things that have been given to our age, and so it's our holy duty to check every thing we hear with our healthy human intellect. This has always been emphasized in all Rosicrucian esotericism. But we should be tolerant towards people who make mistakes here, and we should always tell ourselves: if what we have is really the truth, it'll remain true by itself. If it's an error, I'll be sure to find the truth in my next incarnation through my fervent search for it. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. And the spirit has imprinted in my body The eyes of sense, That through them I may see The lights of bodies. And the spirit has imprinted in my body Reason and sensation And feeling and will, That through them I may perceive bodies And act upon them. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. In my body lies the germ of the spirit. And I will incorporate into my spirit The super-sensible eyes That through them I may behold the light of spirits. And I will imprint in my spirit Wisdom and power and love, So that through me the spirits may act And I become a self-conscious organ Of their deeds. In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 12 Jun 1911, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

My dear sisters and brothers! We should realize that there's a big difference between outer, exoteric knowledge and the knowledge that theosophy gives us. When we let an outer perception work on us, ideas and concepts form in us; we get to know the thing we're looking at; thereby, we know something about it. Are things the same with theosophical knowledge? We also form concepts and ideas about man's four members, the earth's planetary conditions or the Akashic rcord when we're told about them, but there's something else connected with this. Whereas exoteric knowledge doesn't enrich us or leave anything behind after death, the same cannot be said about esoteric knowledge. It flows into our astral body and forms certain new members there; new threads become woven into the astral body and remain connected with our being.

We know that a man's astral body surrounds him in an egg form. Since an ego is working in it, it radiates. New threads and knowledge are woven in there, so that we can call it the “cognition body.” This knowledge body will become ever denser and stronger and will eventually be spirit self. Another planetary evolution of the earth is only possible through the fact that we develop it. On Jupiter this cognition body will be as dense as our astral body, on Venus as our etheric body, and on Vulcan it'll have become about as physical as our blood.

Now through what can this theosophical knowledge become so fruitful that the cognition body develops in the astral body? Let's clarify this through an example.

We're surrounded by physical, material air. We inhale it. That's how we live. In the bible we hear: God blew living breath into man, and he became a living soul. But the carbonic acid we exhale can't maintain life, it's lethal air. Death began because we were released from the lap of the Gods. Man ate from the tree of knowledge, that is, he had acquired his freedom and independence with Lucifer's help. That's why he was driven from paradise, that is, he's become a water man and then an earth man, and he's not an air man anymore as in the Lemurian epoch. Lucifer will have power over him as long as he's on earth. But the tragic thing about this being is that Lucifer's power doesn't extend beyond the earth. All pain and suffering arise through Lucifer and are connected with this tragedy.

There'll be no exoteric knowledge on Jupiter anymore. If man had remained in paradise, he would also have eaten of the tree of life. The latter was kept away from him through Lucifer's influence, and thereby the possibility of sinking much lower than he did by eating from the tree of knowledge. But now the tree of life becomes transformed into the symbol that initially means earth but that conceals a life that's all the greater and that a man can attain if he acquires the cross with the red roses.

Just as the earth is enveloped by the air that men breathe, so there's a special substance in the this air that wants to flow into men. It depends on us whether we exhale this spiritual substance again as lethal air or whether we connect it with our theosophical knowledge and weave the product into our astral body. This is important for the whole cosmos and not just for us. If we inhale this spiritual substance without making it productive in us, we take something from the cosmos but give it nothing in return and thereby prevent evolution. Whether the Jupiter condition can follow the earth condition depends on whether we increase these spiritual forces around the earth.

If we look at old Saturn we know that the first germ of our physical body arose there. It arose from Gods' thoughts, which condensed to what we are today. But on Saturn it was already counted upon that men would continue the work of the Gods, and we do this when we let the spiritual substance around us flow into us, to build up our cognition body from it.

