Breathing Divine Wisdom: Esoteric Training and Western Initiation

GA 266I — 1 June 1907, Munich

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

My dear sisters and brothers! All of you are more or less involved in occult training. Today we want to clarify the nature of such occult training. The esotericist must be clear that he is always surrounded by invisible beings that are invisible to ordinary human beings. Just as we walk through the air, for example, we also always walk through countless invisible beings wherever we turn. Everything, everything that surrounds us is the expression of such beings. When we take a breath, we do not only breathe in air, but at the same time a high spiritual being, whose physical body is the air, flows into us and fills our entire organism. When we exhale, this being flows out of us again. With every breath we take, we should become aware that a divine spiritual being is entering us, and we should be clear that we ourselves want to become such a being one day. The being embodied in the air is much higher than we are today, but it once stood where we now stand, and the time will come when we too will have developed as far as it has.

When we are in an esoteric school, the exercises, whatever form they may take, are intended to enable us to gain a living awareness of this spirit flowing into us. What is it that says “I” within us? It is the inhaled stream of air. It creates the red blood in us, and only since the red blood has been flowing through our bodies have we learned to say “I.” But it is not only in the incoming air that a spiritual being influences us; higher beings are at work everywhere in our bodies, in our muscles, nerves, and bones. But recognizing this does not make one an esoteric. If I say to myself, “When I breathe, air flows into me,” I am a materialist. If I know and recognize that a spiritual being flows into me with every breath, I am a person of knowledge, but not yet an esoteric. But when I let every breath flow into me with reverence, with deepest reverence for the divine being that permeates my organism, when a living feeling of this higher being fills me completely, then I am an esoteric.

What does this spirit embodied in the air create within me? It penetrates into my blood, filling my entire organism, so that an air body is formed within me, surrounded by bones, muscles, tendons, and so on. Through the exercises, I am to become fully conscious of this air body, for it is the same thing that says “I” within me. If you do your exercises in this sense, you become freer and freer, and it is as if a whole new person is being born within you. Then you no longer say “I” to your bones, muscles, and tendons; you feel yourself completely in this air body, and you find your self in the spirit of God embodied in the air.

What does a person actually do when they do exercises? We need to be very clear about this. When they practice, they live as all people will live in the future. During their exercises, esotericists find themselves in a future state of humanity. In the future, all people will breathe like esotericists do when they do breathing exercises, but they will only do so conditionally. Only in a much more distant future will it be natural for all people to breathe in this way. But then the human body will have become completely different. It will be such that it will be completely natural for people to breathe as esoteric practitioners do now from time to time. What the esoteric student does is actually an anticipation of what will happen later. In a certain sense, it is not yet entirely appropriate. The physical body is not yet ready for it. Esotericists are therefore ahead of their time and are creating the future.

But progress is only possible in this way. Our Earth could never evolve if there were no people on it who already lived as all of humanity will live in the distant future. If there were no one on Earth who wanted to do esoteric exercises, the Earth would become more and more rigid. It is true that all people in Devachan are working on the transformation of the Earth. But if those incarnated on Earth were only striving to keep everything as it is now, and at the same time those living in Devachan wanted to transform the Earth, there would be no harmony between their mutual efforts. The people on Earth would cause the Earth to become completely ossified and rigid, and through the influence of those in Devachan who want to transform the rigid Earth, the Earth would eventually splinter and be destroyed. Therefore, every esotericist must be clearly aware of what a sacred duty he fulfills for the progress of humanity when he performs esoteric exercises.

In itself, it is a contradiction to the present conditions for the esotericist to live as will only be natural in the future. But progress is only possible in this way. Man must always use the body that is natural and possible according to his stage of development. A being that, according to its spiritual development, belongs on Jupiter or Venus must, in order to be able to dwell among us, make use of the physical body that we all have. But in spirit it leads a life that belongs to a distant, distant future and thereby gradually carries this future state into us, making it possible for us to attain this future.

Now someone might say: Couldn't human beings undergo such a development on their own, without an esoteric school? Certainly they could. For example, in the course of their development, every human being will undergo a transformation of the breathing process. But it is like someone saying: I want to learn mathematics entirely on my own, without a teacher. He would then, of course, also have to do without any textbooks. He would certainly learn mathematics that way, but it would take him about 3,000 years to learn something that he could learn in five months with the help of a teacher.

