LECTURE IV.
HE
more the etheric body of the student alters under influence of
his esoteric development, the more does he obtain what may be
called a feeling for time. By this feeling for time is to be
understood a feeling for the experiences of the consecutive
order of facts and events, in time. In ordinary life a man does
not usually possess this distinct feeling for time. Now, I have
already given a hint of how this feeling for time is aroused,
even through the alteration in the physical body, in that
through an esoteric or theosophical development the student
grows more sensitive with respect to summer and winter; but
through the alteration in the etheric body the perception of
the external progress of events becomes much more alive and
sensitive. And the student who for some time has earnestly
tried to bring his soul forward will perceive a distinct
difference between the various seasons of the year; indeed,
even between part of the seasons; he will gradually learn to
feel inwardly a great difference between summer and winter,
between spring, summer, and autumn, and he will also feel other
shorter divisions of them in the course of the year. Time in
its progress becomes in a sense living. He gradually notices
that differentiated life can be perceived in the course of
time. Just as in the physical body, the various organs are
differentiated, just as they become more alive inwardly and
more independent of one another, so do the various parts of the
forward march of time become to a certain extent more
independent of each other. This is connected with the fact that
with the development of his own etheric body the student
experiences the life in the outer ether which surrounds us
everywhere. We are surrounded not only by air, but also by
ether; and this ether lives a real life in time. The
surrounding ether is, in a certain sense, a sort of living
being, and lives with consecutive differences, just as a man's
life is different at different ages. The student learns to feel
the progressive life of the outer ether. He thus acquires more
and more feeling for what the life of the life-ether outside is
when spring comes or when summer approaches, when summer has
reached its zenith, when summer declines, when autumn is
approaching, and when it is actually there. He learns to feel
in harmony with this external course, he notices a distinct
difference between the life of summer-spring, summer-autumn,
and the true winter life.
This difference becomes more and more distinctly perceptible,
so at length he can actually say: in its ether the earth lives
an independent life, and, inasmuch as a man lives in time, he
is actually immersed in and forms part of the alternating life
of the ether. At midsummer the student most clearly feels that
he with his etheric body is, to a certain extent, thrown back
upon himself, and that he and the earth then live separate
lives, so that the earth then affects him but little, inwardly;
his attention is then, as we have said, directed to himself, as
it were, and he gradually forms an idea of what the occultist
means when he says: the summer is really the sleeping time of
the earth. We here come to a matter which, on account of the
external maya by which mankind is continually surrounded, is
quite wrongly estimated. In the external life, which is
affected by maya, people like to compare spring to the morning,
summer to midday, and autumn to evening. This comparison is
inaccurate. If we really wish to compare the external course of
the earth with something in ourselves, we must compare spring,
summer, and autumn in their consecutive order with the
sleeping-time of the earth, and autumn, and winter, and spring
in their consecutive order with the waking period of the earth.
And when we speak of a Spirit of the Earth, we must conceive
that in that half of the globe where summer reigns the Spirit
of the Earth is during that time in the same condition, so to
speak, as we human beings are during our sleeping state. Of
course, it is different in the case of the earth: man
alternates absolutely between waking and sleeping; this is not
so with the earth, where waking and sleeping pass, as it were,
from one half of the globe to the other; fundamentally the
Spirit of the Earth never actually sleeps, but when waking
activity is dormant in one hemisphere, it is then transferred
to the other half. But we need not pay much attention to this
just now. We will consider the experience man has in common
with the earth. Only one hemisphere really comes into
consideration here. We have to conceive that during summer the
Spirit of the Earth separates in a certain way from its
physical body, which in that sense is the earth itself, and
that as regards its physical earthly body, this Spirit of the
Earth lives the same life in summer as a human being lives
during sleep, in relation to his physical body. During the time
of sleep the physical body and the etheric body lie on the bed;
they live a purely vegetative life.
To
occult vision it appears that in the sleeping human body
something is unfolded like a delicate vegetation, comparable to
a sprouting forth of purely vegetable life, and that the forces
which during the waking state become exhausted are again
replenished by this vegetative life; so that while a man is
asleep he really has his summer-time. And if he were to look at
the life of his sleeping physical body when with his astral
body and his Ego he is outside the physical body, he would see
this sleeping life of the physical body budding and sprouting,
just like the plant-life on the earth in spring and summer. He
would observe in his physical body during sleep a vegetative
summer life budding and sprouting.
