The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Meditation is like a system of nature forces, through which man does something not only for himself but for the whole world. Meditation differs from the forces of nature in that they do unconsciously what we do consciously. But in truth, this is only correct from a human perspective that these forces act unconsciously; actually it is conscious. It would be wrong, of course, if we said that in the clock there is a little soul that moves the wheels, the spring and the rest; but nevertheless this whole apparatus is put together by a guiding intelligence. It is the same with the forces of nature. There, too, it is the dhyanic intelligence of the higher beings who consciously decree everything in such a way that the nature forces in their combination result in the entities of the various realms. In man the dhyanic intelligence is inserted into his own being.

We remember the three elemental kingdoms. In nature the elemental beings act as creators; the work of the higher forces of nature are visible through them. Within the entities of the three elemental kingdoms, human beings also participate. For we would not be able to control our physical make-up if it were not so. There we work together in community with the beings of the first elemental kingdom. In that which belongs to the animal, the astral elemental beings co-operate; in the Rupic-Mental those of the third kingdom cooperate.

Only where man acts independently, do elemental beings not work with him. In his brain-life a fourth elemental kingdom arises; it is, as it were, the elemental kingdom drawn into him. Here he is master. He rightly extends nature's efficacy. He takes the lead as a thinking man. In the Kama-Manas no other elemental being participates; here man participates as a mineral man, as an elemental being himself.

Today man can only direct his physical body; he is able to change the physical through his actions. He is conscious on the physical plane but has experiences on the astral plane through his astral body, and on the mental plane through his mental body. Only what we call his physical body is properly developed. His astral body has not been developed as far. As far as the mineral body is concerned, man differs from all animals. Man is formed in the shape of a cross, while the animal has a horizontal spine. On the mineral plane this upright position is characteristic of man; he has developed the physical body, to the point that it must really be at, although his physical body will continue to be perfected until the end of this round. But he does not have the likeness of God in the astral or in the mental. The astral body is still on the level of the animal existence; the lower mental on the plant level; the Arupic-Mental body is three levels lower. It is the task of the future rounds to develop these bodies. In the seventh round the Arupic body is to become as perfect as it can be. This progress in his development, which man sees before him, is summed up in a certain formula: his physical nature is complete; the astral body, which surrounds the physical like something that is still to grow, is still in living development, is in a rudimentary stage.

"I am the jewel in the lotus flower."—Aum mani padme hum.

Aum, the innermost, the very life-force in man, which he strikes only with the sound;

Mani, the stone transformed, the jewel, manas;

Padme, the astral;

Hum, once again, I am.

This rhythmic Aum is yet only the imagined innermost essence of Man. And when it is placed before the soul with the right thought-content, Man does something cosmically; he resonates with the highest rhythmic world-vibrations; his single tone sounds harmoniously within the entire spherical world.

This is how Man prepares himself for that which he must absolutely attain if he is to undergo the proper Pitri development.

Man must now form his astral body. The elemental beings have built the three lower corporealities with him. To the extent that he can, he must take his astral body into his own hands. Out of an undifferentiated organism the sensory body has come into being. The astral body is still undifferentiated and must be organized by man himself. This is done by a review of the day which is done in the evening. By doing this, I must face myself as I would face a stranger. Because he is stuck in his lower astral man cannot work on himself. He is united with his astral and his "I" is not free. Only when he stands next to himself can he organize the astral.

The astral body can form senses just like the physical body. There will be seven senses, five of which can already be seen clearly in the astral aura. Directly in the center of the body is a six-petaled lotus flower. When man begins to meditate, these wheels begin to turn. This rotation means that the chakra is developing into the sense organ. The chakras are the developing astral sense organs.

Next is the ten-petaled lotus flower in the navel area. Near the heart, the twelve-petaled one. By the larynx, the sixteen-petaled one. Between the eyebrows the two-petaled one. The lotus flowers will develop very specific forms when the astral body becomes organized. Only then will man be conscious on the astral plane.

This organization is the task of this part of meditation. The main thing is to remove from consciousness everything that is external sense impressions and memories. Free we must be from all sense impressions; create absolute inner peace; control ourselves completely from the inner self—not be controlled by the outer world. All that composes our earthly-spatial personality has nothing to do with our higher self, unless we draw it out as a lesson, suck it out like a bee, [when we] form the eternal out of the temporal. One makes oneself completely free by getting hold of oneself outside of time and space. We can not imagine the overall human by thinking of our temporal personality, but rather when we think of our higher self which is pure like the Sun. We are human and nothing more than human when we utter this formula, which has been uttered by adepts for eighteen million years, ever since there have been human beings.

The second thing is to organize the lower mental body by concentrating on one particular thing. One chooses an inspired scripture; all these teachings are received from higher planes; there are spiritual forces of nature which lie in these teachings; their full truth and power lie on the mental plane. When we allow a completely empty, free field of consciousness to work upon us without speculation, we accomplish what we are meant to accomplish. What belongs to the mental work must be done outside of meditation. During meditation, the sentence must speak to us. If a person cannot yet let the sentence work on him completely, it is good to have it in front of him as if on a blackboard, even to write it down and hold it in front of him. We must look at foreign thoughts like waves of the sea, which we always chase away; we must purify ourselves from all waves, keep the field of consciousness pure. By having such writings created by inspiration, the masters of the different times have given us powers through which we work on our mental body to achieve what we must achieve in the sixth round. The Theosophical movement offers that which helps man to do this work. Not all will reach the goal; the undeveloped mental bodies will remain behind in the eighth sphere.

