# Esoteric Lessons 1904–1909

## GA 266I — 8 February 1904, Berlin

### First Lecture

Many of those who have heard me speak and who read about the means stated in the theosophical books as a means to lead to seeing, recognizing, and beholding that which Theosophy reports, will say that these means - mind control, tolerance and what I have called the longing for freedom - do not look like they can really lead to such insights.

Most people have completely false ideas about this. They think that one must ascend to the knowledge of the higher worlds through special feats, through special spiritual training. Many will say: How often have I tried to control my thoughts; how often have I tried to apply the means that are given: I have achieved nothing at all. I am quite willing to believe all that. After all, I did not intend to create the conviction through my remarks that it is particularly difficult to enter the path on which we acquire higher knowledge, nor did I want to create the conviction that it is particularly easy in the sense that many people think. Because neither is fundamentally correct. I would therefore like to explain myself a little more precisely, especially to those who keep objecting: how can I believe that I will attain, through mind control, tolerance, and so on, what is called being a seer in the astral realm, a seer in Devachan?

Those who hold this view seem to me like those who wanted to claim: It is incomprehensible how the trains move forward, since we see nothing but a man throwing coal into the engine.

Now, the man is indeed doing something that bears no resemblance to the movement of a train; and yet, by stoking the fire, he generates the heat that causes the steam to rise, which in turn causes the movement. This image clearly shows what also happens in the spiritual realm. If we really strive to control our thoughts, then the activity of thought control increases in relation to what is achieved at the end, in a similar proportion to the stoker to the locomotive of an express train traveling, say, from St. Petersburg to Paris.

We can expand on this image even further. Imagine that the man is always heating and heating, but always lets the heat escape into the environment, so that nothing is done to convert the heat into a forward-moving force: how much power is wasted. In fact, people in our culture squander an infinite amount of energy, just as heat is wasted when it is released into the environment. This energy develops in our thoughts and feelings. What is lost daily and flows into the void could be used to gain direct supersensible knowledge. Then we would make rapid progress in development, which is the aim of the theosophical movement.

Allow me to describe in a few words how this wasting of forces takes place. Our Western culture is designed to allow people to waste a vast amount of energy simply because we develop more thoughts in the West than anywhere else. But almost all of these thoughts are uncontrolled: uncontrolled in how they arise, uncontrolled in how they are carried forward, and uncontrolled in how they are taken up again. So they are lost without leading us to a goal of knowledge. The difficulty in achieving what is called thought control, although it is child's play when seriously attempted, lies in the fact that you are opposed by an infinite number of prejudices. I would like to illustrate this with a concrete example.

You will admit that an infinite amount of thought is being expended today to improve social conditions. An infinite amount is being thought about it. But for someone who really knows, because it is part of his flesh and blood, what thought control is, all this thought power is largely wasted.[^1]

Anyone who does not think his thoughts through to the end, who does not endeavor to also realize the controlling thought, who does not consider that at the moment something is being thought in the world, another thought must also be thought, which complements and controls the first thought, cannot control his thoughts. For what use is it when the benefactor does good deeds and does not think about where the money came from?

This is not meant as a reproach, because it depends on our circumstances. It is made tremendously difficult for people to control their thoughts because we cannot, so to speak, help but live under millions and millions of prejudices. Is not almost every concept we have simply a prejudice? If we do not make an effort to clearly visualize these prejudices in order to at least inwardly free ourselves from the world of prejudices that flow into us daily, then thought control is not possible; it is not possible to truly see.

Those who really practice mind control and acquire the gift of vision know that through mind control, what we call astral and devachanic vision is acquired. This is simply an experience. But the whole of modern life is designed to be a drain on the power of thought. It is as if it were drawing the power of thought away from the outside with magnetic force. It is the destroyer of the truly seeing power. I would like to give a significant example.

Some time ago I spoke with a writer who is highly esteemed here in Berlin. I spoke of the vast amount of energy that could be used for humanity, but is lost through vanity. He understood so little the significance of what was said that he replied: “We are all vain anyway, and that is also the drive for success!” These people know that they are vain to the point of excess, they know that what makes our present art great and significant can also be achieved under the influence of stormy vanities. But great vanity cannot make a person inwardly whole. Overcoming vanity is as easy as pie for anyone who aspires to it, just as it is as easy as pie to exercise control over one's thoughts for anyone who does not want to get stuck in the prejudices of the world.

Curiosity, like ambition, has a devastating effect on the gift of foresight. How curiously people read the newspapers, even in the early hours of the morning. The curious desire to know what has happened must be overcome. People do not believe that curiosity is so detrimental to the gift of sight; perhaps they cannot distinguish how one and how the other perceives things. One does not perceive them because he is curious, but because he uses them like an effective instrument. He does not do it for its own sake, but perhaps just the opposite, in order to be able to intervene when it is necessary to help people.

To give another example by way of illustration, take the first sentences in “Light on the Path”. They are intended to train the power of vision and are so incredibly easy to follow:

> 1. Kill ambition.  
> 2. Kill love of life.  
> 3. Kill desire for comfort.

These three are deeply ingrained in our lives; but they, too, do not give rise to the gift. And then:

> 4. Work like those who are ambitious. Cherish life like those who love it. Be happy like those who live only for happiness.

The seer does not become useless for life. He just does not waste his strength; he puts even the smallest things at the service of his higher work. This becomes a matter of course for him.