In principle, it would certainly be possible for human beings to discover for themselves everything they now learn through esoteric exercises. For these exercises are all rooted in human nature. However, it would take them not 3,000 years, but many hundreds of thousands of years. The path is shortened through the esoteric schools. They have no other purpose. By doing such esoteric exercises, people grow spiritually into the future; they experience within themselves what will once be in the future, and what they experience is what we know as the higher worlds. They represent future states of humanity. At every moment, therefore, we must be conscious of our sacred duty, feeling with every breath the God who flows into us. He flows into us when we inhale, but when we exhale, we kill his body by rendering the air useless. But our exercises gradually teach us to exhale the air as pure as we inhaled it. Those who do not want to learn this through exercises will of course be able to achieve it one day, but they will have to wait until the human body has been transformed in such a way that such breathing becomes as natural as the present type of breathing is with the present constitution of the body.

Today, air flows in and out of us and transforms used blood into usable blood. Has it always been this way? No. There was a time when what is now our blood heat was not yet within us, but flowed in and out of our organism like air does today. Just as the air spirits flow through us today, so did the fire spirits flow through us then. Warmth breathed in and out of human beings. And just as red blood was able to form under the influence of the air spirits, so at that time, when the fire spirits were working in our organism, a substance other than the life-giving fluid flowed through all beings: milk. What flows today as milk in all beings that suckle their young is a remnant of that time. Only today, the functions in the human body that are connected with milk are directed by other spirits.

When young humanity was developing on Earth, for example in the times of Atlantis and the first races of our post-Atlantean peoples, the leaders who guided them were not yet human beings, but fire spirits. We must therefore first relate to them in our striving upward. But just as it is now, that not all people develop equally, but that some always lag behind, so it was then. Some of the fire spirits lagged behind the others and then formed a resistance to the new development. The air and wind spirits had already begun to exert their influence among humans, replacing the old fire spirits, when the fallen fire spirits stood in their way. Norse mythology gave the people a mental image of their nature in the legends of the god Loki. He is one such fallen fire spirit and is hostile to the Aesir. It is he who brings about Baldur's death. Wodan, the weeping one, is a wind god. The ancient Nordic peoples felt him when they heard the storm raging, when they breathed the wind into their bodies.

These Nordic peoples were not without mysteries. We know how our post-Atlantean race spread from the west, from ancient Atlantis, to the east. Just as the mystery schools had flourished in Atlantis, they were also preserved in the newly forming main race. Four sub-races initially developed from this fifth main or root race: first, the Indian; second, the Persian; third, the Chaldean-Babylonian-Egyptian-Semitic; and fourth, the Greek-Latin race. But not all the peoples who came from Atlantis migrated to these eastern regions. Some remained in the west, in the areas of present-day Europe. They too had their mysteries, which later developed into what we know as the Druid and Trott mysteries. But this western culture did not remain separate from what was forming in the east. What gradually blossomed in the East developed into the highest crown of what underlies the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments. This came to the West with a tremendous impact and united with what had developed here in silence. This impact was immensely beneficial.

We must be clear that the source of all wisdom in both the East and the West is Atlantis.

Atlantis was a land shrouded in dense water vapour. This dense water vapour had a very special relationship with human beings. The people of that time felt something in it. It made their souls receptive to the language of the deity. In the trickling of the springs and the rustling of the leaves, the Atlanteans heard God speaking to them. And when they were lonely and quietly turned inward, they heard a sound like the voice of God speaking to them. They had no need for laws and commandments; God himself told them what to do. And that sound, which resounded throughout Atlantis and echoed from the hearts of men in quiet hours of contemplation, was later symbolized in Egypt as the tau sign: T. This is also the original form of the cross:

Now that we understand how the water mists established a connection with the divine, enabling humans to directly receive and understand the wisdom of their God, let us turn our gaze to the water that floods our lands. When we see a dewdrop sparkling in the grass in the light of the morning sun, our hearts are filled with reverence. And this sparkling dewdrop is a monument to us, a monument to those times in Atlantis when water enveloped the land as mist and man felt the wisdom of the gods around him.

The wisdom of Atlantis is embodied in water, in dewdrops. Dew, our English word dew, is nothing other than that ancient Atlantean sound. So let us regard every dewdrop glistening on a blade of grass with reverence and devotion, as a sacred legacy of that time when the bond between humans and gods was not yet broken. The dew sign, the ancient sign of the cross, is called crux in Latin. And what does dew, dewdrop, mean? Ros. “Ros-crux” is our Rosicrucian.