Up until the middle of the Lemurian period people practiced this concentration by themselves, which was as necessary for them as eating and drinking is for people today. In the second half of the Lemurian race, for example, people were still made of air, who did not need food and drink, but felt the longing to absorb the spirit. So this is concentration within meditation.

Developing the Arupic in the mental is achieved through the devotional part. Raising oneself up to a great role model teaches true humility, where man enters into the mood to what he should elevate to—the sensation that is exalted.

The purpose of the evening review is to turn the life of the past into lessons for the life of the future. Some say: yes, I do it every day. Self-examination is also a double-edged sword; it is fruitful only when it really detaches the higher self from [the lower]. People do not become strangers enough to themselves, worrying ...

This is not unjustified, theosophy does not say to become hard-hearted; but often we prevent something by worrying and worrying about past things, prevent doing better. The purpose of meditative work is to pull oneself out; during the day one can have sorrow and worry, during the review [one must reject them] as well as the everyday thoughts. It is good to make this day review from backward to forward. For man lives toward the future, and in truth the future is approaching, perfection is at the end. If we extend [the review] not to twelve hours, but to twenty-four hours, we will see that it is good. The dreams will be only confusedly conscious at first, but it is good that one extends one's memory, for thereby the sense of the astral is sharpened, and the consciousness becomes continuous. One learns to understand that the dream life has a higher reality. To man the astral appears in distorted images, because man is not able to see properly. Later comes the moment when during the dream man is fully conscious, and this leads to the continuity of consciousness, so that it becomes indifferent whether we are awake or dreaming. This is also the way in which the masters teach the occult disciples.

One should not care whether one is a valuable personality or not. As for the morning meditation, it is mainly a matter of having a completely sightless consciousness, so that this void is filled with spiritual content ... or scripture. Let's try to bring about this emptiness by imagining the absolute, dark and empty space that has no boundary. The state we have to invoke is just like when we are asleep. To exclude the senses and the memory is the art. Then we imagine the absolute empty and dark space, and then out of this blackest darkness we let rise: "aum mani padme hum" - then the formula and the elevation to the higher self. Again darkness - and then as on a wall the sentence.

Sitting down more often, when there is time and opportunity, and thinking of nothing at all is a good exercise. It is hard to resist the always angry thoughts. This even strengthens the physical organism. Very significant is to get free the brain with present astral body.

A strong reason why the astral body is egoistic is the thoughts; everyone surrounds himself with a shell that is astral. When the thoughts are taken away, this astral stuff dissolves again, and nothing is better than when an organism is left to itself. Man has such a harmonious heart, lungs and so on, because the higher formers have created on it and he could ruin little. One acquires also thereby a certain exercise to scare away thoughts.

With the concentration it is necessary that from it is sharply separated the thinking, the speculating about a [meditation] sentence. We must already be finished with it. Such a sentence comes from higher experience and always contains more than we know. Even the inspired one meditates on his own sentences. So firm is his belief that it is higher revelation.

Patience must be so long, even in failure, that the unconditional belief that things will get better one day does not waver. Not forcing things, not forcing, is necessary. Patience must be there in tremendous measure; it is it that comes over the occult student in the

Meditation must be poured out completely. It is through this that he becomes a disciple. As the plant does not skip a single one to get to the last, crowning one, so the disciple; never skip an intermediate link; detour where necessary; form is adapted to the cleft of the rock. Patience, constancy and steadfastness are the qualities of the divine nature that we have to develop. It is a matter of mind, not of success.

The devotional part then follows.

Phrases: Let us keep in mind the one that basically man is more perfect as a physical being than as astral and mental. Imperfection lies in the fact that man today is a tripartite being and still clumsy in the handling of what are the higher principles and in the free use of the lower principles. For he can never become happy if he abandons himself to the lower principles like the animal, which does not have its mental body on the same plan as its physical and astral. Animals can be trained, but man works through the animal again to the higher plan, which then works down. But only the one who moves freely on the mental plane, only an occultist, is allowed to do that.

Man must keep the balance between his mental and physical nature, oscillate back and forth between both. This is already expressed in the exterior. The animal is horizontal; the human being is imprinted with being torn out of the physical vitality. This uprightness of the head is conditioned by the balancing between the physical and the higher spiritual. Because it is so, the head of man as a sign of his intellectuality is the organ which is pushed in the middle ...

The animal head is only instinctive. In occult relation the human head is quite different from the animal one. With the animal completely ... With man a beginning; the stream is poured out into the animal and has found its end there - dead end. With man there is a new beginning; through all the openings of the head all the streams go on, so that man through his head is a bridge, a connecting link between the higher and lower nature.

The animal eye looks out only to the sensed object; the human eye connects the mental image with the object, and thereby opens to the spirit; while the animal eye forms a cul-de-sac.

The main human openings are related to space by the seven planets, to time by the seven days of the week. The sacred line in the world, the lemniscate, is to be traced here; we recognize in this way the occult placement of man in the world-entirety.