These four sentences in “Light on the Path” are preceded by a series of conditions:

> Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears. Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must fade. Before the voice can speak to the masters, it must unlearn woundedness. And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must moisten its feet.

We must make our deeds, our actions fruitful, so that they help everyone, that they inspire to strive, since they are deeds of living power.

All this is almost impossible in our culture, where everyone believes they can pass judgment on everything, believes they are entitled to find one thing good and great and another thing bad. As a result, our culture does not even reach the first step on the path to higher knowledge, the step of the “raven”. “Raven” means in the language of the initiated one who strives unselfishly not to judge. It does not mean that he blunts his own judgment, but only that he refrains from judging. By “raven” we mean someone who does not say to himself, “It is the most important thing you think about people and things,” but who says to himself, “You must find out what others think about it, you must delve into the soul of others and fathom what lives in them.” If you are capable of doing that, you have reached the first step. This is again child's play for anyone who does not live in prejudices, but difficult for anyone who lives in modern culture, and who is supposed to refrain from criticizing.

The “Raven” is the first stage of the Persian Mithras initiation. The higher initiates have all passed through this stage. They first had to be able to immerse themselves in every soul. They had to understand why a person does this and why he does that. Look around you in your world: one person does this, another that. People are so quick to say: he did that, he shouldn't have done that. But what matters is not to judge why a person did this or that. So the one who wants to grasp the inner life must have gone through the life of the “raven”. He must have searched every soul without prejudice to discover the motives. Of such a one it is said: “He sends out the ravens”. Something of this still echoes in the Kyffhäuser saga when it says: “Emperor Rotbart sends out the ravens”. But this does not mean to send out scouts from the surrounding area, but to explore the souls of men in order to see if he can intervene himself.

One must learn to “understand”, and in the higher sense this is what tolerance is. He who starts out pointedly and boldly from his own point of view will come to seership just as little as he who strives for success in impatient expectation. Think of all the striving out of vanity, all the curiosity - all that flows out into space like the heat of a steam boiler. Innumerable forces are lost as a result. You must regard that as a basic rule. The moment you strive to satisfy your curiosity, you waste your forces. If you kept them to yourself, you would be able to transform them into higher knowledge. If you could just once manage not to see something you would like to see, you would save energy, energy that remains for you, that does not get lost. Likewise, if you could curb your urge to communicate. Usually, when something is said somewhere, it must be said further so that those around you can also benefit from it. But one should not communicate things for the sake of talking, but for each word only express what should be said. If this becomes a principle, then the gift of higher vision gradually develops. This is an experience of those who see. Those who always want to communicate everything, although it is quite insubstantial, will not get very far. Only by overcoming the meaningless and insubstantial urge to communicate can we store up forces within us.

These are paths that are easy to follow in and of themselves if one wants to follow them, but which are nevertheless followed very little because they are considered meaningless. But it does not depend on special training, but on our inner life being further developed in everyday life. In this way, one advanced to the second degree in the schools for the initiated, to the degree of the Occult.

Those who examine every word to see whether it should be said thus or otherwise, who through constant testing have forgotten how to wind, who spread a veil around themselves and speak, as it were, through the veil, were the veiled ones. They had progressed so far that they made themselves the creators of their own personality, testing themselves with every hand movement, with every word. Without another being aware of it, such a one could pass through the first and second degrees. But he must not think: now I have reached the stage where I can penetrate the souls of others, now I can also say something. For anyone who wants to say something, who wants to be a teacher, who wants to have an authoritative significance, must wait until he has reached the third degree of initiation: the degree of the “warriors”. What is written in the second chapter of “Light on the Path” about the “Warriors” applies to them. The first chapter is written for every human being; the second chapter is written for those who want to teach their fellow human beings. But in a sense it is also written for all people, because every person should teach their fellow human beings. Only he who observes these rules can hope that his words will find the right response. No theosophical teacher should ever utter a word without observing the principle:

> 1. Stand aside in the coming battle, and even if you also fight, do not be the fighter.  
> 2. Look for the fighter; let him fight in you.  
> 3. Await his instruction for battle; follow it.

These three are deeply rooted in our lives; but they also make it impossible for the gift of prophecy to arise. And then:

The greatest enemies of a higher inner development are thus curiosity, vanity, insubstantial talkativeness - where one speaks in order to speak, instead of waiting to see if the word is necessary and one wants to hear it - and finally the falling prey to temptation.

The true theosophist and mystic does not avoid temptation from approaching him. He lets it approach him as much as anyone, and then follows the voice within despite the temptation. As soon as he becomes a teacher, he has to step aside. If he yields to even the slightest temptation, his powers will be wasted, flowing out like heat from a steam boiler. But if he succeeds in resisting the smallest, most insignificant temptation, he retains his strength and it will bear fruit.

Thus, by storing up what would otherwise be lost, by accumulating it through the means indicated, we can gradually and quite imperceptibly acquire the gift of inner vision.

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[^1]: The following remarks are so poorly recorded that the original wording can no longer be reconstructed. The gist of the problem of exploitation was that those who suffer from exploitation also exploit. For example: a seamstress who works for a pittance wears clothes that have been made for a pittance. On this point, see the sections on the problem of exploitation in Rudolf Steiner's essay “Geisteswissenschaft und soziale Frage in GA 34 ‘Lucifer - Gnosis’. Fundamental essays on anthroposophy and reports from the magazines ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Lucifer - Gnosis’ 1903 to 1908.