But
as the part of the earth that we inhabit has its sleeping time
during summer, man himself with his etheric body is then to a
certain extent thrown more on his own resources, and the
consequence of this is that in his esoteric development the
student — if he has acquired the capacity of being able
to perceive this — can perceive his own etheric body
better and more clearly during summer than during winter. He
perceives the independence of his etheric body, as it were,
and, in our age above all, the independence of the etheric part
of the head, that etheric part underlying the brain. It is a
very peculiar sensation when through feeling the life of the
ether of the earth in summer — the student gradually
begins to acquire a sort of inner feeling for that particular
part of the human etheric body underlying its most important
part, that is the head, and to feel this inner experience as
different in spring, different in summer and again different
towards autumn. The distinctions in this inner experience are
so clearly felt that, just as in the case of the physical body,
we speak of a differentiation of its parts, so now we may
really speak of varied lives we live through in the course of
summer, clearly distinct from one another. The life that
unfolds inwardly in spring is different from that which unfolds
inwardly in summer, and that in autumn is again different. In
speaking of the etheric body, we must in reality make a
division, which we shall make to-day; we must, as it were,
divide off a particular etheric part, which underlies the
head.
It
is this which I will sketch with a few strokes. If we imagine a
human being diagrammatically (in rough outline) we may think
that this etheric body of which I have just spoken can be so
perceived — upwards less and less perceptible losing
itself in indefiniteness — that it is coincident with
time. And we may even learn gradually to feel quite clearly
that in this part of our etheric body certain beings were
active, creative, replacing one another, as it were, in the
various seasons passed through from spring to autumn; it can be
observed that the seasons have worked upon this brain-portion
of our etheric body, so that our etheric brain is in certain
respects a complicated organ. It has been fitted together, as
it were, by different Spiritual beings who develop their powers
in consecutive periods of time. We now obtain an idea of a very
important teaching, and gradually we learn to perceive the
truth of this teaching, a teaching cultivated especially in the
Zarathustrian schools. This held that the etheric part of the
human brain was gradually created from out the Spiritual cosmos
by Spiritual beings called the Amshaspands. These Amshaspands
worked in such a way that they ruled, as it were, during
summer: and indeed they still rule to-day, in succession, the
first ruling in early spring, the second in spring, etc., up to
the sixth and seventh. Seven — or relatively speaking,
six — such Spiritual beings work consecutively in time;
and these are the creative Spirits who — precisely by
working consecutively, so that when one has finished his
activity the next sets to work — construct a principle as
complicated as the etheric body, and especially the human
brain. Thus into our brain six or seven Spiritual beings are
consecutively at work, and the physical brain of man can only
be understood when we are able to say: ‘There works a
Spirit who can be specially felt in spring: he sends forth his
forces which are principally etheric forces; then in later
spring comes a second Spirit who in turn sends forth his
forces.’ (See drawing.)
The
etheric forces of this second Spirit then stream into the same
space. The third Spirit in turn sends in his etheric forces,
and thus is this etheric part of the human brain developed; the
Spirits who follow one another in consecutive periods send
their etheric forces into the same space.
Now
we must clearly understand that we can only feel certain
connections of that which in our brain is related to these
Spirits who to-day develop their etheric forces outside us; for
Occultism teaches us that what I have just described had taken
place during the ancient Moon period; so that we must not think
that perhaps these Spirits who as we may say — rule the
summer, are still at work to-day and are perhaps formative
powers. The rudiments which were really rayed in by these
Spirits during the ancient Moon period man brought over with
him into his earthly existence; but as he thus bears them
within his own etheric body, he can even to-day, when these
Spiritual beings no longer have a direct influence on the inner
etheric body of our brain, still trace his relationship to
them, and this he feels in summer. In early spring the first of
these Spirits can be felt, who to-day has a different task
outside in the ether; but the student feels that from him comes
that which he bears within him, and has received in the ancient
Moon period; he becomes conscious of the relationship.
This is the stupendous discovery the pupil can make in the
course of his esoteric development; that as time goes on he
experiences within himself something like an image of active
Spiritual Beings, who to-day have quite a different task from
what they had in the past when they were amongst the Spirits
working together creatively on our own being. During the
development of the earth the physical brain appeared as the
image, the impression of what had developed as a kind of
etheric archetype even during the ancient Moon period, through
these Spiritual cosmic influences. I have depicted this part of
our etheric body as being open above, because this is what it
is really felt to be. It is so felt that as soon as the pupil
perceives it within himself, he has the feeling: ‘Thou
open'st thyself to the Spiritual worlds; thou art in connection
with Spiritual worlds that are always above thee.’
