LECTURE V.
HIS
course of lectures should rightly be considered as an
explanation of certain experiences passed through by the
student as changes produced in him by his esoteric development,
or, shall we say, Theosophy; so that what is described is
really to be looked upon as something that can actually be
experienced during development. Naturally, only outstanding
experiences, typical experiences, as it were, can be explained;
but from the description of these characteristic experiences we
may gain an idea of many other things we have to notice in the
course of development.
In
the last lecture we spoke principally of the fact that the
student acquires a great sensitivity with respect to what goes
on in the external life-ether, or in the ether as a whole.
These experiences are connected with many other things, and one
which we should particularly notice is the experience we have
with respect to our power of judgment. As human beings, we are
so placed in the world that in a certain way we judge the
things that come before us, we form ideas about things; we
consider one thing to be right, another wrong. A person's
capacity for judging depends upon what is known as shrewdness,
cleverness, discernment. This shrewdness, this cleverness, this
discernment, is in course of his development gradually placed
in a different light. This was briefly indicated in the last
lecture. The student finds more and more that for the actual
affairs of the higher, spiritual life, this shrewdness or
cleverness is not of the slightest value, although he must
bring as much of it as possible at his starting point on the
physical plane if he wishes to enter upon the path to the
higher worlds. And thus he comes inevitably into a position
which may easily seem unendurable to the utilitarian; for while
of necessity he needs something at first for his higher
development, yet when he has acquired the needful quality it
loses its value. To a certain extent the student must do
everything possible to develop a sound power of judgment here
on the physical plane, one that weighs the facts carefully; but
having done so he must quite clearly understand that during his
sojourn in the higher worlds this power of judgment has not the
same value as it possesses here below on the physical plane. If
the student wishes his higher senses to be sound he must
proceed from a healthy power of judgment; but for the higher
vision healthy judgment must be transformed into healthy
vision.
But
however highly we may develop, as long as we have to live on
the physical plane we are still human beings of this plane, and
on this physical plane we have the task of developing our power
of judgment in a healthy way. Therefore we must take care to
learn betimes not to mix the life in the higher worlds with
that of the physical plane. One who wishes to make direct use
on the physical plane of what he experiences in the higher
worlds will easily become a visionary, an incompetent man. We
must accustom ourselves to be able to live clearly in the
higher worlds, and then, when we pass out of that condition, to
hold again as firmly as possible to what is suitable for the
physical plane. We must carefully and conscientiously maintain
the twofold attitude demanded by the twofold nature of the
spiritual and physical life. We accustom ourselves to the right
attitude towards the world in this respect by accustoming
ourselves not to bring what belongs to the higher worlds into
the everyday course of life; to bring into everyday affairs as
little as possible of that which may easily tempt us to say,
for instance, when something in a person is unsympathetic to
us, that we cannot bear his aura. In ordinary life, when
speaking of this or that as unsympathetic, it is better to keep
to the ordinary terms; it is better in this respect to remain
like one's fellows on the physical plane, and to be as sparing
as possible in ordinary life of expressions which only have
their true application when used for the higher life. We ought
carefully to refrain from mixing into daily life words, ideas,
conceptions, belonging to the higher life. This may perhaps
seem a sort of pedantic requirement to anyone who, from a
certain enthusiasm for the spiritual life, shall we say, finds
it necessary to permeate his whole being with it. And yet, that
which in an ordinary way in ordinary life may perhaps seem
pedantic, is an important principle of training for the higher
worlds. Therefore, even if it should seem more natural to
describe the ordinary life in words belonging to the higher
life, let us translate them into the language most fitted for
the physical plane. It must be emphasised again and again that
these things are not without consequence, but are full of
significance and possess active power. This being admitted, we
may also speak without prejudice of the fact that, as regards
the life in the higher worlds, the ordinary power of judgment
ceases to be of use, and we learn to feel, to a certain extent,
that the sort of cleverness we had before is now at an end. And
here again the student notices — this is an experience
which grows more and more frequent — he notices his
dependence upon the etheric life of the world, that is, upon
time. How often do we find in our particular age that people,
even quite young people, approach everything in the world upon
which judgment can be passed, and think that when they have
acquired a certain power of judgment they can pronounce opinion
about everything in existence, and speculate on everything
possible. In esoteric development the belief that one can
speculate on all things is torn out of the soul by the roots;
for we then notice that our opinions are capable of growth and,
above all, that they need to mature.