It was the purpose of the Mystery of Golgotha to give men this opportunity. What is it that we take in with this spiritual substance? It's the Christ himself. This wasn't the case before the Mystery of Golgotha. Then men could say, Ex Deo nascimur. At that time candidates for initiation were prepared in such a way that they went back to what was handed down by the old Gods. But we know that with the Mystery of Golgotha the aura of our earth has changed, because Christ has become the spirit of our earth. He has poured himself substantially into this earth aura and is contained in it since then. Now is the point in time when this poured out Christ substance has become condensed, so that it can be taken in by men. Therefore: In Christo morimur means nothing else than to immerse oneself in this spiritual substance and to take in Christ completely with it, so that one can say: Not I, But Christ in me.

But one shouldn't forget that a light is always surrounded by a lot of shadows. Many errors will also creep in with the new wise things that have been given to our age, and so it's our holy duty to check every thing we hear with our healthy human intellect. This has always been emphasized in all Rosicrucian esotericism. But we should be tolerant towards people who make mistakes here, and we should always tell ourselves: if what we have is really the truth, it'll remain true by itself. If it's an error, I'll be sure to find the truth in my next incarnation through my fervent search for it.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 27 Oct 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 27 Oct 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
Great seriousness should reign in esoteric life. An esoteric lesson should be something sacred, something that we're entrusted with, and we should never take it to be something ordinary. Probably none of us were aware of the necessary seriousness when we asked to be taken into this esoteric circle. We should place this seriousness before our soul ever more now and try with all of our might to make a connection with the spiritual world, that we can do through an esoteric training, so that we don't fall back into everyday life. One should look upon all exercises that are given to us as ones that come from the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings. In esoteric life one should pay particular attention to egoism. We often tell ourselves that we're doing something selflessly, or we're unaware that we hate or envy someone, and as an esoteric we think that we should tell him the truth or should not have to take this or that from him. When such feelings arise we should realize that we're living in great delusions that are always caused by egoism. Such feelings always become manifest with a feeling of warmth that goes through the warmth ether part of our life body and also works on the physical body through the blood. We must realize that such feelings have a harmful effect on world evolution. The hierarchies who have the task of regulating karmic connections then get Luciferic beings to destroy these effects by working harmfully right down into the physical body. An icy cold feeing goes through us when we see our wickedness, whereas we get a warm feeling from satisfied passions when we don't have self-knowledge. A clairvoyant can see them in mostly human shapes. A man is often more untruthful than he realizes. Many say: I don't really have any dishonesty in me, I have discarded that entirely. But this dishonesty is often so slight that we're usually not aware of it. Say that we read that there's going to be a theosophical lecture in some city and we decide to go there We don't stop to think that a dear friend lives in that city whom we would like to see again, or that there'll be a party there that we want to go to. We think that we only want to go there because of the lecture, whereas there are other reasons. Our education may have gotten us to the point where we don't tell any big lies, but we may still have the desire to appear better than we are or to conceal the truth if it would make us look bad. All of this has a harmful effect on all world events. Such dishonesties work on our astral body, then on the life body's light ether and then on our physical nerves. Azazel makes us aware of all such dishonesties. He and the beings he leads mostly have human heads with raven's wings. With egoism, envy, and hate when we wake up we have a feeling of disgust that must be ascribed to our doppelganger's action, whereas one who tends towards dishonesty wakes up with a choking, scratchy feeling in his throat. He'll feel as if he was being pinched by pincers and tortured by a thousand arms. Azazel and his hosts do that. And if we sense his action in the way indicated, it should make us realize how deeply entangled in lies and dissimulations we still are. A third thing is indifference and dullness with respect to spiritual worlds. Many pupils listen to an esoteric lesson, but what's given doesn't find an echo in them. They can't get away from ordinary, daily life. They can't raise themselves spiritually or occupy themselves with spiritual thoughts. Others are curious and would like to see or experience something in the spiritual world, and they mediate without studying regularly because they're too lazy to do so. This works directly on the ego, from there on the astral body, then on the life body's chemical ether and then on the body's glands and fluids. Azael is at work in this. Azael and his hosts only want to bring about good effects in nonesoterics by working on them in a supplementary way, and not so that he makes them sick. The effects go deeper in an esoteric, and he's always supposed to be aware of his complete feeling of responsibility towards himself and the world. On awakening, a dull esoteric will feel like he's drowning in a flood, which feeling will be all the stronger the more he gives himself up to everyday sensory life. An esoteric should always be watching himself. It doesn't hurt if he sometimes broods about himself. That's the only way he'll understand what's suggested to us at the end of every esoteric lesson by the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings: In the spirit lay the germ of my body. And the spirit has imprinted in my body The eyes of sense, That through them I may see The lights of bodies. And the spirit has imprinted in my body Reason and sensation And feeling and will, That through them I may perceive bodies And act upon them. In the spirit lay the germ of my body. In my body lies the germ of the spirit. And I will incorporate into my spirit The super-sensible eyes That through them I may behold the light of spirits. And I will imprint in my spirit Wisdom and power and love, So that through me the spirits may act And I become a self-conscious organ Of their deeds. In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 27 Oct 1911, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