There is another feeling that is gradually developed in
esoteric life regarding this part of the etheric body. It is
usually not at all easy to discuss these matters, but I hope
that if I try to express them clearly we shall be able to
understand them. When a student begins to feel his etheric
body, he actually feels himself floating in the stream of time.
But as regards this etheric part of the head the student feels
in a sense as though he were taking time with him, as if he not
only floats in flowing time, but takes it with him. It is in
fact the case that we carry with us a great deal belonging to
an earlier age in this etheric part of the head, for instance,
we carry the ancient Moon period within it; for the most
essential part of it arose during the ancient Moon period, and
in the etheric body of the brain we carry with us the stream of
the ancient Moon-time. And when a student begins to feel this,
it is like a remembrance of the time on the ancient Moon. One
who forms an idea of the inner experiences which were spoken of
in the last lecture as the experiences of temperament, can also
understand when it is said that the occultist who thus learns
to feel the inner nature of the etheric body of the head, when
he specially concentrates upon this etheric part, he always
feels this concentration to be connected with a melancholy
frame of mind which comes over him; he feels in his esoteric
development as if a melancholy mood were poured into his head:
from which mood there gradually develops in his inner feeling
the understanding of the things presented to our friends in the
occult description of the ancient Moon.
Esoteric development must, of course, go much further if one
would really describe all the various conditions on the Moon;
but from this you will see the rise of what may lead to such a
description. You see that in the student himself there appears
something that may be described as the melancholy of his head,
and within this frame of mind gradually emerges something like
a vision of memory into a primeval past, into the ancient Moon
period. And it would be desirable if from descriptions such as
have just been given, you were to judge how esoteric
development really proceeds, how beginning from some particular
experience, the student first learns to recognise this
experience (in this case as a remembrance of a primeval past,
which he has carried along the stream of time with him into the
present), and learns to unroll again, as it were, that which
has once been lived through. Judge from this that the occultist
is truly not speaking of visionary fancies when he sets forth
that construction of the universe which goes back to the
ancient periods of Moon, Sun and Saturn, but that if the hearer
will only wait patiently, he will be able — through the
analysis of the discovery of these things — to gain an
idea of how it is possible gradually to live into those great,
mighty cosmic pictures which truly belong to a far-distant
past, but can be called forth again from the life of the
present; we need only reach the point of development at which
we can experience and then unfold the past phenomena of time
which are involved, wrapped up within us.
The
part of the etheric body which belongs to the middle part of
the human being is experienced in a different way. Proceeding
outwardly feeling ceases; inwardly it is perceived
approximately in such a way that it may be said: The portion in
the middle, which has a sort of oval shape, is felt separated
from the rest. If we were to separate this middle portion of
the etheric body as a particular experience we should have to
say: He who through his esoteric development comes also to
experience in himself the differentiated life of this middle
portion of man, has the feeling that essentially in this part
of his etheric body he floats exactly with the stream of time.
And in this part of the etheric body is clearly felt the living
in harmony with the etheric life of the earth which has become
differentiated in the sequence of time.
A
student whose esoteric development has made yet further
progress feels in this particular part that in early spring
other Spirits work upon him than those of midsummer or autumn.
It is a sort of living in harmony with these, as though
actually floating along in their company. This part of his
etheric body is thereby separated from the other, and, if we
are able to go into such matters the feeling we have in this
middle portion of the etheric body alternates between the
phlegmatic and sanguine moods. It takes on the greatest variety
of shades between these two. For example, this part of the
etheric body feels itself accompanying the stream of time in
spring — in the physical body this is expressed quite
differently — and towards autumn it feels more as though
it were resisting and repulsing the stream of time.
The
third part of our etheric body is felt to fade away below into
the indefinite, and though expanding widely, to disappear into
the earth. These are the three parts of the etheric body which
can, as disconnected one from the other, now be felt; this
represents the inner sensation, the inner feeling of the
etheric body; it would not present itself in this way to the
seer if he were to observe the etheric body of another human
being, for this is an inner experience of the etheric body.
This experience again is materially modified by the existence
of a fourth part of the etheric body, clearly outlined as a
sort of oval, which really includes the human being within it.
