Esoteric Lessons II
GA 266
Lesson 67
Bern, 12-16-'12
The battle against occult endeavors is greater today than ever before. It's true that people always fought against them with blood and fire, but never as much as today. You brothers and sisters can help to mitigate this battle that's only brought about by envy You can do a lot by not referring to me as a leader, as so often happens. You can be certain in your hearts and know where you stand, but you shouldn't speak about this publicly.
One can observe a certain periodicity in human life, just as one perceives a periodicity in the outer world. Say that we have an event in our life. This event passes. Things go on for a while, and then there's a repetition of the event. On the schema one sees that the circles get bigger each time. In ordinary human life one can observe that one tries to discard ambition and vanity, also love of ease and laziness. One may have won a certain victory over these defects in ordinary life. When one has gone through an esoteric development for awhile, these defects suddenly stand before us again, and as one can see from the schema, they're much worse than the first time. Now one can try to overcome this vanity, ambition, etc., again, until they approach us again in ever worse forms. But one can also stand still, not overcome, and then one will bring this vanity, etc., into one's esoteric life as poison. The following threefold force will be a good way to overcome these defects.
When our ego and astral body slip into our etheric and physical bodies again in the morning, consciousness arises through the shock of this slipping-in process. There would be no consciousness in this world without the etheric and physical bodies. These two parts that we need for consciousness don't belong to us—we inherited them from our ancestors. It might occur to us on waking that these parts that we got for nothing could also be taken way from us someday then we can understand what sages always said in the morn: “I thank you God that you enabled me to wake up again,” and so on. It's the Father God who enables us to dive down into the physical body again in the morn. When we say the words: It weaves me, we have force that enables us to feel thankfulness for this submersion in the physical body. We have a very powerful mantra in these words. A great feeling of thankfulness must go through us with these words: It weaves me. We have a great source of strength every time we say them. One who can't generate a great feeling of thankfulness shouldn't say them. Our first thought on awakening in the morn will be a prayer of thanks to the Father God who enables us to return to this physical body.
When a man has a life behind him, something will meet him in the spiritual world. What met him in BC times was different from what meets him now. A shock is experienced when one slips into the physical body, which awakens consciousness. After death, we have no physical body, and without this, an I has no consciousness today. What preserves consciousness for the I is the power of the Son, whom we can meet in the spiritual world after death. Here, too, we have a powerful mantra And that is: It works me. We should say it with devotion and reverence and thereby get a preservation of consciousness between death and a new life.
What must also come about is that we go over into spiritual worlds, that we wake up through the Holy spirit, who leads us over there. Here we have the mantra: It thinks me. This must be said with piety. And so we have hope, love and faith. Then threefold love will awaken in man—love of truth, life and creativity. We often run into love of truth, but love of life not so often. Love of life will put every man in the right position to other men. For how can one love life rightly without loving other men? Giving in to someone in everything out of passion isn't a love of life. It's only love of life if one does not excuse all wrongs out of kindness; sometimes it's love if one doesn't give in. The third love, of creativity, is hard to find. We should love all creativity and work. But look at how men turn against anything creative.
Vanity hinders us in the love of truth. And who can still be vain if he cultivates the love of truth. We must increasingly cultivate the love of truth.
Through the love of life we develop sympathy for all life. Egoism is melted by this love. One who has the right love of all life can't remain in egoism.
The love of creativity eliminates all laziness and love of ease.
And so we can say: I love the truth through the Holy Spirit who thinks in me. I love life through the Son who works in me. I love creativity through the Father who weaves in me. Or we can say: We're born in the Father God. We die in Christ, and we'll be resurrected through the Holy Spirit. E D N, I C M, P S S R. We were born in this physical body through the Father Sprit, we die through the Son, and the Holy Spirit gives us the certainty of a resurrection.
And so we'll say the words that were us out of the truth:
In
the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.