Great seriousness should reign in esoteric life. An esoteric lesson should be something sacred, something that we're entrusted with, and we should never take it to be something ordinary. Probably none of us were aware of the necessary seriousness when we asked to be taken into this esoteric circle. We should place this seriousness before our soul ever more now and try with all of our might to make a connection with the spiritual world, that we can do through an esoteric training, so that we don't fall back into everyday life. One should look upon all exercises that are given to us as ones that come from the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings. In esoteric life one should pay particular attention to egoism. We often tell ourselves that we're doing something selflessly, or we're unaware that we hate or envy someone, and as an esoteric we think that we should tell him the truth or should not have to take this or that from him. When such feelings arise we should realize that we're living in great delusions that are always caused by egoism. Such feelings always become manifest with a feeling of warmth that goes through the warmth ether part of our life body and also works on the physical body through the blood.

We must realize that such feelings have a harmful effect on world evolution. The hierarchies who have the task of regulating karmic connections then get Luciferic beings to destroy these effects by working harmfully right down into the physical body.

An icy cold feeing goes through us when we see our wickedness, whereas we get a warm feeling from satisfied passions when we don't have self-knowledge. A clairvoyant can see them in mostly human shapes.

A man is often more untruthful than he realizes. Many say: I don't really have any dishonesty in me, I have discarded that entirely. But this dishonesty is often so slight that we're usually not aware of it. Say that we read that there's going to be a theosophical lecture in some city and we decide to go there We don't stop to think that a dear friend lives in that city whom we would like to see again, or that there'll be a party there that we want to go to. We think that we only want to go there because of the lecture, whereas there are other reasons.

Our education may have gotten us to the point where we don't tell any big lies, but we may still have the desire to appear better than we are or to conceal the truth if it would make us look bad. All of this has a harmful effect on all world events. Such dishonesties work on our astral body, then on the life body's light ether and then on our physical nerves.

Azazel makes us aware of all such dishonesties. He and the beings he leads mostly have human heads with raven's wings. With egoism, envy, and hate when we wake up we have a feeling of disgust that must be ascribed to our doppelganger's action, whereas one who tends towards dishonesty wakes up with a choking, scratchy feeling in his throat. He'll feel as if he was being pinched by pincers and tortured by a thousand arms. Azazel and his hosts do that. And if we sense his action in the way indicated, it should make us realize how deeply entangled in lies and dissimulations we still are.

A third thing is indifference and dullness with respect to spiritual worlds. Many pupils listen to an esoteric lesson, but what's given doesn't find an echo in them. They can't get away from ordinary, daily life. They can't raise themselves spiritually or occupy themselves with spiritual thoughts. Others are curious and would like to see or experience something in the spiritual world, and they mediate without studying regularly because they're too lazy to do so. This works directly on the ego, from there on the astral body, then on the life body's chemical ether and then on the body's glands and fluids. Azael is at work in this. Azael and his hosts only want to bring about good effects in nonesoterics by working on them in a supplementary way, and not so that he makes them sick. The effects go deeper in an esoteric, and he's always supposed to be aware of his complete feeling of responsibility towards himself and the world.