The
student learns to recognise that if he wishes to arrive at an
opinion with which he is himself able to agree, he must live
for some while with certain ideas which he has acquired, so
that his own etheric body can come to an understanding with
them. He learns that he must wait before he can arrive at a
certain opinion. Only then does he realise the great
significance of the words: ‘Let what is in the soul
nature.’ He really becomes more and more modest. But this
‘becoming modest’ is a very special matter, because
it is not always possible to hold the balance between being
obliged to form an opinion and being able to wait for maturity
to have an opinion upon a subject, though delusion about these
things is possible to a high degree, and because there is
really nothing but life itself which can explain these things.
A philosopher may dispute with a person who has reached a
certain degree of esoteric development concerning some cosmic
mystery, or cosmic law; if the philosopher can only form
philosophic opinion he will believe himself necessarily in the
right concerning the matter, and we can understand that he must
have this belief; but the other person will know quite well
that the question cannot be decided by the capacity for
judgment possessed by the philosopher. For he knows that in
former times he also used the conceptions upon which the
philosopher bases his opinion, but allowed them to mature
within him, which process made it possible for him to have an
opinion on the subject; he knows that he has lived with it,
thereby making himself ripe enough to form the opinion which he
now pronounces at a higher stage of maturity. But an
understanding between these two persons is really out of the
question, and in many cases cannot be brought about directly;
it can only come to pass when in the philosopher there arises a
feeling of the necessity of allowing certain things to mature
in his soul before he permits himself to give an opinion about
them. Opinions, views must be battled for, must be won by
effort — this the student recognises more and more. He
acquires a profound, intense feeling of this, because he gains
the inner feeling of time which is essentially connected with
the development of the etheric body. Indeed, he gradually
notices a certain opposition arise in his soul between the way
he formerly judged and the way he now judges after having
attained a certain maturity in this particular matter; and he
notices that the opinion he formed in the past and the opinion
he now holds confront each other like two powers, and he then
notices in himself a certain inner mobility of the temporal
within him; he notices that the earlier must be overcome by the
later. This is the dawn in the consciousness of a certain
feeling for time, which arises from the presence of inner
conflicts, coming into existence through a certain opposition
between the later and the earlier. It is absolutely necessary
to acquire this inner feeling, this inner perception of time,
for we must remember that we can only learn to experience the
etheric when we acquire an inner idea of time. This develops
into our always having the feeling that the earlier originates
in ourselves, in our judgment, in our knowledge; but that the
later flows into us, as it were, streams towards us, is
vouchsafed to us. More and more clearly comes the feeling of
what was described in the last lecture, viz., that the
cleverness which springs from oneself must be separated from
the wisdom which is acquired by surrender to the stream flowing
towards one from the future. To feel ourselves being filled by
thoughts, in contradistinction to our former experiences of
consciously forming the thoughts ourselves — this shows
progress. When the student learns more and more to feel that he
no longer forms thoughts, but that the thoughts think
themselves in him — when he has this feeling it is a sign
that his etheric body is gradually developing the necessary
inner feeling of time. All that went before will have the
attribute of being something formed egotistically; all that is
attained by maturing will have the characteristic of burning up
and consuming what the student has made for himself. Thus the
gradual change in his inner being results in a very remarkable
experience; he becomes increasingly conscious that his own
thinking, his own thought processes must be suppressed because
they are of little value, compared with his devotion to the
thoughts which stream to him from the cosmos. The individual
life loses, as it were, one of its parts — that is
extremely important — it loses the part we usually call
personal-thinking, and there only remains personal-feeling and
personal-willing. But these too undergo a change at the same
time as the thinking. The student no longer produces his
thoughts, but they think themselves within his soul. With the
feeling that the thoughts have their own inner power through
which they think themselves, comes a certain merging of feeling
and will. Feeling, we might say, becomes more and more active,
and the will becomes more and more allied to feeling. Feeling
and will become more closely related to each other than they
were before on the physical plane. No impulse of the will can
be formed without accompanying development of feeling. Many of
the student's deeds produce within him a bitter feeling, others
produce an uplifting feeling. As regards his will, he feels at
the same time that his own will-impulses must be adjusted in
conformity with his feelings. He gradually finds that feelings
which are there merely for the sake of enjoyment give rise to a
kind of reproach; but feelings which are so perceived that he
says: ‘The human soul must furnish the field of work for
such feelings, they must be experienced inwardly, otherwise
they would not exist in the universe’ — such
feelings he gradually finds more justifiable than the others.