Through the right eye passes the second principle, Budhi; through the left the third principle, Manas; through the right ear the mind soul; through the left the sentient soul; through the right nostril the etheric body; through the left nostril the astral body, Linga sharira. And on the top of the head, in the future, there will be an opening for the outpouring of Atman. Through the mouth flows the Word, which must always be thought through. Through the seven planets these main openings are placed in relationship to space.

The top opening on the head has a connection with Jupiter, the right eye is connected with Mercury, the right ear with Saturn, the right nostril with the Sun, the left nostril with the Moon, the left ear with Mars, the left eye with Venus. Through the seven days of the week they are connected with time. Here it is necessary to notice the Sacred Line of the World. It points us to the occult construction of man in the universe.

Concentration is followed by a prayer part, which should consist of awe and reverence [toward] the great spirits who have penetrated deeply into the mysteries of nature and the universe and who are above ordinary human nature.

When the moon is waning, nothing new should enter into meditation.

Right Eye Second Principle, Budhi Mercury
Left eye Third principle, Manas Venus
Right ear mind soul Saturn
Left ear sentient soul Mars
Right nostril etheric body Sun
Left nostril astral body moon

The Bible, the New Testament and also the Old Testament are both written in figurative esoteric language and contain truths in allegories. The New Testament is written down later. The way of communication by writing is not an old one; still in the beginning of the Christian development one thought to profane the holiness of the teachings by writing them down. Earlier church fathers - an Origen, a Clement of Alexandria - considered what they wrote down to be only one tenth as important as the living word. Something living, immediate was sought in the Word, which is not to be found in the Scriptures. One writes for someone undefined and writes for those whom one does not know. Spoken was out of the needs of the congregation, which often had occult preliminary studies. In Ephesus one spoke differently than in Corinth; in Jewish churches differently than in Gentile churches. For earlier church teachers were filled with the occult principle of being tolerant. They knew that Christianity could be drawn out of the various religions. Now these speeches were rewritten, often later from memory, so the literal cannot always be taken strictly. But they have an occult power which acts on people, and with fidelity they reproduce sayings of a depth which can only be an expression of what is called the highest wisdom. [... ]

As long as occultism was at the bottom of religion, the stone kingdom was regarded as that which is most perfect; the plant has only a small part of Kama in itself, but it has it nevertheless; animal and man are filled with it; the chaste, desireless of the crystal was put up as an ideal to the disciple; the human intellect serves desire, concupiscence; it is therefore not perfect at its present stage, it serves the special being, while the mineral emerges from the general nature and dissolves into the general. As the emblem of man striving for understanding, one has considered the serpents - Naga - who brought understanding to men, [they were] therefore called seducers, since they brought with understanding the freedom to choose between good and evil.

It was wisdom of God that man possessed before middle of Lemurian race - symbol: sun. Human wisdom after the middle of the Lemurian race - symbol: snake. This passed to the uninitiated teachers: Ophites - worshippers of snakes, Christian Gnostic sect. Within the Jews, Pharisees and Sadducees were such teachers of worldly wisdom, Nagas.

Whoever was initiated in Judaism was called a prophet. This human wisdom had to be transformed again into divine wisdom. Therefore, Christ had to confront the Pharisees and Sadducees - the serpents; and John, his forerunner, had to reject the Pharisees and Sadducees accordingly.

The occult wisdom was taught to those who would become Christians; but in pictures, proverbs. This is clear from the Gospels themselves. The intellectual wisdom of the Pharisees was to be overcome by a new wisdom of God. The Christ incarnated in a man was to teach as occultism. The stones are perfected in their nature, not yet the astral and mental. Therefore, people should evolve upward and make their other bodies as perfect as the physicalmineral. <"To create children from stones", this means. [...]

All preceding life is a lesson for the following one; and indeed we must carry over into the future what is special in each realm; only by gathering the fruits of the physical world come over into the others. Therefore, if one should create a model, then in this also exemplarily the preservation of the essential - the bone structure - of the physical had to be indicated as preserved.

The luminous incarnation of the Christ forms the cosmic model. When he exemplified to men what they had to do, he could not point them to their astral body, to their mental. This had to be removed. Blood - etheric body - and water - astral - flow out by stabbing him in the side. The bone system corresponds to the physical. So, if what really corresponds to the human being in the physical should be taken over, the bone skeleton had to be taken over. The mineral is in man the already good, perfect; the best he must take over with all his strength into the other world. The initiate was told, "His bones must not be broken.

It is one of the deepest symbols, this not breaking the bones. He who does not want to fall into the eighth sphere must - like the bee the honey - carry the physical over into the other world.

[Let us now come to] Prometheus, that Greek mythical hero who fetches fire from heaven, while Zeus wanted to deprive mankind of freedom. Fire is the most important force in our present culture. With the Atlantians it was the life force. Only when people could no longer control the living, they tried to become masters of the inanimate through fire. Prometheus is the initiator, who at the important moment gave to the people what became their most important means of culture. The fifth root race was created from the fifth subrace of the fourth root race, the Ursemites, and a separated part was brought to the desert Gobi and Shamo. From this arose as the second subrace the Persians.

