Overcoming Obstacles in Meditation and Occult Development

GA 266I — 26 February 1909, Kassel

Esoteric Lesson

Today we want to look at some difficulties that are typical for meditators. Meditation is, on a small scale of course, the same thing as initiation on a large scale. There too [in meditation], certain difficulties arise and must therefore be overcome right at the beginning. As soon as the student enters the occult path, forces arise that try to hinder his development. Such forces are always present, but an occult student is more valuable to these forces than someone whose interests are only directed toward the outer things of the physical plane.

What, then, is the essential thing we should strive for in meditation? We should forget ourselves by erasing everything connected with ordinary life in order to immerse ourselves solely in the content of the prescribed words, so that we no longer know or feel anything about our body or the thoughts and feelings of everyday life. But the opposing forces want to prevent us from doing this! They seek to pull us back into everyday life by preventing us from concentrating our thoughts. As soon as we notice this—for example, during meditation: “In the pure rays of light ...,” where we should think and feel nothing else than that the light is the garment of the deity, so that we live entirely in this image—we can imagine as an effective symbol the staff of Mercury, namely a yellow-glowing, bright staff entwined by two snakes, one dark and one white-glowing; one begins with the dark snake.

All living things are enclosed in a skin as a sign that they are enclosed in the physical world. The etheric body also has a skin, as does the astral body. When a person receives the impressions of the day through their senses, this affects the skin of their astral body, which is repelled and worn away, and cracks and tears appear. This shows itself in fatigue. When we fall asleep, this skin tears and is renewed during sleep. We should now try to become conscious of this process before falling asleep. In doing so, we can imagine how we now enter the spiritual worlds, where in the realms of harmonies and spherical sounds, the astral body is renewed by spiritual beings. We should fall asleep with a feeling of gratitude toward these divine beings and powers: we should feel love for wisdom. Then bad influences will not be able to approach us.

Just as human beings wear out the skin of their soul body in the course of twenty-four hours and then renew it, so too does the snake shed its skin at certain intervals, leaving it behind and renewing it again. Therefore, contemplating the caduceus is an effective means of penetrating the spiritual worlds in meditation in such a way that hindering influences are overcome.

Another means lies in the mental image of ourselves [enveloped] by a blue aura, as if sealed off from all evil thoughts and feelings that seek to reach us from outside. We feel inwardly how this aura shields us from all evil influences: only good forces can find their way into our soul. This can be effectively combined with the following meditation.

Meditation for protection against external influences:

The outer shell of my aura thickens. It surrounds me with an impenetrable vessel
against all impure, unclean thoughts and feelings
It opens only to divine wisdom.¹

Now it is so that the beginner initially feels only the presence of dark forces in his scattered thoughts, while the advanced seer sees these astral forces as parasitic animals, as rats and mice. But no one who sees the rats and mice should rejoice that he has already come this far, for otherwise he would succumb completely to these forces. One must become strong in order to resist the influences of these dark forces.

A second experience also occurs as a typical experience in meditation. Again, the beginner feels it, while the advanced person sees it. A feeling arises as if the physical body no longer belongs to us, as if we were divided, fragmented in space. Even the organs, such as the heart, liver, and gallbladder, expand. We remember that our physical body was created on Saturn through the inflow of the substantiality of the thrones, our etheric body on the old sun through the spirits of wisdom, our astral body on the old moon through the spirits of movement, while on Earth the I was given to us through the spirits of form. We return to these spirits in meditation. Now, however, we must not imagine that each of the individual organs returns to the powers that implanted them in human beings during the cosmic evolution of the worlds. Rather, it is a feeling of belonging to those powers, a merging into their moods, whereby we must always remain conscious of our own I when we feel this belonging to the spiritual powers in question.

Another typical experience during meditation is that the consciousness becomes weaker, even dimmed. This is also true in a certain sense, but we must nevertheless try to keep it awake at all times. One means of doing this is the black cross with the seven red roses. It is the great symbol of Christ Jesus himself, the rosy cross — dying life passing away in death, which has within itself the power to bring forth new life. In general, contemplating this symbol always has a strengthening effect on spiritual development; it strengthens our everyday life in all situations. The tempter indeed approaches us most strongly during our occult exercises. The advanced student sees this in the image as it is depicted in the Bible; this image is drawn very precisely.

Finally, during meditation, a feeling of deepest peace of mind clearly arises, not an external feeling of calm, but a deep inner feeling of peace that cannot be disturbed by anything, no matter how much turmoil and rage may be raging around us.

These are the three typical phenomena during meditation, among many others, which vary depending on the individuality of the meditator:

1. the tempting phenomena (parasitic animals),
2. being divided into different hierarchies, whereby we must not lose our sense of self (Rosicrucian), and
3. the deepest peace of mind that is granted to us.²

The Mercury staff helps us to penetrate the spiritual worlds; the Rosicrucian cross anchors us in them.

There are two things we should try to avoid completely during our occult training. We should never hurt another person, either by deed, thought, or word, and we should not accept the excuse that we did not intend to hurt anyone. It makes no difference whether we did it intentionally or unintentionally. The other thing is the feeling of hatred, which must disappear completely from our feelings, otherwise it will reappear in the feeling of fear; for fear is suppressed hatred! We must transform hatred into the feeling of love, the love of wisdom.