The History of the Esoteric School 1904–1914, Volume One

GA 264 — 23 March 1908, Berlin

To Anna R. Minsloff in Russia

Berlin, March 23, 1908

My dear Miss Minsloff!

Warmest regards to everyone. The exercises were not meant to stop one day, but to continue forever 1) Not available. until you receive new ones. It will now be good if you continue the morning and evening exercises exactly as described during your last visit. This exercise contains many secrets, which reveal themselves through years of energy through inner identification with the content. You in particular will come to real inner revelations through patiently continuing this exercise. If you occasionally feel a weakening of your strength, it is a temporary phenomenon that has no further significance and will return in the form of energy. The following are especially important in the morning exercise: 1) the seven lines you already know; 2) the four meditations on “I am,” “It thinks,” “She feels,” “He wills,” in connection with the breathing described to you; 3) the magic word given to you; 4) devotion to the divine ideal. Between the second and third inhalation, you insert a vivid visualization of a plant (imagination) and try to completely immerse yourself in the idea of how the human being owes his life to the plant. You do this like this:

Inhalation while looking at the plant and thinking:
Your (the plant's) death – my life
Then hold your breath and look at the imagined plant;
then exhale with the thought:
My death - your life.
Repeat this three times, then follow with:
Inhale again with the sentence:
Your death - my life;
then exhale
My death – your life;
then refrain from breathing for a while (three times as long as you inhaled).
Repeat this three times again.
Then place yourself in the plant; identify with it in your thoughts and look at yourself as if you were a completely different being, inhaling with the thought:
My death – your life
Exhalation with the thought:
Your death – my life; then again holding the breath for a while.
This is done once.
In doing so, you always have the plant in front of your mind's eye. In the evening, do the exercises that have been described to you. The subsidiary exercises: concentration of thought, initiative actions; overcoming pleasure and pain, positivity, impartiality are repeated in such a way that when you have finished them, you start again from the beginning; one month of concentration of thought, then one month of initiative action, etc., as described in your papers. If you carry out these exercises, everything will go well.

And if you, my dear Fräulein Minsloff, do not overstrain your strength, then I can fully agree with all the things you do for other people. They will have a beneficial effect. You are doing everything right.

Now a few words about the founding of the Russian Section. Not much will be achieved for the great spiritual cause, which alone can be salutary and is important, by founding this Section. In Germany, the Section is in many respects already a stumbling block; but a necessary one that must not be ignored. We had to have the Section here. For you, the Section will be even less beneficial. You have in the country and especially in the people the great theosophical treasure, which, through a spiritual connection with what you have learned here as true theosophy and also as genuine, life-giving, future-oriented Christianity, must come to the highest spiritual bloom precisely in Eastern Europe. In the non-theosophical spiritual life of the West, there is a science that is of value for the future only because of its comprehensive thought technique. This thought technique must be inculcated into the spiritual life in the future. In the East, however, you have a folk soul content that must be developed for the benefit of all humanity. It is this folk soul content that makes it possible to express great wisdom from the East in a few sentences, which cannot be exhausted in the West with entire books. The sufferings in your country are the birth pangs of this folk soul content. But to the true student of these matters the germ of this national soul-content appears like a breath of magic. Much spiritual work is needed here. What Miss Kamensky presented in Munich as a lecture at the congress has nothing to do with this spiritual matter, because these are basically only theoretical reflections of the West; the folk soul lies much deeper. Much of this folk soul germinated in Tolstoy; but all of this must be combined with genuine theosophy if it is to become genuine.

In contrast to all this, which, as I know, is also imprinted in your goals, my dear Miss Minsloff, in contrast to all this, the founding of a section is a childish pygmy work, the innocent play of a few theorizing people who are inwardly fanatical about the one form of theosophy they have come to know. And the best thing to do is to let them found their section and say to ourselves, they may do as they please. The section will only benefit from the section foundation through what is poured into the section vessel. For this reason, it would probably not be entirely good if I were to give lectures there right now. May the section be founded first. With or without the Section we shall not stray from the path we are walking. And the Section will do no harm, nor much good either, in your country. It seems best to wait a little while longer with my lectures, even if it is not for long. Let the Section go its way. Continue your own work, my dear Miss Minsloff, as you have done so far. It is better if you do this valuable work positively and still let the section develop quietly. Whether you and the few members of the German section should join the Russian section is not something that needs to be decided now. That can be left until the Russian Section is established, if it should happen at all.

I am writing this letter for you, and I ask you not to share the content with any of the other Theosophists, with only one exception, if you have the opportunity: Miss Olga von Sivers. But she too should only consider the matter as a guide for herself and not tell this to others.

As always, truly yours,

Dr. Rudolf Steiner