Zarathustra gave them the fire service, and the sacrificial fire was offered as thanksgiving to Manu, the leader. The Manu himself, who led over to the deserts of Gobi and Shamo, has held the Greek saga in Prometheus; and now Prometheus has to suffer his heavy punishment, because by the intellectuality the infinite sufferings are caused. The striving humanity can be redeemed by what? Again by an initiate, Heracles is an initiate - descends into the underworld. Everywhere we find similar Prometheus sagas, with the remarkable addition that through spiritual wisdom, through an initiate, comes redemption. On higher planes the truths take place. Reality is the expression of a higher fact. The physical lance is the expression for a higher truth, which takes place on other planes. Not mysticism is Christianity, but fact, but as fact mystic. For a long time nothing can happen in these lines, and thereby again the facts crowd together. Occult sentence: It is below everything like above. Above, a spiritual phase takes the place of the intellectual one: The Nagas, Pharisees are fought by spiritual teachers.

There are certain expressions that have been in use in all secret schools since ancient times to hide certain facts from the profane. For example, the expression 'on the mountain'. It means the 'interior of the temple', where the secret school is located and the secret disciple is initiated into certain things. “Jesus went up into the mountain,” that is to say, he led them into the interior of his mystery school and expounded what he had taught in parables before the multitude.

The Sermon on the Mount, with its tremendous and momentous significance, could only be expounded to the disciples, not to the people. It is secret because it contains tremendously significant demands. The very first sentence reads:

“Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” [Matt. 5,3]

Blessed means to be 'blessed'; those who will ascend from the physical to the spiritual, who long for the spirit; the Kingdom of Heaven springs from within them. There are 3 x 3 beatitudes, 9. The number nine, which through certain manipulations can be reduced to seven, is a holy number.

Three virtues that correspond to the lower nature are: longing, suffering and peace. Through longing we are drawn up; through suffering we overcome and come to peace.

The second group of virtues, those that lead upwards, are: justice, kindness and a benevolent heart. If we compare this second group with the first, we find that the first group relates to the individual, while the others relate to our fellow human beings.

Thirdly, there are the virtues that lead upwards to the higher beings. First, by being tolerant; only to be acquired through strict self-discipline – peaceableness. He who speaks to offend another, to say what pleases him, cannot find the way to higher entities. The second is to be strict against oneself and to suffer persecution for the sake of one's righteousness; to take upon oneself any persecution for the sake of righteousness. Third, to declare oneself a disciple of the Master.

These 3 x 3 virtues are now expounded in detail in the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” [Matt. 5,4]

Peace is found by the one who draws from the realm of the earth whatever can be had, but does not covet.

The Lord saw something rhythmic in the number nine and had to impress it on the disciples.

An even more magnificent example of being on the mountain is the transfiguration. It is said that the disciples came into a kind of special state, of heightened consciousness. 'A cloud overshadowed them.' This is the suggestion of devachanic clairvoyance, where the past and future disappear so that they see the three of them side by side. Jesus reveals to them the secret meaning of his basic saying: The Way is what is first revealed to man. It is also called 'Elias' – 'Elias', who shows the way. 'Moses' is also called 'truth' in the secret teaching. It is Moses insofar as he received the commandments; he sets the goal. Christ is the life-awakening example: life. The great religious founders – Zoroaster, Buddha, Hermes – gave teachings. What Christ taught was not the new thing that mattered, but that he lived it, that is what matters. – You are not to entrust it to anyone until the Christ comes to life in his own soul.

Another secret became clear, that of the returning Elijah in John the Baptist; he taught reincarnation here in its entirety. That he did not teach it outwardly has its good reason in the task of Christianity: to sanctify the personality. — In ancient times, people said to themselves: This life is one of many that I endure here, will benefit me later — Egypt, laborers. Now people should learn to appreciate the individual life, to recognize its full value; Christianity is 1900 years old; all people have gone through it once. Because about one reincarnation time has passed, the reincarnation doctrine is now being taught again. Once people felt the value of the individual life. Now they have to return to the higher self.

The most profound, mystical gospel is the Gospel of John. According to research by Protestant theologians, it is the latest, written 150 years later. This is based on the lack of writing in the beginning. Who is the writer of this gospel? We do not find the name John anywhere. Only the designation “the disciple whom the master loves”. In the secret language, this means: one who has been initiated by the master himself. Who was at the cross? Jesus' mother, Mary, her sister. Nowhere does it say that the mother's name was Mary. Let us read about the wedding at Cana. “Woman, what do I have to do with you?” Let us read further at the crucifixion: “Woman, behold your son.” All this can only be understood by the researcher of secrets: the people of an initiate are referred to as his mother. At the same time, he has outgrown his people, he arises from them but grows beyond them. Here we, as 'mother', must understand the Jewish people. Mary of Magdala represents the part of the people who believe in him because of his miracles; 'Cleophas' wife' represents the part of the people who feel Jewish. But he has outgrown the part of the Jewish people that forms a common basis, which had already absorbed Alexandrian wisdom, which was not limited to Palestine; this is the own mother from whom Jesus has grown out; the disciple is to take her to himself. Thus the Gospel of John spreads the truth on a Jewish-Alexandrian basis – Jews in the diaspora – in the learned form. This mother had become nameless, scattered throughout the world. Wedding = festivity. Symbol of transformation for the old religion, which was water, into the wine of the new covenant. He is founding something new, but his hour has not yet come. Therefore: 'Woman, what do I have to do with you?'

