74. EL, Stuttgart, 12-31-'10
>An esoteric should realize
what he is really doing wit the exercises that are given to us. We've often
mentioned that an esoteric is trying to loosen the etheric body and in
general the four bodies from each other. This can happen in an esoteric
and an exoteric way.
One can prepare the physical
body sufficiently through diet, breathing exercises, etc. so that it
ejects or squeezes out the etheric body. Our vegetarian way of living
is basically intended to support the physical body in this striving.
These are exoteric ways to loosen the bodies. The esoteric ones are
our exercises. And here one has to say that the latter are the main
thing. In our materialistic age many a materialist would gladly
follow the most extensive dietary rules, would do breathing exercises
for hours if he could attain something that way. To exert oneself
spiritually is much more inconvenient, and here the spiritual inertia
often becomes evident.
If we would squeeze
out our etheric body by merely physical means the physical body
couldn't give it anything to take with it, and it would go out
into the unknown empty. Then states arise where for instance we
can't grasp something with our thinking when we want to think
it through. Our etheric brain can't use the physical one
properly. It's as if we were swimming in water and wanted to
grab something that kept on eluding us. Under such conditions a
sensible esoteric will tell himself that he must first create order
here through suitable willed concentrations and thought exercises.
Even in normal development some things will arise of which we must
tell ourselves that it's a temporary suffering. For through the
pulling out of the etheric body and physical body undergoes something
similar to a plant that has its sap withheld from it for awhile. It
dries up. And although one doesn't see it physically, part of
the physical body dries up and if it has predispositions for
diseases, they appear. But if the etheric body has permeated itself
rightly with spiritual truths it thereby receives new forces, and
they have a healing effect on the physical body. One can observe that
cuts and other wounds in the physical body heal more easily if the
man permeates himself with spiritual truths or if he just lets the
theosophical way of thinking work on him.
So at first we work on the
astral body through our meditations. This is the builder of our nervous
system that runs towards the spinal cord, or as one says
today — goes out from it. Through an imprint from the astral body
we're now supposed to bring about the unfolding of lotus
flowers in the etheric body, which are connected with each other and
thereby create a cord up front, as it were.
This front cord is only
present etherically-astrally and can only be formed through concentration
and meditation. That's why they're the most important part of our esoteric
development.
The drinking of alcohol
is very harmful for an esoteric. Alcohol must definitely be avoided.
It's good to support development through a vegetarian diet, for
this lifting out of the etheric body is not at all easy today. Many
modern vocations are expressly designed to drive the etheric body
firmly into the physical body, so that it often pains a clairvoyant
to see something like that. The food one gets in hotels has the same
effect.
We're supposed to acquire
a new thinking, feeling and willing through esoteric work on ourselves.
We must tell ourselves that when we've gotten up the courage to
tread the esoteric path we must make a jump over an abyss. We must
let a thought that we have thought through pass over into our
feelings and then permeate the latter with it completely so that we
don't carelessly say something that we haven't fully
grasped. A frequently heard statement that's misused more than
most is: I am a Christian. An esoteric should realize that being a
Christian is a distant ideal that he must constantly try to attain.
To live like a Christian mainly means to accept whatever destiny may
bring us with equanimity, to never grumble about the Gods'
work, and to joyfully accept whatever they send. It means to let the
sentence “Look at the birds of the air, they don't sow,
reap or store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them”
pass over into your flesh and blood. We're living in accordance
with this saying if we thankfully accept what's given to us. If
we don't do that it becomes blasphemy in our mouth. We should
realize that if we don't prepare ourselves sufficiently for the
leap over the abyss and into spiritual regions we can do so much
damage through words and thoughts that the Gods have to destroy
worlds to make the damage good again. For what is ruined must be
destroyed in order to be created anew.
We arose from the
spirit — Ex Deo nascimur. And when we jump over the abyss
we express this through, In Christo morimur — with the
firm confidence that we come to live again over there in the Holy
Spirit — Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus. But because we
should always keep the name of the holiest one — who was always
connected with our earth — so holy that we don't say it
unworthily, there's an esoteric version of the Rosicrucian
verse in which the name is omitted:
Ex
Deo nascimur
In … morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
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