Now we recognize its true meaning. It is the Tao of Atlantis, the wisdom of Atlantis, which shines upon us today in the dewdrop. The Rosicrucians want to tell us nothing else.

It is a symbol of the new life that will blossom in the future in a spiritual way.

Thus, our Nordic race retained a close connection with ancient Atlantis. The situation was different for those races that had migrated eastward and developed into the four sub-races of the Indians, Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks-Romans. They underwent an independent development. But it is a law in the spiritual world that every race that has risen independently for a while must perish unless it receives a new influence from the areas from which it originated, which were its mother country. Thus it was necessary for the high Oriental culture to receive an impulse from our regions, to merge with the spiritual culture that had quietly developed in our countries.

The person who recognized this was Christian Rosenkreutz. It was he who, in the 13th and 14th centuries, undertook the great work of merging the spiritual culture of the East with that of the West. He has always lived among us and is still with us today as a guide in spiritual life. He brought the spiritual culture of the Orient, as it appears in the Old and New Testaments as the highest flowering of Eastern wisdom, into intimate harmony with the ancient wisdom originating in Atlantis.

Thus he gave us Christianity in the form in which it had already been prepared and initiated by that mysterious “unknown man from the Oberland” who came to Johannes Tauler. “Oberland” means the spiritual world, the realms of heaven. The spiritual individuality hidden in the “unknown man from the Oberland” was none other than the Master Jesus himself, in whose body Christ once lived on earth. He too is still with us today.

The Master Jesus and the Master Christian Rosenkreutz prepared two paths to initiation for us, the Christian-esoteric and the Christian-Rosicrucian paths. These two paths have always existed since the Middle Ages. But with the rise of materialism, spiritual life gradually disappeared from people's consciousness. By the end of the last century, materialism had become so prevalent that humanity needed a new spiritual impetus if it was not to perish.

A single personality was found who, through her psychic disposition, was able to hear the voice of the Masters. This was H.P. Blavatsky. When she began her work, however, not all occult traditions had been lost. Rather, there were numerous brotherhoods [in the West] that had preserved occult knowledge, but in a rigid, ossified form, without any living life. When H.P.B. wrote her “Isis Unveiled,” these brotherhoods insisted that this was their wisdom, because many signs and teachings were known to them, and they sought in every way to put obstacles in her way.

Thus, H.P.B. was severely hindered in carrying out her work in the spirit of Christian esotericism, as was her original intention. She indeed had to go through terrible experiences at that time. And those occult brotherhoods really succeeded in making her clothe what she had to say in Oriental garb in her second work, The Secret Doctrine. Even today, we are still accustomed to most of the terms used to describe occult connections being in Oriental languages. But this Oriental form of truth is not for us Western peoples. It could only hinder us and bring us back from our goal. Here in the West are the peoples who are to form the core of the coming races.

This is to be given as the actual answer to what was announced some time ago as the voice of the Masters from the East. Our Western masters have also spoken, albeit with less fanfare. And what they said, we want to write deep in our hearts. They called on us to cooperate in the future development of humanity and to stand firm and persevere in all the struggles that still lie ahead; to hold fast to what we possess as a living sacred tradition.

This call should always resound in our souls. But no one should believe that there is any disharmony between the masters of the East and the West. The masters always live in harmony. Nevertheless, a profound change has taken place recently with regard to the esoteric schools of the East and the West.

Until now, both schools were united in one large circle under the joint leadership of the Masters. Now, however, the Western school has become independent, and there are now two schools of equal standing: one in the East and one in the West; two smaller circles instead of one large one. The Eastern school is led by Mrs. Annie Besant, and those who feel more drawn to her in their hearts can no longer remain in our school. Each person should examine carefully which path their heart's desire leads them to. At the head of our western school are two masters: the Master Jesus and the Master Christian Rosenkreutz. And they lead us along two paths, the Christian-esoteric path and the Christian-Rosicrucian path. The great white lodge guides all spiritual movements, and the Master Jesus and the Master Christian Rosenkreutz belong to it.

This is given as an answer, as a real answer to the questions that many have asked themselves as a result of recent events.

We stand at the dawn of the sixth day of creation. We are to develop the sixth and seventh sub-races out of ourselves. The future is already here within us as dawn. Realizing this, take in what Master Christian Rosenkreutz says to you. (The words of the Master are then read aloud.