Who is the disciple whom Jesus loved?

The 'Wedding at Cana' is only found in the Gospel of John because it is one of the deepest secrets that Jesus entrusts to the disciple to whom he has initiated. Does he say at any point that he has been initiated? Yes. The story of the miracle of Lazarus is only found here. It is an initiation. Here the disciple whom Jesus loves presents himself. Until then, there is no mention of the disciple whom Jesus loves; only afterwards. The one who is awakened in this way is above the personal, needs no name. He also knows in the highest sense who Christ is: the Incarnate Logos. All Egyptian theosophy is here: the Word is what comes from an earlier development, arupic; life is the Rupic; the light is the astral; it shines in the darkness - the earthly. One comes to the literal interpretation of the Gospels indirectly, after receiving the key.

“Let us not rend the garment.” The garments are the various coverings; they can be divided except where the high priestly dignity is concerned. An initiate will distinguish himself from others by being absolutely tolerant, never pushing his opinion to the fore, but waiting until the facts speak. — [John in] “Chapter 20”.

Thus the Gospel of John contains not only words, but deeds that give life everywhere.

First we show how ancient are the findings - usually facts still reaching into ancient times - which surround us daily. Example of the days of the week written out of the "face" and on the other hand taken out of the cosmos.

Man consists of seven principles, four of which are already formed, three are in the process of becoming. When he is conscious of his temporal development, he must think of the number 7, of the ratio of 3 and 4. Man should keep this in mind every day, this is what the occultists wanted. From this ratio of 4 to 7 the days of the week are brought down from heaven. The ancients thought of the cosmos this way: earth, moon, Mercury, Venus, sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.

With the Copernican [system], however, it is not true. It behaves with it as follows: It depends on where you stand. Copernicus assumed: How do the celestial bodies move if you take the sun as the center? The ancients: How, if one assumes the earth as center? It depends only on the perspective.

The ancient occult astrologers have said: every day has four main times of the day. These are to remind man of his four lower principles. Now they have taken the ratio of 4 to 7 and written it down seven times. We start from the morning and go from the sun, consecrate the first day to the sun; [the ancients] went around and around the cycle until the 7 was over. Now they named each of these days after its morning: from the morning consecrated to each planet is taken the day of the week. This gives:

[Morning - Moon = Monday
Afternoon - Mercury
Morning night - Venus
Afternoon night - Sun

Morning - Mars = Tuesday - Tin
Afternoon - Jupiter
Morning night - Saturn
Afternoon night - Moon

Morning - Mercury = Wednesday, Mercury Day, Wednesday - Wotan
Afternoon - Venus
Morning night - Sun
Afternoon night - Mars

Morning - Jupiter = Thursday - Donar -, Jupiter day afternoon - Saturn mid-morning night - Moon mid-night - Mercury

Morning - Venus = Friday, Venus day
Afternoon - Sun
Morning night - Mars
Afternoon night - Jupiter

Morning - Saturn = Saturday, Saturn day, Saturday
Afternoon - Moon
Morning night - Mercury
Afternoon night - Venus

Morning - Sun = Sunday
Afternoon - Mars
Morning night - Jupiter
Afternoon night - Saturn]

The division of time should have a meaning, not erwas indefinite remain. He should not live an hour without inserting himself into the whole universe, because man is born of the universe and is connected with it through each of his organs.

When a shot is fired somewhere and the wave vibrations are created, they come to the generation of consciousness through the ear. It is set up to perceive vibrating air, and would have no purpose if there were no vibrating air. Therefore, the occultist said: It is clear that there were no such organs before there was air. Therefore, the element of air is related to the sensory tool of the ear. Therefore, he researched the connection between element and sense. To every element belongs a sense. The perception of sound belongs earlier than the ear - because man could perceive earlier with the ether-ear. In the ether-ear there has been a much infinitely finer sound; and another tool, another organ of perception existed in the first race, which transformed itself in the second race to the present ear. Likewise it has gone with other organs.

The first element that is present around us is the earth, the solid. The second element is water, which in physics is called the liquid. The third element is fire, the fourth is air, the fifth is ether. To these five elements the human sense tools stand in a quite certain relationship. To the earth the sense of the smell. Before there was a solid, there could be no sense of smell. The sons of fire mist and water did not have it. Only what evaporates as a solid can be smelled.

The water is mystically related to the sense of taste. Fire to the face. Air to feeling, the ether to hearing. As the first root race was, the ether passed into air, and there the finer sense of hearing, which the people had in the beginning, changed into the physical sense, and at the same time the sense of feeling, which was perceptible only as temperature - sense of warmth, arose. As the sense of warmth was then, there is no organ today, it has atrophied. Out of the opening in the skull stood a funnel-shaped organ - now pineal gland, which he stretched out. Gradually, the sense of warmth becomes more physical and - the fire mist time comes - transforms into an organ that can perceive not only warm and cold, but light and dark, and also color differences: an eye, sense of sight.

When the water time begins, this one sense of sight is still present - Cyclops. Then gradually a new one had joined the sense of sight: the sense of taste; and at the same time, how the water condenses, how it becomes . As long as man lived in the air, there was no possibility of seeing distances. Only with the solidification of the earth the necessity to perceive distances begins. You can perceive distances only if you have two eyes, they behave like a stereoscope, make things physical, round them. - With one eye you would see things as if painted on a wall. - This is caused by the intersection of the eye axes. Two eyes are formed instead of the one frontal eye. Approximately in the last Lemurian time.