From the various feelings experienced as regards this part of
the etheric body, a feeling is gradually acquired, an inner
impression of the etheric body, as of an external form.
And
then the etheric body appears as though of various hues, and in
this part an impression arises of being in a sort of bluish or
blue-violet aura. This part which corresponds to the head, is
bluish, or violet-blue according to the nature of the person,
but gradually fades away below to a greenish colour. The middle
portion is a distinctly yellow-red — when one perceives
the colour — and the lower part shades from distinctly
reddish to deep-red, but rays out and often extends far.
Now
the forces working in these four parts differ distinctly so
that the inner sensations they produce are not very definite;
but on looking at this outermost aura clairvoyantly from
outside, the forces in it appear to compress the upper part;
and looking at it from outside the impression is given that the
etheric part of the head is exactly of the same form, only a
little larger. This applies also to the middle part. The
further we go down, the less is this the case. But through the
forces working one upon another, seen from without the
impression is that the etheric body is a sort of
foundation-form of the physical body, but projecting for a
certain space beyond it. In the lower part the feeling of the
similarity of the physical body and etheric body is gradually
lost.
Thus you bear in mind that the inner experience of the etheric
body is different in character from the etheric body manifested
outwardly to the observation of the seer. This must be borne
clearly in mind. When later in esoteric development you learn
to regard the mood, according to the fundamental temperaments
founded in the etheric body and described in the last lecture,
it will appear that with respect to the lowest part of the
etheric body the feeling there is perceived to be of a choleric
nature. Thus the several temperaments are to be distinguished
in the various parts of our etheric bodies. The upper part of
the etheric body is of a melancholy nature, the middle part
alternates between phlegmatic and sanguine, and the lower has a
choleric tone. And I beg you definitely to notice that this
description applies to the etheric body. Not to consider this
carefully, brings easily a fall into error if these matters are
taken externally. But the student who takes this carefully into
consideration will be greatly struck by the agreement of what
has been adduced with certain phenomena of life. Let us for a
moment study a choleric person — it is highly interesting
so to do.
According to what has just been said, in the case of the
choleric person the lower part of the etheric body would be
conspicuous; it would predominate over the other parts. Thereby
the person is shown to be choleric. The other parts are also
developed, of course; but the lower part would be particularly
prominent. Now when the lower part of the etheric body, as
etheric body, is particularly developed and has its strong
forces there, something else is always evident, that is, the
physical body receives short measure in these parts, it
manifests a certain lack of development in the parts which
underlie this portion of the etheric body. The result of this
in pronounced choleric cases, those, for example, who are true
to type, is that the anatomic state of certain organs which
correspond to this part of the etheric body comes off badly.
Please read about the anatomic condition of Napoleon, and you
will be struck by the proof it presents of what I am telling
you. Only when we begin to study these hidden sides of human
nature shall we really learn to comprehend it.
You
might now ask the question: How does what was said in the last
lecture agree with what has been said to-day? It agrees
perfectly. We then spoke of the four temperaments; these are
predetermined by the forces of the etheric body. And, in fact,
the life of the etheric body is related to time in the same way
that the division into members, the differentiation, is related
to space. The physical body becomes more keenly alive in space,
differentiating its several members as it were; the etheric
body becomes more alive, as its parts differentiate themselves
in time; that is, as the time-life in its consecutive order is
sympathetically experienced in its independent parts and
members. The fundamental characteristic of the melancholic
person is that he always carries within him something he has
experienced in time, a past. He who is able to understand the
etheric body of the melancholic finds that it always has within
it the after-vibrations of what it experienced in bygone times.
I do not now mean what was here referred to in the case of the
human brain, which relates to primeval times, but to what is
usually called melancholy; the etheric life of the head is
particularly stirred at some definite time, in youth, let us
say; and then having been thus stirred, it is so strongly
influenced, that in late life the melancholic still carries
with him in his etheric body the vibrations which were
imprinted in his youth, while with the non-melancholic these
vibrations soon cease. In the case of either a phlegmatic or
sanguine person, there is a sort of floating with time; but in
the phlegmatic person there is, as it were, a perfectly uniform
floating with the stream of time, while the sanguine person
oscillates between a quicker or slower inner experience with
respect to the externally flowing stream of time. On the other
hand, the choleric person resists — and that is the
peculiarity — the approaching time which flows to us, as
it were, from the future. The choleric person in a sense
repulses time, and quickly rids himself of the vibrations which
time calls forth in his etheric body. Hence the melancholic
person carries within him the greatest number of
after-vibrations of past experiences, the choleric person the
least. If you take the somewhat grotesque illustration of the
well-inflated ball, which was compared with the etheric body of
the choleric, you may also use that illustration here. The ball
is only with difficulty impressed by the consecutive events; it
repulses them, and therefore does not allow the events which
come in the stream of time to leave strong vibrations within
it. Hence the choleric does not carry them for long within him.