An example shall be given at once, a characteristic example, in
order that what is meant may be made quite clear; it is not
intended to decry anything, but only to express the essential
nature of this difference. Someone may find his pleasure in
having good meals. When he experiences this pleasure, something
happens within him — this is indisputable. But it does
not make much difference in the universe, in the cosmos, when
an individual experiences this pleasure in a good meal; it is
not of much consequence to the general life of the world. But
if someone takes up St. John's Gospel and reads but three lines
of it, that is of immense consequence to the whole universe;
for if among all the souls on earth none were to read St.
John's Gospel, the whole mission of the earth could not be
fulfilled; from our taking part in such activities there stream
forth spiritually the forces which ever add new life to the
earth in place of that which dies within it. We must
distinguish a difference in experience between ordinary
egotistic feeling and that in which we are but providing the
field for experience of a feeling necessary for the existence
of the world. Under certain circumstances a man may do very
little externally, but when in his developed soul, for no
personal pleasure, he is aware that through his feeling the
opportunity is given for the existence of a feeling important
to the universal existence; then he is doing an enormous
amount.
Strange as it may seem, the following may also be said: There
was once a Greek philosopher named Plato. He wrote many books.
As long as a person only lives with his soul on the physical
plane, he reads these books for his own instruction. Such outer
instruction has its significance for the physical plane, and it
is very good to make use of every means of instruction on the
physical plane, for otherwise we remain stupid. The things
achieved on the physical plane are there for the purpose of our
instruction. But when a soul has developed esoterically, he
then takes Plato, shall we say, and reads him again for a different
reason; that is, because Plato and his works only have a meaning in
the earthly existence if what he has written is also experienced in
other souls; and the student then reads not only to instruct
himself, but because something is accomplished thereby.
Something must be added to our feeling, enabling us to
recognise a difference between egotistic feeling, which leans
more towards enjoyment, and selfless feeling, which presents
itself to us as an inner spiritual duty. This may extend even
into external life and the external conception of life; and
here we come to speak on a point which shines, it might be
said, out of individual into social experience.
When a person acquainted with the secrets of esotericism
observes what goes on in the world — how so many people
waste their spare time instead of ennobling their feelings with
what comes into the earthly existence from spiritual creations
— he might weep over the stupidity which ignores all that
in human life flows through human feeling and sentiment. And in
this connection it should be noticed that when these
experiences begin a certain more delicate egoism appears in
human nature. In the following lectures we shall hear how this
finer egoism is assumed for the purpose of overcoming itself;
but at first it merely appears as a finer egoism, and during
our theosophical development we shall find that a sort of
higher thirst for enjoyment appears, a thirst for the enjoyment
of spiritual things. And, grotesque as it may sound, it is
nevertheless true that a man who is undergoing an esoteric
development may at a certain stage declare, even though he may
not allow this consciousness to grow into pride and vanity,
that all that lies before him on the earth in the way of
spiritual creations must be enjoyed by him; it is there for his
enjoyment — so it belongs to him. And gradually he
develops a certain urge towards such spiritual enjoyments. In
this respect esotericism will not cause any mischief in the
world, for we may be quite sure that when such a desire for the
spiritual creations of humanity appears it will not be a
drawback.
As
a result of this something else appears. Gradually the student
feels in a sense the awakening of his own etheric body, by
becoming aware that feeling his own thinking is of less value,
and by feeling the inflow of thought from the cosmos,
interwoven as it is with the Divine. He feels more and more how
will and feeling arise from himself; he begins to feel egoism
only in his will and feeling, while he perceives the gifts of
the wisdom, which he feels streaming through, as connecting him
with the whole cosmos.