Through this also the ability is formed to adapt the sense of feeling to what is perceived as distance. And last of all, the sense of smell is formed in the Atlantean period.

So we have an ever-increasing solidification in the development of the earth and with it a formation of the corresponding five senses.

Even earlier, before man had the sense of hearing of the ether, he had another. In truth, we have seven elements, two even higher and finer elements than ether: the divine fire - and still higher = Akasha.

In the future, the senses will change in the same way. And as now the sense of hearing is the highest, still higher ones will arise. The sense of hearing is already in development. During the Atlantean time language has developed; in the very last Lemurian subrace it began. The first speaking was only an expression of desire and displeasure. The sensation sound gradually connects itself with the being that evokes a feeling, and thus the designation language gradually emerges.

First feelings, objects, then mental images, and lastly only (so rightly with the Ursemites) abstract thoughts were designated.

Similarly, the sense of feeling will continue to change and acquire a new ability to perceive the astral, which will perceive the "divine flame". It will have a very definite relationship with the human heart. It will receive an immediate impression of the sensation of the fellow being.

Similarly, the spiritual sense - the pineal gland, which is in the process of regression - will develop and perceive in the Akasha in a completely different form. As a luminous crown of rays it will be seen; this organ is called: the Kundalini light. - The man moving in the ether could perceive the word moving in the clay, which later solidified to the earth; he heard the harmony of the spheres.

This consciousness that man is not a single special being was expressed by the ancient teachers in such a way that they continually reminded him of his connection with the whole starry world.

Let us make clear exactly the position of the three kingdoms in nature, the difference between mineral, plant, and animal.

Let us begin with the difference between the nature of a mineral and that of a plant. Here we notice that the minerals, plants and animals of our physical plan cannot be authoritative for the concepts we form. We must think of them on higher plans. What we can trace on the physical plan is mixed product. Lower animals are often called "plant animals>. They were much more common in the first stages, back when there were no warm-blooded animals. They are so small now, which were more grandiose and beautiful then, because they have atrophied by the change of the earth. So, what we meet today cannot give any objection against mystical explanation, because mixtures have arisen. Many plants have the trait of the animal kingdom.

Let us now realize the difference between real mineral, plant and animal.

Let us consider common salt to know what a mineral is. We know it powdered and as a beautiful transparent cube. These cubes form by themselves when we put table salt in absolutely still warm water. Common salt, then, is a body that is not naturally formless, but has a definite shape, that of the cube; this is the natural form of the mineral. Common salt is composed of two substances: Sodium, a white metal when it is free, and Chlorine, a gas when it is free. At the sodium and chlorine must sit the forces that, when they come together, form the crystal. Rock crystal is silicon and oxygen, forms a hexagon. Pyrite - [iron] and sulfur - chemically combined, form an octahedron [or even a cube]. Shape is the form which is given to a particular substance. The mineral has shape. If we take a hammer and pound the hexahedron, pulverize it, then the salt cube is over, and the same forces must form anew the shape in question. There is no question of the cube having a definite existence [beyond itself]

The mineral is a natural being whose form is always anew animated by the general forces of nature.

The plant also has a definite form, not so geometrical, of course; but pronounced in lily, oak, carnation, and others. There is a basic type there, with modifications for each one. We find that this form is formed in quite a different way from that in the mineral, absorbing carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, some salts, etc., from the air and soil. If we were to try to make a plant in a similar way [as in the mineral], it would not succeed, of course. The mineral originates from the general force of nature; the plant receives its form by descent from another plant. And indeed this form, which the plant receives, is contained in the little seed at the moment it begins. Where there are no natural forces to conjure up the form, for example on poor soil, nothing would come; but also without seed nothing. The plant is a natural being whose form is always formed by an already existing form. The seed would be dead without general enlivening forces of nature: Life must be added to the form. The plant must fall off the stem, take its life out of the general life. It is a natural being whose life is always formed anew by the general universal natural life.

Let us compare from this point of view: The mineral takes nothing for itself but form; it leaves life to the general life.

The plant.

The plant particularizes form and life, and does so in such a way that the form is transferred from the former form.

Third, when we look at animal life, we find that it has form and life. Life is somewhat different in the animal than in the plant. In the animal, as a rule, life is not developed directly on the universal life, but to the life of an animal the life of a preceding animal is as necessary as in the plant form the form of the preceding plant. Already with the birds the offspring is not formed in the body, but at least the life warmth of the preceding animal is necessary, thus the special life. The animal is a natural being whose life is always formed by an already existing life. Inheritance of life, as in the plant [inheritance] of form. To form and life something is added in the animal, which we must make clear to ourselves by the behavior of the animal to the outside world. The life of a plant depends only on itself, the power lies in the plant itself. The animal depends on the circumstances. It has life, arbitrariness. The plant draws food to itself, the animal goes. It develops what cannot be with the plant: the desire. This must be formed anew with every animal, because it confronts the being itself. The animal is a natural being whose desire is always formed anew by general or universal natural conditions. The mineral claims only the form, leaves the life to the AllLife, whose expression it is, and knows nothing of the desire. The plant sucks from the general life each for itself a special life. In the animal we have all three in particular: form, life, desire. The animal sucks for itself from the universal desire a special one - desire for existence.

