From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

EL, Kassel, 5-9-'14

Verse for Saturday. My dear sisters and brothers! In ordinary day consciousness we know nothing about what's behind what we sense, imagine, think, feel and will. In our dream life we're in this living weaving that's the background of our day consciousness. One part of this world of which we can otherwise perceive nothing extends into our chaotic dream pictures. If we could awaken out of our dreams half way we would experience a flowing wave around us in which our soul lives from the beginning of sleep. And then if we woke up completely we would bring a memory of living, weaving dream experiences into our day consciousness. However it's physically impossible to wake up half way; we must go into sense consciousness completely right away. That's why we know nothing about that other world. But we're really always dreaming. This living, weaving dream world is always around us and we're in it — we just don't know it. The strange thing about dreams is that it's easy to forget them, much easier than anything we experience with day consciousness. Most people only think about what they experience with their day consciousness, and their dreams reflect this. It's only when one fills one's soul with ideas and feelings that go beyond daily life that one can dream about something that has its origin in the spiritual world. A man who's immersed in his everyday consciousness knows nothing about this spirituality that's behind all of his thinking, feeling and willing. We can become aware of this spirituality from another side. A spiritual stream pours into the physical body at birth or conception as it's getting built up and gradually pulses through the whole organism. The life of the new soul core, the germ for the next life, that which survives death becomes created in the course of a life. But we know nothing of the spirit from the previous life that streams into physical existence or about the soul core that's the seed for the next life. So what do we know?

Our life consists of two parts, one from birth to our earliest memory and another from this moment until death. If one is in one's 31st year and remembers back to that point, one then arrives at the boundary of the spirituality that's streaming in there. One perceives this boundary; one becomes aware of this boundary by bumping into it. Such collisions remain in our memory during our life and form our memories. Our memories collect in there. And that's our consciousness in physical life.

Just as the seed of the new plant develops in a plant, so we work at the forces that shape our new life for the future. Happy are they who have stored up nice memories. The spirituality from the past life that streams and goes through the new body from birth on gradually dissipates during life.

As was often said, a great memory tableau appears after death. On leaving the physical body one first arrives at this boundary where all the memories are stored up; we then see them as a great tableau before us. The memory of some experience can be forgotten all life long until it's suddenly drawn up into consciousness again. It was always there. It's as if one put salt in water and it falls to the bottom. This can be brought up again by stirring. Likewise our memories are a sediment that we can bring up again. If we pour seltzer into a glass we see little bubbles rising. The water, the actually real thing we don't see but only where there is nothing, the carbon dioxide bubbles. We see that, that seems to be reality to us. Likewise we only become aware of the boundary between the new soul core and the old spirituality; we become aware of something where they bump into each other. And this makes up our day consciousness. Consciousness arises through the contact between past and future. We can also make ourselves aware of this spirituality from a third side. It's not only men who think and their memories and thoughts remain as a sediment, but spiritual beings have thought and are still thinking. What high hierarchies thought in times long past, the memories that remained behind of these thoughts are what we perceive around us here as mountains, clouds, streams or in short nature. The physical sun is the remaining memory of the sun leader, of Christ, of the earth spirit who later went into the earth at the event of Golgotha. And the memories of what high beings on Moon thought are plants, animals and men's physical bodies. Spiritual beings there thought errors — which was appropriate there — but then didn't realize them. When we men think good and noble things they continue to exist; we see them in the distance, in the future as imperishable existential values. The errors, lies and dissolute things we think also survive and we see them standing before us in the distance as a waste product that serves as food for the seeds that emerge from well thought things — just as we feed ourselves from the erroneous thoughts of Moon spirits. The waste product in itself is unproductive, but it serves as food for the seeds developing out of good things, just as the mineral kingdom provides soil for plants and just as one thing always feeds on other things. Good feeds on evil like a sprouting seed that consumes corrupt things and perpetuates itself. But we should only think bad and evil things and mustn't let them be realized as deeds, for then they are always luciferic and ahrimanic. Lucifer is about at the stage where the Elohim were on old Moon and he still wants to carry out erroneous thinking in the way that those beings did back then while it was appropriate but is now wrong. But he can only let errors be thought in men. That's why there are errors and deceptions here, and we should become ever more aware of this.

We become aware of something where the “memories” of those high hierarchies are. Through the fact that we bump into a wall that's the “memory” of Gods with our hand that's also a memory, the boundaries of these realities bump into each other, and we thereby become aware of this object. We feel reality, matter in day consciousness where this real thing ceases, and we feel the other thing as nothing. We feel neither our hand nor the wall, but only the boundary in between. A table isn't a reality — it's a hole in the spiritual world that's filled with wood. It's only in our ordinary consciousness that we look upon the table as a reality. If we could make ourselves strong enough through meditation and dampen this day consciousness so that we became completely aware of the nothingness of the surrounding world, then we with our souls would always experience the fact that we're in the spiritual world. Three meditation verses were given to us for this strengthening of our soul. It's a matter of meditating them correctly, of not simply saying the words but of hearing the expression that has to be placed into them if they are to work on our soul in the right way. (The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

The first two lines in verse one are descriptive, then — resistance. Then descriptive again, and at the end is a request. Beginners can meditate this verse in the evening after the retrospect; those who already have an exercise can do it in their spare time. Special attention should be given to the question in the fourth line of the second verse. There's an entreaty at the end. Beginners should do it in the morning; others can do it at any musing time. A third verse is given us as a test to ask oneself once in a while whether one already feels the spiritual world as a reality.

Everything that's inspired out of the spiritual world is revealed in numbers. The being who let these 7-lined verses flow in thereby helped people to distinguish between real and unreal things. By letting these verses pass through our soul repeatedly we give this being an opportunity to speak to our soul; thereby we get the right effect of the verses.

These verses are expressed briefly in EDN, ICM, PSSR and also in: In the spirit lay the germ of my body ...