The melancholic person who allows the events to work very
deeply into his etheric body, has for a long time to bear the
vibrations which he carries with him into the future from the
past.
In
order to understand the etheric body and the physical body, it
is well to conceive that the physical body is pre-eminently a
space-body, and the etheric body pre-eminently a time-being. We
do not at all understand the etheric body if we consider it
only as a space-being. And such a drawing as that before you is
really only a sort of pictorial representation in space of the
life of the etheric body, flowing in time and having its
existence in time. As the life of the etheric body itself runs
its course in time and is a time-life, for this reason we also
feel time with our etheric body, that is, we experience the
external stream of events in time.
When a man goes through an occult development, he also
experiences another stream of events in time. In ordinary life
this stream of events is scarcely perceived; but it is soon
perceived as the soul develops higher. That is, the course of
the day. For in a certain way the Spirits of the yearly course
also work with lesser forces in the course of the day. It is
the same sun that conditions the course of the year and that of
the day! He who has gone through an esoteric development will
soon find that there is such a relationship between his etheric
body and what goes on in the external ether that his attitude
towards the Spirits of the morning, the Spirits of mid-day and
those of evening is different in each case. The Spirits of the
morning so affect us that we feel stimulated in our etheric
body to an activity which inclines more to the intellect, to
the reason, which can think over what has been experienced,
which can work more with the judgment upon what has been
observed and still remains in the memory. As mid-day
approaches, these powers of judgment gradually decline; a man
then feels impulses of the will more active inwardly. Even
though towards mid-day the student begins to be less capable of
work as regards his external forces than he was in the morning,
yet inwardly the forces of his will are more active. And
towards evening there come the productive forces which are
connected more with fancy. Thus the Spiritual beings who send
their forces into the conditions of the life-ether of the earth
differ as regards the duties they have to perform.
We
may feel convinced that the more we overcome the materialistic
sentiments belonging to our age, the more we shall realise that
we must learn to take into account the adapting of the etheric
body to the sequence of time. There will come a time when it
will be considered curious that in school a subject should be
studied in the morning which makes special claims on the powers
of the imagination. In the future this will be considered just
as strange as it would be to-day if anyone should put on a fur
coat in August and a thin coat in mid-winter. It is true, we
are still a long way off this to-day; but it will come sooner
than people really think. There will come a day when it will be
the usual custom (there will again be a difference between
summer and winter), a time will come when people will see that
it is foolish to organise school-hours otherwise than to
arrange for several hours' work in the morning, leaving several
hours free in the middle of the day, and then devoting several
hours again to work in the evening. Perhaps this may not be
considered practical according to our present division of time:
but it will be some day when attention is paid to the
requirements of human nature. The morning hours will be devoted
to mathematics, the evening hours to poetry. We are now living
in an age when — by reason of the materialistic view
which is now at its height — the understanding of these
things is completely overwhelmed; so that at the present time
that which one day when the whole nature of man is borne in
mind, must appear to be the most reasonable thing, now seems to
be most foolish.
Another result will be that during winter we shall through
esoteric development feel more and more that we are not so shut
up in ourselves, in our inner etheric body, as we are during
the summer, but that we come more into connection with the
direct Spirit of the Earth. The difference is so felt that
during the summer we say: ‘We are now living with the
Spirits who have worked upon us from primeval times, whose work
we bear within us, whilst the direct Spirit of the Earth is
farther from us.’ In winter the inner vibrations, which
from ancient times we have carried with us, especially in the
head, will become more silent; we shall feel ourselves
connected with the Spirit of the Earth; we shall learn to
understand that the Spirit of the Earth is awake in winter. As
in summer He sleeps, so in winter He awakens. During summer the
Spirit of the Earth sees the budding and sprouting plant-life
come forth, in the same way that the sleeping man sees the
vegetative forces shoot forth in his own body. During the
winter they withdraw, just as, when man is awake, these
vegetative forces in the human body withdraw. In winter the
Spirit of the Earth is awake; the earth is united, as it were,
with the waking Spirit, just as a human being during his waking
period is united with his waking Spirit. The consequence is
— that when through his esoteric life the student becomes
sensitive to it — he learns to feel that in summer he
must think, he must work out his thoughts, but not his
inspirations. These come from what is within, from the
independent etheric body. In winter one is, however, more
easily inspired with thoughts than in summer, so that human
thought in winter works more as an inspiration than in summer.
