Esoteric Lessons 1904–1909

GA 266I

Five Individually Assigned so-called Main Exercises

Main exercise: Handwriting Archive No. 6912/13

For the first few weeks, please observe the following:

I. A morning meditation consisting of the following. Main exercise: Handwriting Archive No. 7074 Main exercise: Manuscript Archive No. 4401/02

1. Raise your feelings to your higher self. It is less important to teach yourself about the higher self in a theoretical way than to feel in a very vivid way that you have a higher nature within you. Imagine that your ordinary self surrounds this higher nature like a shell, so that the latter is present in the lower self as its core. Once you have put yourself in this frame of mind, you speak the following words to your “higher self” in a prayer-like manner (not aloud, but in your mind): Brighter than the sun
   Purer than snow
   Finer than ether
   Is the Self
   The spirit in my heart
   This Self is “I”; “I” am this Self. While keeping this in mind, no other mental image should interfere. One should only feel the soul's gaze directed toward the higher self. Gradually, one feels a wonderful strengthening emanating from the words of the above sentences. One feels as if one has been lifted out of oneself. Gradually, a state arises as if the soul were growing wings. This is the beginning, upon which one will then build further. This should take 2-3 minutes.
2. Immerse yourself completely in the first sentence of “Light on the Path”: “Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.” Do not allow any other thoughts to enter your soul. Immerse yourself completely in this thought. The meaning must then dawn on you like a flash of lightning. This will certainly come one day if you have patience. There must now be complete silence in your soul for a few minutes. One must be blind and deaf to all external sensory impressions and to all images in one's memory. Again, 2-3 minutes.
3. This is followed by devotional surrender to that which one reveres as the highest divine. The mood is important here. Look up fervently and long for union with this divine. —

II. In the evening before going to sleep, one should briefly review what one has experienced during the day. It is not important to be exhaustive, but rather to face oneself as if one were another person. One should learn from oneself. Life should become more and more a lesson. One begins with the evening and progresses until morning.

Gradually one notices that dream life takes on a more regular character. The spiritual world flows into it first. Meditation is the occult key to this. You should keep a little book and write down characteristic dreams very briefly in the morning, in a few words. This will give you practice in retaining what flows to you from the higher worlds. This is the first elementary method by which you will later come to experience spiritual experiences, i.e., they will break into your clear daytime consciousness. Dreams that are reminiscences of daily life or are based on physical conditions (headache, palpitations, etc.) are only valuable if they take on a symbolic form. For example, when the beating heart appears as a boiling oven, or the aching brain as a vault in which animals crawl, etc., etc. Only the symbolism has value here, not the content of the dream. For the form of symbolism is first used by the spiritual world to introduce us to the forces of the higher worlds. One must therefore pay attention to the subtleties of this symbolism. In your case, according to your disposition, it will also be good if you compare the dreams that you become aware of with the experiences of the following day. For it is likely that your dreams will take on a significant meaning in the not too distant future. When this point is reached, we will talk further about how this can be made fruitful for your spiritual life.

Please try this with these instructions and let me know in about 8 days how everything is going.

Meditation.

In the morning:

1.) Aum

2.) Elevation to the higher self through the formula:
“Brighter than the sun
Purer than snow
Finer than ether
Is the self
The spirit in my heart
This self is me. I am this self.”

3) Contemplative meditation in “Light on the Path”
a.) 14 days: “Before the eye...”
b.) 14 days: “Before the ear...”
c.) 14 days: “Before the masters...”
d.) 14 days: “Before standing before them.”¹

4.) Devotional surrender to the absolutely venerable ideal.

In the evening:

Review of the day. Begin with the last experiences and actions of the evening and proceed upward until morning.

In the morning after waking up, when no other impressions have yet entered the soul, turn your attention away from all sensory impressions and all memories of everyday life. Try to free yourself completely from all worries, concerns, etc.

Once you have achieved this inner calmness of the soul, then let

1.) For 5 minutes, let only the following seven lines live in your soul:

Brighter than the sun Purer than snow Finer than ether That is the Self The spirit in my heart This Self is me I am this Self.

