Meditation, Divine Influence, and Esoteric Secrets

GA 266I — 25 October 1908, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

We should regard everything that is being said to us during these hours as a message entrusted to us by the Masters. With the right attitude, everyone can accept what is being said to us; what each person makes of it depends on their level of development.

When a person is in meditation, the soul is in the world where the Masters work, and it is united with the stream that the Masters send into the world. It then contributes to the gradual overcoming of death in humanity by life. When we shut ourselves off from sensory perception, the astral currents of the gods can flow into us.

Let us imagine a plant in the sunlight, blooming and thriving, and a plant in a dark cellar. It also blooms, but it dies because its small etheric body is no longer strong enough to sustain itself; it dissolves into the world ether.

We have our sensory perception because our astral body has become so strong that it closes itself off from the inflow of the gods. We kill these at the periphery of our astral body, and this, through the inhibition of the flow, gives rise to color and sound.

What befalls those who unauthorizedly reveal the secrets revealed to the student.

Why must esotericism remain a secret in the highest sense?

Because the path has dangers that will harm the unprepared. As a parable, it is said that there are secrets in a hidden temple, but that there is also a key and a path to it. This path has thorns, but with proper meditation and preparation, it becomes as if one were walking on pure velvet; otherwise, the thorns will tear one to pieces. And if the key is inserted and turned by an unprepared hand, the unprepared person is thrown back as if by a powerful spiritual force. But to the prepared person, the key opens and the secrets of the temple are revealed.

He who reveals the secrets to the uncalled is like one who saws off the branch on which he sits. And he who demands the secrets from one who is immature demands that one saw off the branch on which one sits. He may wish to do it for himself, but in doing so he shirks his duty to work for humanity.

In the past, human beings did not have sensory perception, but through the physical, behind which the spirit stands, the emanation of the gods passed into the astral body of human beings, and they saw an image arise; this was an inner experience, they felt: this and that is what the gods want in me. Now the astral body of human beings has become so strong that, since the ego has entered, human beings can now say: I want. They close themselves off from the influence of the gods. If this had happened suddenly when the ego entered human beings, it would have appeared before them like a brilliant flash of lightning and would have killed humanity. This breaking in of the spiritual world is now happening slowly, and the meditator holds it back for humanity and transforms the cosmic astral sphere. The price of sensory perception is turning away from the influence of the gods.