EL,
Berlin, 2-8-'13
My dear
sisters and brothers! If we heed and do everything that's been given
till now in the Mystery dramas and esoteric lessons, if we really do
all of this in complete devotion, then we can already get very, very
far into high spiritual worlds. Moderns don't need anything more to
get into very high spiritual worlds. We must live entirely in
meditation, concentration and contemplation, and leave everything
else outside. One can only attain something by sticking strictly to
the prescribed rules. Meditation time must be looked upon as
something beautiful and elevated in our esoteric life. During
meditation one should first immerse oneself completely in the content
of the exercises. So one must empty the soul of all everyday thoughts
and feelings and must live in the content of the given
exercises. And then make the consciousness devoid of content —
also of the meditation material – and listen while one is
awake. It's true that this is quite difficult. Some say that they
hear their blood pulsing, and that this disturbs them. That's all
right — let them hear the blood pulse. Then they'll sense the
life in blood and thereby become aware of a piece of inner life.
Exoteric
life takes place in the world of cognition. We know something
because we confront an object, look at it and make mental images of
it. This changes the moment we meditate. Through meditation we enter
another world where we have our ideas, thoughts and concepts before
us, outside us: we know that we're connected with them. But we can't
get rid of them, we run after them. Thoughts ascend from the soul's
depths. We see beings like carnivorous animals that devour them. We
connect ourselves completely with the thoughts, etc. So we experience
things here, whereas in exoteric life we know them. In meditation
we're in a world of experience. We shouldn't immediately make
ideas about what approaches us in this world. We should just open
ourselves, listen and feel what wants to stream into our soul.
This develops the lotus flowers so that they can become active.
Further on we arrive at the world of bliss or shapes. But only one
who has prepared himself for this world experiences it as a world of
bliss. For an immature person it's full of terrifying things and it
tears him apart. For him love turns into hate there, beautiful into
ugly and he now likes what was disgusting to him before, and so on.
Everything is in reverse. One only becomes really mature enough for a
correct experience of this world of shapes if one goes through a
training in self-discipline. What did the Gods do to protect us from
an experience of this world of shapes before we're mature? They gave
us pleasure, the enjoyment of creative activity here in the physical
world. The beauty that we feel in a work of art, in a Raphael, in a
Leonardo, such as were shown in scene three of Guardian of the
Threshold isn't the permanent thing, also not the art work itself,
but what's eternal is the spiritual part — what went on in the
artist's soul as he worked, from which the work of art was created.
What
is God in maya? What has to be said now must sound rather
paradoxical. God is not what we
experience in the spring in up-building forces, in shooting,
sprouting things, in all beautiful and luminous things —
God is real and active where we see destructive powers of nature; God
is in autumn storms, in all shattering, disintegrating and
crushing things. It sounds horrible and shocking, but it's a
fact: God is most active in all destructive and disintegrating
things. We're given pleasure from work with physical things to
protect us from entering the world of shapes, of bliss too soon. In
waking day consciousness we're separated from it as by a thin layer
of ice. While we're in esoteric training we shouldn't bring these
esoteric teachings into exoteric life or want to regulate exoteric
life in accordance with these teachings. That could only lead to
folly. Our education in exoteric life must result from exoteric
pedagogical principles. One could set it up as an ideal that esoteric
life should run completely independently. We must preserve absolute
equanimity with respect to spiritual experiences, just as we should
remain calm in everyday life with respect to all events, ideas, etc.,
so that we don't get excited or upset. One attains this equanimity by
reverently thinking, feeling and living oneself into the three
mantras, It thinks me — It works me — It weaves me, by
letting these 3 sentences go through one's soul over and over again.
And then we'll also understand our rosicrucian verse in the right way:
Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
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