On awakening, a dull esoteric will feel like he's drowning in a flood, which feeling will be all the stronger the more he gives himself up to everyday sensory life.

An esoteric should always be watching himself. It doesn't hurt if he sometimes broods about himself. That's the only way he'll understand what's suggested to us at the end of every esoteric lesson by the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings:

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 30 Oct 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 30 Oct 1911, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner
If we dive down within us, we'll find a lot of beings there. This may seem strange to us at first, but the more we learn to look into spiritual worlds, the more we'll see that a number of spiritual beings are working in us—often to undo the destruction that we men bring about through foolishness. Let's ask ourselves where disease comes from. We know that every disease has a physical cause and also a spiritual one that must be looked for in immorality, passions or other mistakes in this existence but mostly in the previous one. The overcoming of every disease releases force, but this doesn't mean that one should drag out an illness as long as possible to make rapid progress. Everyone should do his best to get well fast. But if he's been sick for three weeks or six months, he should look at this as karma and bear it patiently and calmly. But there's another reason why disease is something beneficial. Since the Lemurian epoch and on through Atlantis until the Mystery of Golgotha, mankind sank ever more deeply into matter. Through the fact that we follow our drives and passions, we were brought ever further away from the goals that the Gods set for us. Disease is what bends this downward impulse and gives us an upward direction again. Modern science condemns theosophical teachings and calls them dreams, but just read John's Gospel or any theosophical book and one will see the enlivening, refreshing effect it has, whereas a materialistic or monistic book desiccates one's soul. And since purely materialistic thinking only uses up forces the consequence in the next existence is that such people will be feeble-minded. Their brain will be a spongy watery mass; they'll want to think, but won't be able to. This feeble-mindedness is a good thing that keeps these people from sinking irrevocably. For through the fact that the brain is kept from materialistic thinking, the eternal can work on the core of the man's being after two successive incarnations, and influence it so that it strives upward again. Something you'll all experience sooner or later in meditation is that one feels entirely loosened, the etheric body expands, one feels carried out to distant world boundaries, and then suddenly, one feels as if one were riveted to this world again, that one can't get away from it; it's as if one were sitting in a vise. That's good. It's our karma from previous incarnations that holds us fast like this. If our exercise would immediately take us up into the spiritual world before we took care of our karma, the result would be a long fall. Mehazel is the leader of these hosts who fix us to the earth. Like Samael, Azazel, and Azael, we get to know him when we descend into our interior. Then we'll really see that our interior is a field of action for demons, and as it says in the Bible: My name is Legion. We're supposed to become acquainted with these beings on our esoteric path so that we become sensible and gradually outgrow them. Azael works in such a way that he harmonizes what arises through dullness with respect to the spiritual world. We take over Azael's work when we acquire equanimity. Equanimity doesn't mean to jubilate or to complain about pain, but to recognize the reality of karmic action in everything. We shouldn't just believe in the karma idea theoretically, but should sense that karma is active in everything that hits us. This is the scourging stage in Christian initiation, that is, one should calmly confront all the pains of life that hit us like the blows of a whip and know that they're conditioned karmically. That's true equanimity. We know that the physical world is only an inverted mirror image of the astral world. A very important meditation to make the words “The world is only maya” effective is the following. Everything around is really there in reverse. What we see from above downwards is really there from below upwards. A plant's root is above and the flower down below. The starry heavens we have before us is the result of spiritual beings who are really active behind us. Any sound that's received by the left ear comes from the right. We must become familiar with these facts and also with complementary colors. If someone has a lot of red spots imagine that they're green, or imagine that projecting limbs are cavities. One imagines the green in a plant as reddish purple and a brown root as dark blue. One should permeate all of these exercises with reverence and devotion. That's the feeling with which we can hope to approach the world's Godhead; whereas God remains an abstraction to mere thinking. If we glow through our thinking with reverence, devotion and humility, we may hope to penetrate the spiritual world.

