Transforming Desire: From Egoism to Higher Self-Consciousness

GA 266I — 24 May 1908, Hamburg

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

Today, desire emanates from the astral body, interest lies in the ego, and enjoyment in the etheric body. In the past, interest lay in the astral body, desire in the etheric body, and enjoyment in the physical body. Images arose in the astral body, and human beings knew what was good for them and what was harmful. They were interested in these images that arose within them. And this interest, this awareness of these images, remained within them even when the physical body changed and became something else. This astral consciousness — not yet self-consciousness — was permanent. This changed when the I, which had previously been outside in the spiritual realm, sank into the human being and increasingly permeated him. The interest drew into the I. The I drew the interest up to itself, drawing everything into its own realm. In this way, it cut itself off from the divine. The result was death. Everything that happens only for the individual, that does not happen for the whole, that happens for something separate from the whole, that is, egoism, ultimately leads to the destruction of the individual, to death.

The Rosicrucians call this interest emanating from the ego “Aestimatio.” We must raise our interest back up to the astral plane: in this way we gain “Imaginatio.” When desire is transferred back to the etheric body, we attain ‘Incantatio’ or “Inspiratio.” And by transferring enjoyment from the etheric body to the physical body, we attain “Intuitio.”

When we no longer follow personal interests in our actions, when we do what we have to do in such a way that we follow the inner necessities imposed on us by a correctly understood law of karma, when we surrender our deeds to the outer world in inner serenity in accordance with this law, then we overcome “aestimatio” through our higher self, which then becomes the acting self. And when, held by the power of this self, we no longer allow ourselves to be driven by the currents and influences that rush upon us from the outer world, then we can gain correct judgments about the outer world; we then gather wisdom from it. It reveals its own inner essence to us in imagination, inspiration, and intuition when we stand before it in serenity and when we do and think everything we do and think in such a way that we know: it has an influence on the whole—all my thoughts and feelings as well as my deeds; nothing exists for itself; I want to give everything for humanity; everything is dedicated to the service of humanity. - If this is the basic feeling in the student, then he develops the Buddhi, the Christ principle.

In this way, he brings forth the higher Trinity from the given figure:

In another record, this last paragraph reads:

When we no longer follow our personal interests in our actions, but are only concerned with the best for the whole, when we allow the Christ principle to work in us, when we no longer allow ourselves to be driven by the influences and currents that rush upon us from other people, but follow the form the “Command me” and close ourselves off in this direction, so to speak, against these currents: , and also in the direction of “Forbid me” and the lower direction , we develop inner serenity and thereby allow the higher Trinity to arise within us!

Record B

We were given the form through which we can make the higher self conscious and effective in our daily lives. How can one conquer and kill one's desires and yet escape the danger of becoming alienated from daily life?

In the Lemurian era, before human beings received an ego, we find that 1, 2, 3 [physical, etheric, astral bodies] were governed (guided) by divine-spiritual beings. The astral images were reflected in his astral consciousness. Recognizing what was useful, harmful, etc.¹ In this period, the three great forces were:

All desires were simultaneously actions. Food was consumed and excreted without desire. Divine beings provided nourishment. Humans had no interest in anything external. They still lived in divinity. Therefore, there was no illness or death. There was only a change of bodies, like taking off a garment. Then the ego entered into man and brought about this great difference, that he began to be interested not only in what was going on in his soul. The light that had previously shone within him now shone upon him from outside, from the objects of the physical plane, and his ego reflected it back when he desired the things that surrounded him. In this way, he attained what is called “Aestimatio” in occultism. This brought death to man. Every time we look at something with interest, we take poison and death into ourselves; and that became our task here on earth. Before that, man had acted in the astral realm. Since he became interested in physical objects and desired them, he has been working on the first [physical] plane.

The esoteric student who wants to get to know the higher worlds can achieve this by vividly imagining an action, but not carrying it out. This strengthens the power of “Imaginatio.” By not giving space to desire, by not fulfilling it, he raises desire from the second body [etheric body] to the third body [astral body]. Excluding all external things, we imagine the figure: the left arm “Command me,” the right arm “Forbid me.” The lower line is the decision of the ego.

If we regard our body as one of the things entrusted to us, we will nourish the body as the gods once nourished our body on the moon; and thereby we bring enjoyment back into the body.