81. EL, Hannover, 3-5-'11
Two sayings are given to
pupils in Rosicrucian schools to support them in their meditations:
Beware of drowning in your esoteric striving. Beware of burning in
the fire of your own ego.
There's an outer and an
inner way to strive towards the spiritual.
Everything around us is like
a veil, like a cover before the spiritual that we must punch through to
get to the spiritual behind it. But in which direction? This cover
surrounds us on all sides, above below front back right and left. And
inwardly, everything that we experience as joy, pain, etc., is like a
veil, like fog that conceals the spiritual in us, and this spiritual
is the same one that we find when we break through the outer cover.
So that mankind can evolve
further and get into the spiritual there's always men from time to time
who're more advanced than is permitted by the momentary stage
of human development, and who have things to tell us about states of
human evolution that reach far into the future. Such advanced beings
must exist to lead men further. John, the writer of the Apocalypse,
was such a man. When he wanted to write a revelation of the future,
he told himself: If I write this book out of the whole surroundings
in which I'm living here and now it'll be influenced by
the self that's in my body, since I'm connected with
everything around and in me. I must free myself from all of this. He
had to place himself on something like a rock that served him as a
firm support, on which he didn't wobble and wasn't
influenced by anything that surged around and in him. And he moved
himself to the evening to 9-30-395, to Patmos Island, as the sun had
already disappeared under the horizon, though its effect could still
be felt, and as the moon and stars appeared. The Virgin constellation
was there in the western sky, irradiated by the last gleam of the sun
that had set, with the moon under it. This picture is reproduced in
one of the seals — the virgin with the radiating sun and the moon
under her feet. Thus, all of these seals were produced out of deep
mystical connections.
John broke through the cover
that surrounds us in this one direction — that of Virgo. There are 12
of these signs. Seven of them are good — the ones reproduced in
the seals; the other five are more or less dangerous. Just as John
chose this particular point in time and space to become completely
separated from himself and all temporal things around him, so a
Rosicrucian pupil must acquire a firm foundation in himself. The best
way to do this is to let theosophical teachings work on us. Our
astral body and thereby our etheric body become expanded by listening
to theosophical ideas. This is the effect on anyone who hears anything
about theosophy But the effect on those who are inclined towards
theosophy is different than on those who aren't. The former
feel the etheric body's expansion and fill it up with
theosophical teachings, by accepting them. The other feel an
emptiness in their etheric body through its expansion because they
don't accept these ideas and so don't fill the expansion.
Then doubt and skepticism arise through this emptiness. Whereas with
the first men, it's like a pouring of oneself into the
universe, which they can't let go too far, for they'll
get a feeling of hollowness, of not feeling at home in these widths
of space, like a fish that's taken out of water and can't
live in air, because its organs haven't adapted themselves to
this changed element. When a theosophist devotes himself to the
teachings and his astral body expands evermore, he loses himself in
this unfamiliar element One must avoid drowning here. And this is
possible if one studies theosophy seriously, takes it in, elaborates
it, and grasps it with feeling, not just with thinking and will, but
permeates it completely with feeling. One can only do this with great
earnestness. One must gain a firm support within oneself — like
John when he wanted to write the Apocalypse and he transported
himself to Patmos Island at sundown of Sept. 30, 395.
The configuration of the
sun, Virgo and moon on that evening can be checked astronomically, and
this was done. From this materialistic science draws the conclusion:
Therefore the Apocalypse was written at that time. And then
we're told that science has ascertained this. That's the
way science ascertains things.
On the inner path one finds
all the joys and sorrows, pains and blissfulness that live in us. But all
of this is attached to our lower, perishable ego This whole desire
world surrounds us like a fog that covers the spiritual for us. It
keeps us from seeing and noticing the spiritual. We must break
through it to get to the spiritual. There are forces that approach an
esoteric pupil to make this fog even denser. The fog gets even denser
if we don't resist it. We must burn it to avoid burning in the
fire of our passions. If we don't overcome this fog, if we
don't resist its becoming ever denser through Luciferic and
Ahrimanic forces, we're prisoners, as occultists say. There
actually are men today who are born with great capacities and reach
certain stages very quickly, but are then completely wrapped up in
such a fog by the adversarial powers that they can't get out.
One calls this occult imprisonment.
Our desire world consists
entirely of egoism. And we can only overcome this egoism in deep humility.
Which thought can lead us to an over-coming of egoism? The thought
that we already spoke about yesterday in the exoteric lecture, the
thought that we killed Christ. We're murderers, yes,
that's what we are. We can transform this fact, but only if we
let Paul's words live and become truth in us, “Not I, but
Christ in me.” We shouldn't kill the divine in us through
egoism, through our life of desires, etc., we should let Christ live
in us. We should begin to carry out this easy and yet so difficult
thing in us with shivering earnestness.
We arose from the divine:
Ex Deo nascimur. We should take all suffering upon us willingly
and patiently with the thought that we killed Christ; we should devote
ourselves to him completely and die in him: In Christo
morimur. Then we'll be reborn, reawakened through the Holy
Spirit: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus. This verse sounds
different exoterically than esoterically, but the difference is in
only one word that's left out in the esoteric version. As we
leave this word out and don't speak this word in shy reverence
for what this word expresses, our feeling goes out to what is left
unspoken in shy reverence.
Ex
Deo nascimur
In … morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.
This tells us that man arose from
the spiritual; that he was originally contained in the spirit:
In
the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
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