102. EL, Stuttgart, 2-'12
In our
last few lectures we learned that our whole existence is guided by
high beings who each in their own way work at world becoming and at
our special human features. If we want to connect ourselves with them
through concentration and meditation we must fill ourselves with a
feeling of humility that can't be compared with the humility
that we have in daily life, for this feeling of humility stands too
high above every human comprehension, when we connect ourselves with
these sublime beings who are also our teachers in the spiritual
world. Later on, a man is able to distinguish between real beings and
forces that radiate from within him. One can feel in one's
heart whether what's seen comes from higher worlds or from
within one; it goes through the heart with a warmth and excitement
that radiate into it from the cosmos. For the heart is connected with
Leo and the sun, and the warmth of these forces participates in
spiritual vision.
Now
what does it mean to be an esoteric? A man is placed in his karma
through all phases of his earth existence. It's impossible for
him to escape it, for the consequences of his feeling, thinking and
especially of his deeds follow him irrevocably through all of his
incarnations, be it sooner or later. He must eradicate the wrongs
that he did here on earth, depending on the circumstances into which
he's put through his incarnation. Divine guidance sees to this.
Before a man takes his own development in hand, everything goes
according to regulated laws that nothing can accelerate. But if he
begins an esoteric training something quite different happens to him.
He frees himself from guidance, takes his development in hand and
becomes a different man qualitatively. Through what? Things that he
previously thought were desirable mostly love their value for him,
his views and attitudes change, and he sees that he often acted
unsympathetically in the past. His feeling of responsibility now
becomes much more subtle, and he tries to make his wrongs good in
every direction, no matter how many outer and inner sacrifices it may
cost him. The meditation and other exercises that are given to an
esoteric transform his etheric body through daily repetition,
assuming that he experiences them in the right way, that is, with the
right feelings and through pictures that arise within. Thereby the
etheric body gradually separates itself. After these exercises have
been done patiently and by giving up one's whole existence for
a short time each day, something wonderful will be faintly noticeable
to the man on awakening which he can't express in word, for
it's a very delicate feeling of an experience in the spiritual
world from which he's just returned. After awhile, he sees
colors rising before him in which forms take shape, and something
quite unlike what he's used to seeing confronts him. At the
beginning of spiritual development the things that appear are similar
to things in our daily environment, and they often radiate out of our
soul as the latter's qualities — so we shouldn't take
them to be spiritual experiences right away. One should emphasize
that esoteric training doesn't just make a man better. A man
may have moral virtues and be ever so intellectually developed, and
yet have disharmonious, bad qualities hidden in his soul that are
usually varnished over by conventional morals. A man is really worse
than one usually thinks. When a man takes his esoteric development in
hand, his vices inevitably appear, and here an esoteric must use his
whole strength to master them; he brings up his karma and accelerates
it through his development. Let's understand this well for
we've entered on another life's path; we've now
become companions of our sublime spiritual guides who previously
directed us, for now we direct ourselves and also take full
responsibility for this.
People
often say that it's nothing but egoism if a man wants to
develop faster than his fellows. But that's not so. As soon as
we realize that we have a divine origin and that we must develop
ourselves up again to the primal source of our existence, to
divinity, then it's even a sin of omission if we say: I
don't want to participate in the Godhead, it'll lead me
to the goal someday.
There's a lot of intellectual arrogance in a statement like
that, for the Gods have laid the germs of our spiritual capacities in
us, and when we're aware of this it must be our duty not to let
these forces lie fallow or to leave their germination to the general
stream of development. We must take the unfolding of our spiritual
organs in hand ourselves, we must no longer let ourselves be
led — we must become companions of our leaders. It's a
difficult path. There can be no question of egoism here for we have
duties with respect to the leaders who've previously shown us
the path.
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