Where there is no form, there is no stone; the mineral claims nothing but that, is for itself only Atma, and leaves in nature the universal life - Budhi -- and Manas. The desire, the drive to existence, to manifestation, is called Manas.

The plant takes for itself Atma and separates out for itself still Budhi, leaves in nature Manas.

The animal takes all three for itself: atma, budhi, manas.

Atma as form in particular is called Prana. The general Manas as a property of the particular life is called Kama. Kama is thus Manas, claimed for a particular being, distributed to a particular. In the plants, which already have a similar kind of seed as the animal, one already sees an astral aura, in the simple ones not. In the higher animal, kama already floods in the astral. The physical nature of the mineral, therefore, is essentially nothing but force action; whereas the physical nature of the plant is the substance of which the cell is formed, swelling matter or plasma. This plasma, only when imbued with kama, is gifted with the capacity to be flesh. The physical nature of the animal is flesh. Plasma and flesh: they are basically the same substances. So what is the difference between force effects? Plasma the substances become by being infused with life; flesh by being infused with life and kama.

Form, life, consciousness are three aspects in nature; distributed essentially among mineral, animal, and plant.

We want to submit some more questions in relation to the three kingdoms of nature. We know that every being must pass through these three kingdoms. To each mineral belongs the form; from this formed being of nature the plant is to arise. If it were to evolve in the same direction, without new impetus, it would of course always remain mineral - at most it could become more perfect as a mineral.

If the mineral is to become a plant, this mineral must acquire the special power for plant existence - the abilities which form organs to draw this individual life into itself. Now, however, it remains mineral for the time being; it will still retain the property that when the forces of nature are overcome, it will decay. It cannot transfer the form it already has to a new individual. It must incorporate its form and the newly acquired organs and transfer them to a germinal state. Now, when it passes to life recently, it has acquired to its former property of having form a new one of breathing in life, and when it now passes into germinal state, it has to draw this life into its own. Now we have vegetable essence. The mineral has added to its own essence, which consists in having form, the new property of having life. This is the essence of a round or cycle.

As the plant being progresses, it takes the kama from the environment, forms organs. We have plant being with the ability to take in desire, but this being, while able to take in desire, cannot keep it inside. It flows desire in and out. This goes back to the germinal state, and after revitalization, animal being is formed. This is the process of a cycle.

Now a mineral would always remain mineral if there was no driving force to take care of the same, There has to be something taking care of the mineral for all this to come into being, and that is the monadic essence. It is the driving element. If it had only the drive to be plant, it would stop here. As high as the being is to develop, so high the drive must already be. No mineral can move up to a higher level than it already has in itself according to the plant. The mineral, which later becomes a plant, is already a plant according to its disposition, a latent plant. The mineral, which later becomes animal, is already latent animal. We can also say: The mineral, which later becomes plant, is already plant according to the spirit; the mineral, which later becomes animal, has always been animal according to the spirit; it was only not according to the physical reality animal, but mineral. Every being, from which something becomes, must have an invisible spirit nucleus in itself. What we now call a mineral is not like minerals of yore: each had an astral body. Now it has none, is in a dead end. When we speak of man having once passed through the mineral kingdom, it is not to be understood that he was mineral like the minerals of today; we must never say that man was mineral, plant, animal as he is today. It follows: Man has never been anything but man, he has only in previous periods of evolution always developed parts of his full reality, the physical parts, and the spiritual he has retained.

He has always been present in a higher spiritual way; only he [evolves] in the first round visibly in the mineral, [in the] second round visibly in the vegetable kingdom, [in the] third round visibly in the animal kingdom, and [is] only in the fourth round also visible as man.

Common Darwinism says: before was mineral, then plant, then animal. And he explains that man has emerged from these three. So it looks from an external point of view, for the one who does not see the invisible. Darwinism is a half-measure; but when it is recognized in its right meaning, it has its good sense. In descending, that which is acquired as a faculty is absorbed into the being. Now we are in the ascending line and have to acquire new abilities. Memory, as we know, develops in the Atlanteans. There man begins to absorb what he receives through the mental images. The abilities acquired during the ascending arc are new parts of the entity during the descending arc. And since since the middle of the Atlantean time the ascending arc has been begun, and on this ascending arc thinking as a faculty is more and more developed, so in the next round during the descending arc thinking will be absorbed in the beingness of man.

The Upanishads reckon one round as the day of Brahma. "What you think today, you will be tomorrow." This is true of man in his present round. Thus we can imagine the rhythmic course of the world, that a being sucks in an element from the environment or universal world and then gives it to the outside world. Man sucks in thought - he will send out the thought from himself in the next round. During one half of the round, a being sucks in what it gives out during the next. That is why esoteric philosophy calls a whole round an inhalation and exhalation of the Supreme Being. "Brahma breathes a world in and out."

It is not a mere comparison; what was originally taught is the world process. The first teachers taught these great truths - man later added his lesser realizations. The macrocosm came first, the great nature - then the microcosm, the small nature.

The knowledge of the earlier time referred to the higher world (Brahma breathes in and out). According to this revealed cosmic truth, people later named the process noticed in humans as inhaling and exhaling. Then people forgot the cosmic process and considered the naming more a figurative one.