266-II. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes II: 1910–1912: Esoteric Lesson 30 Oct 1911, Berlin
Translator Unknown
Rudolf Steiner

If we dive down within us, we'll find a lot of beings there. This may seem strange to us at first, but the more we learn to look into spiritual worlds, the more we'll see that a number of spiritual beings are working in us—often to undo the destruction that we men bring about through foolishness. Let's ask ourselves where disease comes from. We know that every disease has a physical cause and also a spiritual one that must be looked for in immorality, passions or other mistakes in this existence but mostly in the previous one. The overcoming of every disease releases force, but this doesn't mean that one should drag out an illness as long as possible to make rapid progress. Everyone should do his best to get well fast. But if he's been sick for three weeks or six months, he should look at this as karma and bear it patiently and calmly.

But there's another reason why disease is something beneficial. Since the Lemurian epoch and on through Atlantis until the Mystery of Golgotha, mankind sank ever more deeply into matter. Through the fact that we follow our drives and passions, we were brought ever further away from the goals that the Gods set for us. Disease is what bends this downward impulse and gives us an upward direction again.

Modern science condemns theosophical teachings and calls them dreams, but just read John's Gospel or any theosophical book and one will see the enlivening, refreshing effect it has, whereas a materialistic or monistic book desiccates one's soul. And since purely materialistic thinking only uses up forces the consequence in the next existence is that such people will be feeble-minded. Their brain will be a spongy watery mass; they'll want to think, but won't be able to. This feeble-mindedness is a good thing that keeps these people from sinking irrevocably. For through the fact that the brain is kept from materialistic thinking, the eternal can work on the core of the man's being after two successive incarnations, and influence it so that it strives upward again.

Something you'll all experience sooner or later in meditation is that one feels entirely loosened, the etheric body expands, one feels carried out to distant world boundaries, and then suddenly, one feels as if one were riveted to this world again, that one can't get away from it; it's as if one were sitting in a vise. That's good. It's our karma from previous incarnations that holds us fast like this. If our exercise would immediately take us up into the spiritual world before we took care of our karma, the result would be a long fall. Mehazel is the leader of these hosts who fix us to the earth. Like Samael, Azazel, and Azael, we get to know him when we descend into our interior. Then we'll really see that our interior is a field of action for demons, and as it says in the Bible: My name is Legion. We're supposed to become acquainted with these beings on our esoteric path so that we become sensible and gradually outgrow them. Azael works in such a way that he harmonizes what arises through dullness with respect to the spiritual world. We take over Azael's work when we acquire equanimity. Equanimity doesn't mean to jubilate or to complain about pain, but to recognize the reality of karmic action in everything. We shouldn't just believe in the karma idea theoretically, but should sense that karma is active in everything that hits us. This is the scourging stage in Christian initiation, that is, one should calmly confront all the pains of life that hit us like the blows of a whip and know that they're conditioned karmically. That's true equanimity.

We know that the physical world is only an inverted mirror image of the astral world. A very important meditation to make the words “The world is only maya” effective is the following. Everything around is really there in reverse. What we see from above downwards is really there from below upwards. A plant's root is above and the flower down below. The starry heavens we have before us is the result of spiritual beings who are really active behind us. Any sound that's received by the left ear comes from the right. We must become familiar with these facts and also with complementary colors. If someone has a lot of red spots imagine that they're green, or imagine that projecting limbs are cavities. One imagines the green in a plant as reddish purple and a brown root as dark blue. One should permeate all of these exercises with reverence and devotion. That's the feeling with which we can hope to approach the world's Godhead; whereas God remains an abstraction to mere thinking. If we glow through our thinking with reverence, devotion and humility, we may hope to penetrate the spiritual world.

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