This experience is connected with another. He begins to feel
inner activity of feeling and will, interwoven with inner
sympathy and antipathy. A more subtle and delicate feeling
tells him that when he himself does this or that it is a
disgrace, for he has within him a certain amount of wisdom. Of
something else he may feel that it is right to do it, according
to his amount of wisdom. An experience of self-control
appearing in feeling comes about naturally. We are overcome
with feelings of bitterness when we feel a will arising from
within, impelling us to do something or other which does not
seem to be right, in view of the wisdom in which we have now
learned to share. This bitter feeling is most clearly perceived
with respect to the things we have said; and it is well for one
who is developing theosophically not to pass by inattentively
without noticing how the whole of the inner life of feeling may
be refined in this respect. While in the case of a person in
exoteric life, when he has uttered certain words, when he has
said something or other, that is the end of the matter; in the
case of a person who has undergone a theosophical development
there comes a clear after-feeling regarding what he has said;
he feels something like an inner shame when he has expressed
what is not right in a moral or intellectual sense; and
something like a sort of thankfulness — not satisfaction
with himself — when he has been able to express something
to which the wisdom he has attained can give assent. And if he
feels — and for this, too, he acquires a delicate
sensitiveness — that something like an inner
self-satisfaction, a self-complaisance with himself arises when
he has said something that is right, that is a sign that he
still possesses too much vanity, which is no good in his
development. He learns to distinguish between the feeling of
satisfaction which follows when he has said something with
which he can agree, and the self-complaisance which is
worthless. He should try not to allow this latter feeling to
arise, but only to develop the feeling of shame when he has
said anything untrue or non-moral, and when he has succeeded in
saying something suitable to the occasion, to develop a feeling
of gratitude for the wisdom he now has part in, and to which he
does not lay claim as his own, but receives as a gift from the
universe.
Little by little the student feels in this way with respect to
his own thinking. As has already been said, he must remain a
man on the physical plane; and while not attaching too much
value to the self-formed thoughts, he must still form them; but
this self-thinking itself now alters, so much that he holds it
under the self-control we have just described. Regarding a
thought, of which he may say: ‘I have thought that and it
is in keeping with the Wisdom’ — regarding this
thought he develops a feeling of gratitude towards the Wisdom.
A thought which arises as a wrong, ugly, non-moral thought
leads to a certain inner feeling of shame, and the student
feels: ‘Can I really still be like this? Is it possible
that I have still sufficient egotism to think this, in the face
of the Wisdom that has entered into me?’ It is extremely
important for him to feel this kind of self-control in his
inner being. The peculiarity of this self-control is that it
never comes through the critical intellect, but always appears
in feeling, in perception. Let us pay great attention to this,
my dear friends: A man who is only clever, who only possesses
the judgment of the outer life, who is critical, can never
arrive at what we are now speaking of; for this must appear as
feeling. When he has acquired this feeling — when it
arises as if from his own inner being — he identifies
himself with this feeling either of shame or thankfulness, and
feels that his own self is connected with this feeling. And if
I were to make a diagram of what is thus experienced, it is as
though one felt wisdom streaming in from above, coming towards
one from above, streaming into one's head in front and then
filling one from above downwards. On the other hand, a student
feels that, as though coming from his own body, there streams
towards that wisdom a feeling of shame, so that he identifies
himself with this feeling, and addresses the wisdom as
something given from outside; and feels within himself a region
wherein this feeling, which is now the ego, meets the
instreaming wisdom bestowed.
The
pupil can inwardly experience the region where these two meet.
To feel this meeting, proves a right inner experience of the
etheric world; he experiences the thoughts pressing in from the
external etheric world — for it is the wisdom streaming
towards him from the external etheric world that presses in and
is perceived by means of the two feelings — that is the
rightly-perceived etheric world. And when he perceives it thus
he ascends to the higher Beings which only descend as far as to
an etheric body and not to a physical human body. On the other
hand, he may experience this etheric world wrongly, in a
certain sense. Rightly, the etheric world is experienced
between thinking and feeling, in the manner just described. The
experience is purely an inner process in the soul. The
elementary or etheric world may be experienced wrongly, if it
is experienced on the boundary between breathing and our own
etheric body. If the student performs breathing exercises too
soon, or in an incorrect way, he gradually becomes a witness of
his own breathing-process. With the breathing-process of which
he is then aware (the act of breathing being usually
unnoticed), he may acquire a breathing which perceives itself.
