91. EL, Berlin, 10-30-'11
If we dive down within us,
we'll find a lot of beings there. This may seem strange to us at first,
but the more we learn to look into spiritual worlds, the more we'll see
that a number of spiritual beings are working in us — often to undo
the destruction that we men bring about through foolishness.
Let's ask ourselves where disease comes from. We know that
every disease has a physical cause and also a spiritual one that must
be looked for in immorality, passions or other mistakes in this
existence but mostly in the previous one. The overcoming of every
disease releases force, but this doesn't mean that one should
drag out an illness as long as possible to make rapid progress.
Everyone should do his best to get well fast. But if he's been
sick for three weeks or six months, he should look at this as karma and
bear it patiently and calmly.
But there's another reason
why disease is something beneficial. Since the Lemurian epoch and on
through Atlantis until the Mystery of Golgotha, mankind sank every more
deeply into matter. Through the fact that we follow our drives and
passions, we were brought ever further away form the goals that the
Gods set for us. Disease is what bends this downward impulse and
gives us an upward direction again.
Modern science condemns
theosophical teachings and calls them dreams, but just read John's Gospel
or any theosophical book and one will see the enlivening, refreshing
effect it has, whereas a materialistic or monistic book desiccates
one's soul. And since purely materialistic thinking only uses
up forces the consequence in the next existence is that such people
will be feeble-minded. Their brain will be a spongy watery mass;
they'll want to think, but won't be able to. This
feeble-mindedness is a good thing that keeps these people from
sinking irrevocably. For through the fact that the brain is kept from
materialistic thinking, the eternal can work on the core of the
man's being after two successive incarnations, and influence it
so that it strives upward again.
Something you'll all
experience sooner or later in meditation is that one feels entirely loosened,
the etheric body expands, one feels carried out to distant world boundaries,
and then suddenly, one feels as if one were riveted to this world again,
that one can't get away from it; it's as if one were
sitting in a vise. That's good. It's our karma from
previous incarnations that holds us fast like this. If our exercise
would immediately take us up into the spiritual world before we took
care of our karma, the result would be a long fall. Mehazel is the
leader of these hosts who fix us to the earth. Like Samael, Azazel,
and Azael, we get to know him when we descend into our interior. Then
we'll really see that our interior is a field of action for
demons, and as it says in the Bible: My name is Legion. We're
supposed to become acquainted with these beings on our esoteric path
so that we become sensible and gradually outgrow them. Azael works in
such a way that he harmonizes what arises through dullness with
respect to the spiritual world. We take over Azael's work when
we acquire equanimity. Equanimity doesn't mean to jubilate or
to complain about pain, but to recognize the reality of karmic action
in everything. We shouldn't just believe in the karma idea
theoretically, but should sense that karma is active in everything
that hits us. This is the scourging stage in Christian initiation,
that is, one should calmly confront all the pains of life that hit us
like the blows of a whip and know that they're conditioned
karmically. That's true equanimity.
We know that the physical
world is only an inverted mirror image of the astral world. A very important
meditation to make the words “The world is only maya”
effective is the following. Everything around is really there in
reverse. What we see from above downwards is really there from below
upwards. A plant's root is above and the flower down below. The
starry heavens we have before us is the result of spiritual beings
who are really active behind us. Any sound that's received by
the left ear comes from the right. We must become familiar with these
facts and also with complementary colors. If someone has a lot of red
spots imagine that they're green, or imagine that projecting
limbs are cavities. One imagines the green in a plant as reddish
purple and a brown root as dark blue. One should permeate all of
these exercises with reverence and devotion. That's the feeling
with which we can hope to approach the world's Godhead; whereas
God remains an abstraction to mere thinking. If we glow through our
thinking with reverence, devotion and humility, we may hope to
penetrate the spiritual world.
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