In a particular sense human thought flows so easily in winter
that it comes of itself, in a certain way. Of course, these
conditions are variously combined. They may take a quite
individual form in certain people, so that if a person is more
inclined to think thoughts tending towards the super-sensible,
this may be reversed. Through the fact that during summer it is
easier to produce these thoughts of the super-sensible, exactly
the reverse may come about. But as regards the experience of
the etheric body, what I have just said holds good.
This particular living in sympathy with the external etheric
principle becomes more perceptible the more the student
progresses in his esoteric development. And if he wishes to
develop his etheric body in the right manner, he must gradually
— in the same way that he had first to suppress the
sensible perception — shut off his thoughts also; he must
especially shut off his abstract thinking and gradually pass
over to the concrete, picture-like thinking; from thinking he
must pass over to thought, and then he must cease to think at
all. But when he presents an empty consciousness, and allows
all thought to cease, in the manner described in the second
part of my book,
An Outline Of Occult Science,
he feels the thought that lives within him disappearing, and what
he has previously by his efforts produced as his thinking melt
away; and in its place he feels himself wonderfully animated by
thoughts that stream into him as though from unknown worlds for
his special benefit. It is a transition in the life of the
human soul which may be described by saying — I beg you
not to misunderstand the expression — that the pupil
ceases to be clever and begins to grow wise. A very definite
idea may be connected with this. Cleverness, which is inwardly
acquired through the power of judgment, ability — an
earthly possession — disappears. The student's inner
attitude is such that he does not value it particularly highly,
for he gradually feels shine within him a God-given wisdom! I
beg you not to misunderstand the expression; for this
experience enables one to use the expression without arrogance,
to use it in all humility and modesty. With respect to the
God-given wisdom, the student constantly becomes more and more
humble. We can really only be proud and arrogant about
self-attained cleverness, and so-called ability, but when one
passes through this experience one gradually feels as though
this wisdom, this God-given wisdom, streams into one's etheric
body and fills it. This is a very important experience to have,
for it affects the student in a peculiar manner; he then feels
life going away, floating away on the stream of time. And the
stream of wisdom is something that comes towards him, something
which — as he swims on with time — pours into him
like an advancing stream; and he really feels this influx
— this is pictorially described — as streams, but
streams flowing against the course of time, which come in
through the head and pour themselves into the body and are
caught up by it.
What I have just described gradually develops into a very
definite experience. The student no longer feels himself in
space; for he learns to feel the etheric body, which is a
time-being; he learns to move forward in time, and continually
to meet, as it were, the Spiritual Beings who come toward him
from the other side of the cosmos, who come toward him from the
future and bestow upon him wisdom. The feeling of receiving
this wisdom can only be attained when the esoteric or occult
development has been so directed that one has unfolded a
feeling which the soul brings to bear in a special manner upon
all future events; when one has developed composure with
respect to what the future may bring us, that is, what constant
experience brings us. If we still approach what experience
brings us with strong sympathy and antipathy, if we have not
yet learned to take Karma earnestly; that is, if we have not
learned to accept what Karma brings and bear it patiently, then
we are not yet •able to have that special perceptivity
for the wisdom that streams towards us; for only from the
experience that is calmly undergone does there differentiate
within our being the shining, inflowing stream of wisdom. This
perceptivity betokens a very definite point in our esoteric
experience, the point to which we come, and which we can really
only attain when in devoted thankfulness and tranquillity we
receive each experience that comes to us. The changing of our
etheric body which takes place in a true esoteric development
enables us to do this, for among other requirements for
development it is also expected that we should acquire
tranquillity, and a true understanding of our Karma, so that we
do not through sympathy and antipathy attract what is to come,
or resist what concerns us, but learn to bear our Karma as a
steady stream of experience. This learning to bear our Karma
forms part of our esoteric development, and it is this which
makes it possible for us so to transform our etheric body that
it gradually learns more and more to perceive the outer etheric
life surrounding it.
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