And this feeling may be associated with a certain perception of
the etheric world. By means of all kinds of breathing-exercises
a person may gain the power of observing certain etheric
processes which really are in the external world, but which
belong to the lowest external psychic processes, and which, if
experienced too soon, can never give the right idea of the true
spiritual world.
Of
course, from a certain point in the esoteric practice a
regulated breathing-process may also begin; but this must be
properly directed. It then comes about that we perceive the
etheric world, as has been described, on the border between
thinking and feeling, and what we thus learn to recognise is
only strengthened by our also coming to know the grosser
etheric processes which take place on the border between the
etheric world and our breathing-processes. For the matter is as
follows: — There is a world of genuine higher
Spirituality, this we attain through the inter-action which
takes place — as we have described — between wisdom
and feeling, there we come to the deeds accomplished in the
etheric world by the beings belonging to the higher
hierarchies. But there are a great number of all sorts of good
and bad and hostile and horrible and dangerous elementary
beings, which, if we become acquainted at the wrong time,
obtrude themselves upon us as if they really were a valuable
spiritual world, while they are nothing more, in a certain
sense, than the lowest dregs of the beings of the Spiritual
world. He who wishes to penetrate into the Spiritual world must
indeed become acquainted with these beings, but it is not well
to become acquainted with them at the beginning. For the
peculiarity is this: that if a person becomes acquainted with
these beings at first, without traversing the difficult path of
his own inner experience, he grows fond of them, has
astonishing partiality for them; and it may then occur that a
man who thus raises himself into the spiritual world in a wrong
way, especially through such physical training as may be called
a changing of the breathing-processes, will describe certain
things pertaining to this spiritual world, as they appear to
him. He describes them in such a way that many people may think
them extremely beautiful, while to the occultist who perceives
them in the inward experience, they may be horrible and
loathsome. Such things are quite possible in the experience of
the spiritual world.
We
need not here speak of other processes which a person may
undertake as a training, and through which he may enter evil
worlds, because in Occultism it is the custom not to speak of
that which one comes to know as the dross of the spiritual
world. It is not necessary that we should enter spiritually
into that world; hence it is not the practice to speak of the
methods which go still lower than the breathing processes. Even
the breathing-process, when it is not done in the right way,
really leads to the dross-beings, which we must indeed come to
know, but not at first, as they then make us enamoured of them,
which ought not to be. We shall only obtain a true, objective
standpoint regarding their value when we have penetrated into
the spiritual world from the other side.
If
the student now begins in this way to feel streaming out of
himself, as it were, responsive feelings towards wisdom, the
feeling of shame, and the feeling of thankfulness; if these
responsive feelings spring up, as it were, from his own
organism, then he thereby becomes first acquainted in the most
elementary way with something of which he must learn more in
the course of his further occult development. In the last
lecture we pointed out that in the course of our gradual
experience of the etheric we become aware of what is active in
the etheric part of our brain, the Amshaspands, referred to in
the teaching of Zarathustra. As regards our ideas we may also
say: There we learn at first to form an idea of the active
archangel beings and what they have to do in us. Through what
is here stored up, through what here arises within us as the
feeling of thankfulness or shame, which feeling has a personal
character because it comes forth from ourselves — through
this we gain the first elementary true conception of what are
called the Archai or Primal forces; for we experience in the
first most elementary way in the manner described what the
Primal forces bring about in us. While the student — when
he begins to experience in the etheric — first
experiences the Archangels in his head in a shadowy way, one
might say, in their activities, in their etheric working, he
experiences in that with which the wisdom comes in contact in
him, and which reacts to it, the Primal forces permeated with
something like will, not entirely of its nature, but the Primal
forces which have entered into him and work in the human
personality. When he learns to feel in this way, he gradually
obtains an idea of what the occultist means when he says: On
that primeval embodiment of our earth, Ancient Saturn, dwelt
the Primal Forces or the Spirits of Personality at their human
stage, so to speak. At that time these Primal Forces or Spirits
of Personality were human. They have now developed further, and
in so doing they have attained the capacity of working from the
super-sensible world. And how do they manifest at the present
time, in our earth-period, this power which they have acquired
through the progress of their evolution as far as the earth?