Even the Greeks did not attribute their knowledge to experience, but to the revelation of higher beings.

If we keep evolution in mind, we find that man has been quite ascendant since the Atlantean period. The Ursemites have passed from memory to combining thought. The Aryan, the fifth root race, had to train thinking - working from manas to kama. Right thoughts have an effect on the astral body like higher natural forces. At the end of the round, the astral body must be formed. At the end of the fifth race, the astral body must be formed regularly. In the sixth root race, social love will have been formed and the astral body must be ennobled; the pull upward, toward the spiritual, will be the achievement. And at the end of the seventh, he will be completely purified.

Sixth race: purification, refinement of kama-manas,

Seventh race: purified kama-manas.

By advancing in this way, man is able to gradually acquire abilities for higher worlds. These worlds, to which man acquires a kind of ideal relation, are called:

Bhurloka fourth race
Bhuvarloka fifth race
Svarloka sixth race
Maharloka seventh race

These four worlds really exist, the heavenly worlds to which we form the earthly one. During the ascending evolutionary epoch they are developed as an annex in human beings

You have to acquire a few terms to understand how self-knowledge becomes world-knowledge. First, a simple concept. Let us consider a lily seed and then the whole lily. The power of the whole lily is inside the seed. If we sink the seed into the earth, the power inside it is able to group earth, water, air in such a way that the lily becomes. The material comes from the environment, but the organizing force from the lily.

Similarly, we must imagine the Pitri nature according to a Pralaya. In the form of a seed we have it after a great pralaya. He is perceptible only in the beginning and at the end of his development on the Budhi plan and in the middle on the Nirvana plan. Nevertheless, when he comes into matter, he has the power within him to organize it as the lily seed does.

Let us note: Pitri whole force without matter; in contrast to this we have man in his material arrangement. In a sense, similar. After the seventh round, when man will have reached nirvana, he will again have seed nature, but a different one. Everything he has experienced here, he will take over into the seed. We have the state where everything is rolled up into one point: Involution; and the one where unfolded is: Evolution.

Seed of the lily - involution unfolded lily - evolution

They are states relative to each other, [they are] mutually dependent. If man, as he is, went to Nirvana, he would not be able to unfold all that he is capable of. One side of the being is always in evolution, the other in involution.

Let us go through the Middle Ages, the time of Augustine to Luther and Calvin. Little of external science was then, but more mystical-internal life. This was therefore in evolution; mind in involution. - Later time: intellectual life [emerges] and mystical recedes. Mind life: Evolution; mystical: involution. What was then in germ, now came up. - In life the activity of our senses is in evolution - after death we have no senses, but all that we have experienced through them is properly spread out. Involution and evolution.

We have no time at all to process everything we see, only a small part we process. From this it can be seen how much we involve, absorb, how much must spread, evolve in the Devachan. From this we can see why the time in Devachan has to be so long. And again, what is prepared in Devachan by this propagation, becomes investment at birth and evolves in the next life. So, it is a continuous equilibration between involution and evolution. And to penetrate this completely is the task of theosophical immersion. It corresponds to a world process. Man usually jumps from one impression to another, taking in impression after impression; that he spreads them out in devachan will depend on the fact that he already holds them in life. Ordinary life is a kind of spiritual involution; meditation-life is a kind of spiritual evolution.

Just as evolution and involution play an essential role in understanding the world order, so does triplicity.

Let us think of a sphere, a glass sphere, compact, it is a unit, holds together. Let us think it divided into innumerable parts, all the same: The glass ball will fall apart, be a heap. If it doesn't, it must be held by forces that make it float in space. [unreadable word] Sphere made of many parts; forces that hold it - shape.

This applied to the whole universe: originally one, then divided into millions of parts; and then the forms, the arranging spirit. - The first, infinitely times divided is:

a) I. Logos, original power, on which everything [unreadable word]: Father, b) II. the powers that hold together: Word, Son, c) IIL. the ordering, the Holy Spirit.

Namely this was in use by the greatest Christian esotericist: Dionysius Areopagita, disciple and initiate of the Apostle Paul. - He is called Pseudo-Dionysius because [the teachings] were not written down until the sixth century.

There was a watchword among Christians, "From mouth to ear." Written things can be abused; the truly initiated did not write down. Dionysius was the head of a school of mystics. It happens with such developed people that they do not remain in devachan as long as other people. They can soon return to new incarnation. The heads of initiatory schools usually do; these schools often have the good fortune to keep the same head through many centuries. So it was here. And it was not until the sixth century, when people thought more of writing down teachings, that they were written down here.

From this Dionysus are the original teachings of Christian esotericism; one can learn Christianity in its original form from him, and to this belongs this interpretation of the supreme entities.

The Father reveals himself first in the higher being, then in the mirror image:

Atma - Father
Budhi - Word
Manas - spirit and in physicality:
Etheric body - Father
Astral body - word
Kama-Manas - spirit, the lower.

In [John]: Three are they that beget on earth: the blood - life principle -, the water - astral - and the spirit - KamaManas; and three are they that beget in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the heavenly spirit: Atma - Budhi - Manas.

This is how gnosis, esotericism, was taught even then in Athens. Pulpit speech was exoteric, priestly teaching: esoteric.