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

GA 264 — Berlin

To Adolf Kolbe in Hamburg

Part of the otherwise unknown letter summarizing the content of the esoteric lecture given in Berlin on the same day

Berlin, October 4, 1905

AUM
“Seek the Way"
“Seek the way in inner contemplation“
“Seek the way by boldly stepping out of yourself”¹

The last two sentences only appear to contradict each other. In truth, they express two extraordinarily correct facts.

Inner contemplation is the first half of a journey. At first, at his present stage of development, the human being lives in the sense perceptions of the outer world. Even when he processes these sense impressions with his intellect and reason, he still remains “outside”.

When he frees himself from the impressions of the senses and withdraws into himself, the power of thinking remains. This thinking is then emptied of its outer content. This is the “inner contemplation”. But precisely because thinking is “emptied”, new content can now flow into it from within.

And this content is of a spiritual nature, just as the previous content was of a sensual nature. But it is precisely because of this that the human being now steps out of himself again. He steps out of the sphere of the lower self into the “spiritual outside world”. And this is indicated by the sentence: “Seek the way by boldly stepping out of yourself”.

Now the mystic connects all three sentences with the syllable AUM. The A is first of all the holding on to the state in which man always finds himself at the present stage of his evolution.

The U is the symbol of inner contemplation and meditation, and the M is the stepping out into the spiritual outer world.