104. EL, Muenchen, 2-26-'12
It's only natural that in the course of years our esoteric
lectures should get ever more complicated and be built up on ones
that have already been given. But since our esoteric movement is
growing steadily the main disadvantage to this is that things get a
little superficial. The ideal would be to have a small group that
strives for ever more deepening. One way to counteract the flattening
would be if new members would turn trustingly to ones who've
been listening to these lectures for years and catch up that way. In
general, it would be good if people would chatter less and think more
about spreading esoteric teachings in our circles and also about
taking them in. It's not the right thing for so many of our
members to concentrate their trust so much on one person, that is,
mainly on me as the more or less karmic instrument for the spreading
of thee teachings. Newcomers should turn trustfully to older members
in personal and daily affairs, and only get advice from me in
questions of esoteric development. Trust is a factor that's
very important in the life of a lodge, and the ability to give advice
increases in those who are asked for it. We have many physicians in
our movement whom I trust completely, as can always be observed. Our
members could turn to them in many health matters. There's a
particularly strong esoteric life in this place and perfect work is
done. Of course some polar disadvantage arise, especially through the
coming in of people who don't realize what serious and sacred
thing the esoteric life is. It should be impossible for someone who
devoted himself to esoteric life to think of leaving it for an
external reason, because that only proves how insincere his decision
was right from the beginning. Karma creates a quiet destiny for some
people the moment they become esoterics so that they can move their
exercises into the center of their life. Others run into events which
they can't bring into harmony with their esoteric life,
sometimes to such a great extent that their esoteric life suffers
from it. Of course, the ideal would be if we would irradiate our
whole life from our esoteric center, if we had always directed our
gaze at it. Something that especially harms esoteric development is
the untested, superficial and therefore objectively incorrect
criticism that we often direct at people. I'm not saying that
criticizing is wrong, but it should always be directed to facts and
not at people whom one doesn't happen to like.
Our
exercises seem to be something very simple, and yet they're
something that works on us more strongly than anything we can
encounter in life. What do they bring about? Through them,
we're supposed to loosen our etheric body from within and pull
it out. At some point in our exercises it'll happen that we
don't see, hear or feel anymore, and this happens through the
loosening of the etheric body. There are many methods to bring it
out, but such external methods that aren't based on meditation
are harmful to organs, since the etheric body is repelled form
outside, by the eyes, for instance, and they then suffer from this.
Only some forces are loosened by meditative withdrawal, so that
enough of them are left to maintain biological functions. When we get
into this state of not hearing things, etc., we've left our
physical body. Although many of us have been doing these exercises
for years, we haven't been able to do this. Why not?
People
get an uncomfortable feeling before they leave their body, so they
resist this instinctively. A man opposed this stepping out of the
etheric body more than anything else Even thinking about it hinders
it. It's almost like a reflex motion, that one immediately
recoils when this feeling comes over one. The reason one resists this
is that when a pupil has developed enough intensity to leave his
body, he suddenly realizes what a sublime, wonderful temple this body
with all of its organs is, and then when he looks at what went out he
sees that it's an ugly worm, and this worm resists, because
he's shocked at his own ugliness. And then we realize how
endless the path to perfection is.
We
receive a force through our exercises, and this should pour out from
within. Someone may tell us: Nothing is pouring in me. And
that's not surprising if he doesn't do his exercises
energetically enough and if he rates many everyday interests much
higher than his esoteric work.
The
first feeling that we get through the etheric body's loosening
is a heaviness in the brain and in the whole physical body, which we
feel is a weight that doesn't belong to us. We feel that this
wonderful structure that's the greatest thing about us is weak
and perishable. We made it that way. Divine beings made it
increasingly perfect since Saturn, and the Saturn and Sun forces in
it are upbuilding ones that would sustain it. But we got something
into it with Moon forces, astral things, and earth forces, the ego,
that turns these forces outwards in order to transmit percepts to the
ego through sense organs. Now in the course of a pupil's
training he feels that his senses are a destructive force, a
poisonous substance that's inserted in his organism. Just as
the astral body and ego were incorporated, so the nervous system,
brain and senses had to e transformed so that they could not receive
from outside what had previously streamed out through them from
within. At this moment a man understood the real cause of death, and
in the ancient mysteries one called this: Standing at the portal of
death.
Now the
I is supposed to make all the things it did wrong good again and to
perfect all of its bodies so that we become a true man. It's
true that the expression “man” is often not used in the
high sense that really underlies it, but an esoteric should always
look upon the making of himself into a man as his highest striving.
So we should let all imperfect things die in the one whose name is so
sacred to us that we don't name him, in order to come back to
life again in the perfect, in the Holy Spirit.
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