Record B

The entire physical organism of the human being, this marvelous structure of the physical body with all its organs, bones, nerves, glandular system, and blood circulation, would never have come into being if spiritual beings had not worked on human beings throughout the entire course of world evolution. Even now, spiritual beings are still working on him. Such beings, who worked on the formation of the human body, were the fire spirits on the moon. They gave their warmth to humans on Earth; this warmth passed into his red, warm blood. They themselves now live in the air. And when humans breathe in the air, they breathe in these high, divine beings. It is they who have developed the I in humans by flowing into them through the air. This is represented in the words: “God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man, and man became a living soul.” The god of air or wind is Yahweh or Jehovah. Yahweh means “the one who blows.” The name Wotan means the same thing. He is also the one who roars in the storm. He is the god that humans breathe in. The process of breathing is not merely a physical process, but also a spiritual process. It must become a sacred process for us. As the air enters us, God creates a physical body within us. These are the branches of the respiratory organs, which give God a physical organ in which he can work.

We must distinguish between the exoteric, materialistic view, which sees only the physical combustion process in the intake of air; then exoteric occultism, which understands that God is at work in the human being during the breathing process; and finally esoteric occultism. Esoteric occultism is when we experience God within ourselves during breathing; we experience the divine essence in all things.

It is not the physical body of the human being that is to be regarded as his ego, but rather his ego lives in the air he breathes in. The air we breathe out is deadly air that God cannot use. In this way, we kill the body of this God. In the future, the breathing process will take place in such a way that we ourselves will transform the air within us, that we ourselves will do what the plant world now does for us. Gradually, human breathing will change. All people will eventually breathe in a completely different way. But in order for this future state to come about, some must begin to transform their breathing process now. If no one began now, the future would not come about. It is precisely because some are beginning this transformation now that it is possible that completely different people will exist in the future. We ourselves must bring this about so that it is possible. What we recognize and practice in this way is future wisdom, not just ancient wisdom.

Let us go back to the distant past of this earth, when conditions were very different. At that time, humans lived in Atlantis, a land of mist. The air was filled with water and clouds of fog. Our ancestors remembered this in the stories of Niflheim, Nebelheim. Our human ancestors lived in this water-saturated air. They had not yet been taught about the world in the way we are now. But wisdom itself dwelt in the waters that filled the air. It sounded to them from the waters. Everything that surrounded them in nature had an audible language for humans at that time. In the rustling of the leaves, in the rustling of the trees, in the trickling of the brook, in the blowing of the wind, in the rolling of thunder, in the splashing of the waves, they heard a sound that proclaimed God's wisdom to them. A sound echoed to them from all of nature around them. This sound was the wisdom contained in the waters, designated by the Tao - T (the cross).

There is also a word for this in our German language. Consider the morning dewdrops as they gather on the flowers - the name Tau is the same as the word Tao for what the waters of wisdom revealed to humans. The German word Tau means this. Tau is ros in Latin, and the cross is crux. And roscrux means both the same thing: the Tao sign, the cross, and the dew on the plants. This is the esoteric meaning of the exoteric sign, the cross entwined with roses.

After the time of Atlantis, a great stream of people moved from west to east. Some of these masses remained in Central Europe, while others pushed on to Asia and then south. From these came the civilized peoples of India, Persia, Babylon, and Assyria, the Greeks and Romans—the first four sub-races of the Aryan master race. Culture first emerged from these peoples. However, the same initiations that had been introduced there also existed in Central Europe among the people who had remained behind. There were also initiation priests who imparted initiations corresponding to those of India, Persia, Egypt, and Greece. These were the Trotts and Druids.

In order for human development to continue, a new influence had to follow the development of the first four sub-races. The peoples of Central Europe still had memories of the times of ancient Atlantis and the Tao wisdom of ancient Niflheim. In order for progress to take place in evolution, this ancient Atlantean wisdom, the Tao wisdom, had to be combined with another wisdom, a current that emerged from Eastern wisdom. This was the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments, brought by Christ Jesus. Had this new influence not come, stagnation would have set in and humanity would have headed for destruction. Thus, through Christ Jesus, the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments was combined with the Atlantean Tao wisdom in Central Europe.

In 1459, it was Christian Rosenkreutz who recognized the necessity of connecting Tao wisdom with Christianity in order to bring about the new evolution. He brought Tao or Ros-crux wisdom to the people of Central Europe, which connected with the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments.