They have attained the capacity of being able to work from the
super-sensible upon our own bodily nature, and so to work on our
sheath, that they produce forces in our etheric body
manifesting in the manner described. They have placed these
forces in us, and if we feel to-day we are so organised that we
can develop within ourselves the above-mentioned feelings of
gratitude and shame as an inner natural process (and this can
become our own experience), we must admit: that this can become
an inward experience, that our etheric body should pulsate in
this way, and respond in this manner to the Wisdom — to
this end have the Primal forces poured forces into it. In the
same way man himself in future incarnations of our earth will
attain to the ability to imprint capacities such as these into
a corresponding covering in other beings, who will be below
him; he will imprint them into their inner being. What man is
to know regarding the higher worlds will gradually be gained by
inner experience, by our ascending, by our passing over from
physical to etheric experience.
Let
us try to make these matters still clearer. On ancient
Saturn — as you know — heat was the densest
physical condition, as it were, the only physical condition
which had been reached by the middle of the Saturn period. And
you may read in my book,
An Outline Of Occult Science,
the Saturn activities in the physical were currents of heat and
cold. We may also speak of these currents of heat and cold from
the psychic, soul-aspect, and say: Heat flowed in streams, but
this heat was the flowing gratitude of the Spirits of
Personality; or this flowing heat which moved in a different
direction was the flowing feeling of shame of the Spirits of
Personality. What we must gradually acquire is the capacity of
connecting the physical with the moral activity; for the
further we go into the higher worlds the more closely are these
two things connected — the physical occurrence, which
then ceases to be physical, and the moral, which then flows
through the world with the power of the laws of nature.
All
that has just been described as something which appears in
inner experience through the altered etheric body, brings about
something else in the human soul. This human soul gradually
begins to feel discomfort in being this individual man at all,
this single, personal human being. It is important for us to
learn to notice this; and it is well to make a rule of noticing
it. The less interest one has developed previously to this
stage of esoteric development in what concerns humanity in
general, in what is common to humanity, the more disquieting
does one find this on pressing forward. A person having
developed no interest in mankind in general, and yet wishing to
undergo an esoteric development, would feel himself more and
more as a burden. For example, a person to whom it is possible
to go through the world without sympathy and fellow-feeling
with what another may suffer and enjoy, who cannot well enter
into the souls of others, nor transpose himself into the souls
of other human beings, such a person when he progresses in
esoteric development, feels himself to be a kind of burden. If
in spite of remaining unmoved by human sorrow and human joy he
undergoes a theosophical development, the student drags himself
about with him as a heavy weight; and we may be quite sure his
theosophical development will merely remain external, an
intellectual affair only, that such a person is merely taking
up theosophy like learning a cookery-book or some external
science, unless he feels that he is a mere weight, if in spite
of his development, he cannot develop a heart that truly feels
with all human sorrow and all human gladness. Hence it is very
good if, during a theosophical, occult development, we extend
our human interests; and really nothing is worse during this
esoteric progress than not to try to gain an understanding of
every kind of human feeling and human sensation and human life.
Of course, this does not postulate the principle — this
must be emphasised again and again — that we should pass
over all the wrong that is done in the world without criticism,
for that would be an injustice towards the world; but it
postulates something else; whereas before esoteric development
we may have felt a certain pleasure in finding fault with some
human failing, this pleasure in finding fault with other people
entirely ceases in the course of esoteric development. Who does
not know in external life people who like to deliver very
pertinent criticisms of other people's faults? Not that the
pertinence of judgment over human faults has to cease, not that
under all circumstances, such an act as was committed, let us
say, by Erasmus of Rotterdam when he wrote his book, The Praise
of Folly, should be condoned; no, it may be quite justifiable
to be stern against the wrongs done in the world; but in the
case of one who undergoes an esoteric development every word of
blame he utters or sets in motion pains him, and prepares more
and more pain for him. And the sorrow at being obliged to find
fault is something which can also act as a barometer of the
esoteric development. The more we are still able to feel
pleasure when we are obliged to find fault or when we find the
world ludicrous, the less we are really ready to progress; and
we must gradually gain a sort of feeling that there is,
developing more and more within us, a life which makes us see
these follies and errors in the world with eyes, of which one
is critical, and the other filled with tears, one dry and the
other wet. This inner dividing into parts, this becoming more
independent, as it were, of that which was previously
intermingled, also forms part of the change undergone by the
human etheric body.
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