2.) In the second 5 minutes, follow

a.) Concentrate on the point between and slightly behind the eyebrows and meditate on I am b.) Concentrate on the inside of the larynx and meditate: It thinks c.) Concentrate on both arms and hands and meditate: They feel The hands can be folded, or the right hand can be placed over the left. After some time, you will feel your hands wanting to move apart through their own power. However, you must not bring this about through self-deception. d.) Concentrate on the entire surface of your body and meditate:

He wants.

Then concentrate on the pit of your stomach and meditate:

Divine life.

3.) After all this, follow with

5 minutes of devotional immersion in your own divine ideal.

In the evening, review as before.

Main exercise: Handwriting Archive No. 6915-6918

To the previous exercise,² which I ask you to continue until further notice, the following should now be added, immediately after the point where the “He will” flows over the entire surface of the body: Streams (rays) should be formed from the surface of the body and drawn toward the heart as the center. The whole process should be done slowly and with the consciousness quietly resting on the process.

During this process, meditate on the thought (from “Light on the Path”):

Seek the path

Then I ask you to rest quietly with all your feelings in your heart and meditate on the following:

Seek the path in inner contemplation

Then direct the current back toward the surface of your body and meditate on the following:

Seek the path by boldly stepping out of yourself.

A time will soon come when you will perceive the rays indicated as real currents of warmth.

These exercises prepare the union of your own personality (microcosm) with the greater world and its mysteries (macrocosm), just as the exercises indicated so far have prepared the awakening of your own individuality.

In the future, human beings will be in a much more intimate relationship with the laws of the world than they are at present. And the student of occultism anticipates this intimacy in his development. The head with the brain is only a transitional organ of knowledge. The organ that will actually enable us to see deeply and powerfully into the world has its seat in the present heart. But mark well: the predisposition for this organ is in the present heart. In order to become an organ of knowledge, the heart must still undergo the most manifold transformations. But this heart is the source and fountain of the future stage of humanity. When the heart becomes its organ, knowledge will be warm and heartfelt, as only the feelings of love and compassion are today. But these feelings will struggle out of the dullness and darkness in which they grope today to the brightness and clarity that today only the finest, most logical concepts of the head possess.

The true student prepares himself for such things. And the preparation is only right if he does this with the attitude indicated in his soul. This attitude is the mother of the perspective he needs. I ask you to keep firmly in mind that we can only achieve what we are supposed to achieve through our meditation and concentration exercises if we perform them imbued with the great, sublime goals in bright, full clarity.

In this sense, I ask you to always view and perform the exercises. In doing so, you will become part of the community of spirits who, out of their present incarnations, are destined to become the seers and helpers of the future. We can do nothing better for the further development of the world than to develop ourselves. But we must do this. And we do not doubt for a moment that we must do so as soon as we have recognized the truth about our own being and the connection of this being with the world. However, this recognition can only be gained gradually. It is a child

of the will and of patience.

Please try to relate the various discussions this winter to the first four sentences in “Light on the Way” and write down your thoughts on them in a casual manner.

You will find that these four sentences

1. “Before the eye ...”
2. “Before the ear ...
3. ”Before the masters ...“
4. ”And before them ..."

contain an infinite amount and that the most important theosophical teachings about the world and self-knowledge will gradually become intuitively clear to your soul if you live completely in these sentences. These sentences are not mere sentences, but forces that awaken truth, power, and life when one surrenders to them.

Please write to me regularly, approximately every four weeks, and if something special happens in your spiritual life, as often as you like—about your progress, ideas you have gained, send me any elaborations. I will then forward my replies to you.

Peace.

Main exercise: Handwriting Archive No. 3052

In the morning:

Rest

5 min:

In the pure rays of light
The divinity of the world shines forth. In pure love for all beings
The divinity of my soul shines forth. I rest in the divinity of the world
I will find myself
In the divinity of the world.

5 min: Growing plant.

5 min: Withered plant.

Devotional surrender to one's own divine ideal.

Evening:

Devotion. Surrender.

Review of the day's experiences. Imaginative. From backward to forward.

Additional exercise:

Concentration of thought
Initiative
Serenity in pleasure and pain
Positivity (legend of Christ)
Impartiality (church tower)
Repeat the 5 exercises