At the time of Johannes Tauler, there lived a personality known as the “Unknown from the Oberland.” This personality taught Johannes Tauler, who later preached so powerfully that some of his listeners were left as if dead. The individuality that appeared in this personality [the “Unknown from the Oberland”] was the individuality of the Master Jesus, who has always guided the development of the West, albeit in secret. Together with this individuality, another master individuality worked in the West: Christian Rosenkreutz. They are still the masters of the West, guiding development in Central Europe. The lodge of the masters forms a brotherhood, but the work they do for the further development of humanity is different. Just as the other two masters work for the East, so these two masters work for the West.

Of all the scholars living in the West in the last third of the 19th century, none was suited to convey the new spiritual impact on the world that the Great White Lodge recognized as necessary to save the Western world from destruction by materialism. However, in H.P.B., the masters found the most suitable tool to bring the new teachings to the world, the wisdom that will bring about the future. H.P.B. laid down the Western wisdom that was initially given to her in Isis Unveiled. This is a significant work that contains great treasures of the greatest truths, but they are partly presented as a distorted image. That is why H.P.B. was not understood in the West at that time.

There are also large occult brotherhoods in the West. Many of them did not agree with what H.P.B. was doing. A powerful persecution arose among them against her, under which H.P.B. suffered terribly, as no one has any idea. These occult brotherhoods wanted to teach occult wisdom only in the orthodox sense. That is why they united against H.P.B. She wanted to bring future wisdom to the West. But since she was not understood, she turned to the East and was inspired by the wisdom of the Orient, which she recorded in The Secret Doctrine. This is Eastern wisdom. Initially, however, it was intended to bring Western wisdom about the future.

An answer shall be given to the questions that have been asked regarding the apparitions (of the Masters) in Adyar. It is not for the occultist to decide whether these apparitions were real or not. The masters of the West have spoken less loudly than the masters of the East. Their call goes out to all in the West, whether they wish to follow the guidance of the two masters of the West.

If we wanted to introduce the wisdom of the East here, to follow Eastern training here in the West, it would mean the downfall of the West. We need the wisdom for the future, the Western training given to us by these two masters.

In the past, the Western school was only affiliated with the Eastern school, subordinate to it; but now the two are only fraternally connected, yet they walk side by side completely independently. From now on, the Western school is no longer subordinate to that of the East, but coordinated with it. What I impart on behalf of the masters of the West goes hand in hand with what Mrs. Besant teaches on behalf of the masters of the East.

From now on, Christian esoteric training and Christian Rosicrucian training will exist in the West. The former trains through feeling, the latter through the intellect. The dying races in the East still need Oriental training. Western training is for the races of the future.

Record C

In order to continue the development, the masters must also be in the physical body. The master of the sixth dawn is Christian Rosenkreutz. Jesus of Nazareth, Christian Rosenkreutz. If we try to take this into our feelings and let it become a sensation, we will understand that there must be an esoteric school of the West and one of the East. They stand side by side as equals. Each has its two masters: Mahatma Kuthumi and Mahatma Morya; Master Jesus of Nazareth and Master Christian Rosenkreutz. One of these schools is led by Mrs. Besant, the other by Dr. Steiner. However, a decision must be made as to which one to turn to.

Record D

The dewdrops are a reminder of the waters of the divine-spiritual primordial womb from which human beings were born, and at the same time of baptism, which is a baptism of remembrance of these waters. Each dewdrop is a monument to us, a last remnant of this divine connection.

Dew, Tao is the same thing. - In the Tao, our souls once felt this resting in the divine. We descended into matter; from it we purified ourselves of this matter, so that we became transparent and clear like dewdrops. When the astral body has become the diamond soul (see “Voice of Silence”), we ascend in the three triangles and receive the divine creative word that rests in the I. A. O. We then receive the bread of life from Buddhi, the Christ principle, which is expressed in the golden cross (gold is the color of Buddhi). At the same time, the transformation takes place that lies at the heart of the Last Supper, in the Holy Grail. The fire of the blood, which has become unholy, becomes holy, pure, and chaste again. It becomes plant-like in nature again.

And then, when we work as the wheel of life, in the whole wheel of life, that is, when our will works in the world will that guides evolution, when we have immersed our own will in the Father's will, we attain union with the Father. This is indicated in the wheel of life.

In the waters of wisdom – Manas
In the cross and the roses – Buddhi
In the wheel of life – Atman
I. A. O. also contains Christian Rosenkreutz
Tau – Ros – Crux