From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

120. EL, Hannover, 11-19-'12

One who begins an esoteric training will, of course, try to get into higher worlds, but most people anticipate something different from what often happens there. Many think that the visionary life that must also begin is the most desirable thing, but an experience of this isn't the main thing; the important thing is a certain soul attitude. As soon as an esoteric training has begun, the soul changes under the influence of exercise that are given an esoteric in accordance with his individuality. And then the main thing is to pay attention to such a soul attitude in the finest and subtlest way.

After the meditation, a meditator must let complete quiet enter his soul. At first the meditation still plays into his soul like a tone that slowly subsides. Then this too must disappear from the soul. The latter must become entirely empty for the reception of spiritual worlds. Practice this with patience and perseverance. One must remain quiet even if one experiences nothing for a long time. One must be glad that one succeeds in being quiet.

Without knowing it at first, one can experience something in such moments that are the most productive for development One can have the feeling: I just experienced something. It can appear as a mere dream, but experiences can also approach an esoteric in another way. On getting up in the morn and beginning our daily tasks it may happen that we suddenly have the feeling: I experienced something now. We should pay greater attention to these moments, for after awhile, another feeling will be added; we feel: You didn't think this thought yourself. It seemed to flit by and it was forgotten right away again, but it was there, we experienced it. Such an experience is very important. We should direct our attention to it ever more. For at this moment, our ordinary ego didn't think — what thought was the divine thinking that passes through all ages and eternities. It thinks me — the great world thinking, thinks me. This is expressed exoterically as: Within your thinking, cosmic thoughts hold sway. Esoterically one says: It thinks me. So when you let this mantric verse pass through your soul often, it has a very strengthening effect on it; this can happen right after meditation or at any spare moment while you're walking or standing One must fill the soul completely with thee words and feel the greatest piety. An esoteric should make it his business never to say, “It thinks me” as a mere sentence. There's another sentence we can use in the same way. Here we first have to look back at ourself. Most people don't understand why blows of destiny hit them. An esoteric should always keep the karma idea in mind. It's really so that we are to blame for everything that hit us. If we let this thought live in us, we gradually get to the point where we grasp karma, that we become aware of the connections that exist between the divine spiritual world and us, and of how our destiny, our karma is wrought out of these sub-depths. For this we have the second mantric sentence that should live in our soul in the same way as the first one: It works me; exoterically expressed: World beings work in your will. As we let the words of this second sentence pass through our soul, we should feel the holiest awe and reverence, the deepest devotion. There's also a third sentence. If we let this work on us, we can gradually get to the point where we feel the weaving of the divine hierarchies of higher worlds on our soul body. It weaves me. That's the content of the third mantric sentence, which we should let work upon our soul in the same way as the first two. With this sentence, we should feel the greatest thankfulness towards great, sublime spiritual powers. The exoteric expression of this sentence is: World forces weave in your feeling.

For instance, in the exercise: I rest in the Godhead of the world , we should feel the divine I and not the personal one. Of course, we can't exclude the word “I,” but it's the higher, expanded I that should be felt here. The personal ego with which we live in the physical body must cease at death and pass over into the higher I. It dies into the world ego: I C M.

Another feeling we must have is one of powerlessness with respect to divine, spiritual worlds. We can't preserve our physical body overnight during sleep, can't keep it from deteriorating. Divine, spiritual beings do this for us. On awakening, we come back into the physical body from the spiritual worlds from which we arose; spiritual forces maintain and form us: E D N. To experience E D N in the right way, we must fill ourselves with the thought that everything that we are in thinking, feeling and willing is given to us by the Godhead: it thinks us, it weaves us, it works us — we are born from it: Ex Deo nascimur.

We have darkened this divine soul nature in us during our life through the incarnations. We've surrounded ourselves with a world of visions that come from our being and not from primal, divine beings. Through esoteric life we must press through to the point where when we get into the spiritual world through death's portal, we've freed ourselves of this darkening that has enveloped our whole being like a visionary cloud.

If we've been successful in this, then after death we'll become united with the spirituality, the Christ, that flows through our cosmos. We die into the Christ, I C M — and thereby we're enabled to suck up pure cosmic forces to build up a purer corporeality for the next incarnation.

Our body is given to us from nature's forces; we suck these Father forces into our being; we come to the Father through the Christ: “I and the Father are One. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

We're helped to go on this path through the connection with the spiritual worlds that we can already find in physical life through esoteric life and thereby take the spiritual stream that flows towards us out of spiritual worlds into our intellect and our morality — and that is the Holy Spirit. P S S R.

It thinks me: the descent of the spiritual archetype from the Father forces behind the Zodiac.

It works me: die into Christ's etheric body that embraces the zodiac and in

It weaves me: receive the new thing that's given to us by Christ from the Father forces.

This is the same as in the exercise: I am — It thinks — She feels — He wills.