Meditation, Study, and Spiritual Transformation Through Patience

GA 266II — 6 February 1910, Kassel

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

Sun, Earth – Meditation, Study

Some who enter esoteric training are quickly disappointed and say that they had imagined the exercises to be much more energetic and their effects much more profound. Anyone who says this should realize as soon as possible that they are greatly mistaken and should make every effort to correct this mistake as soon as possible. It is not the exercises that are insufficiently energetic, but the person. It is not the exercises that are ineffective, but the person who does not make them effective within themselves. Through the esoteric life, the student must become a completely different person; he must acquire something new in addition to the old.

In earlier times, one was faced with a choice: esoteric training or death. One had to undergo exercises and tests which, if one was mature enough, led to the esoteric path, or one fell by the wayside, so to speak, under these tests: Physical death would occur. The student would say to himself: If I cannot pass the tests, I am not yet mature enough for an esoteric life, so another life in the physical body has no value for me; it is better to go through physical death in order to prepare myself in Devachan for a new incarnation, which can then lead to esoteric life.

Today, such tests are no longer possible; our entire organization is no longer geared toward them. However, the student should come to the point where all physical events become indifferent to him. Man must become a completely different being. But anyone who would claim today that he has overcome the physical—after a short period of practice—is easily succumbing to a gross delusion. The student must truly be against himself. Truthfulness is the first virtue that those who wish to enter the esoteric path must attain; truthfulness toward oneself to the utmost.

Another magic word for the esoteric seeker is patience. Consider the sun; Imagine the spirit of the sun, how it causes the sun to rise and set day after day, how it has been doing this for millions of years and will continue to do so for an unimaginably long time, in order to lead the earth to its destiny. Put yourself into this patience and do not think that if an exercise has no effect after three, four, or five years, the exercise is ineffective.

The Lord's Prayer, this wonderful rendering of the sevenfold world order, is a meditation of great significance, which some students perform daily. I know one of those whom we call the masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings, who said: I only use the Lord's Prayer once a month as meditation; the rest of the time I try to make myself mature and worthy of being allowed to immerse myself in even one sentence of this wonderful meditation. This is how one must approach meditation spiritually, wanting to make oneself worthy of being allowed to use it.

Theosophy is not just theoretical study, but living practice.

We must feel the parables in nature. Behind everything physical there is something spiritual. If we meditate correctly, if we progress on the esoteric path, we will soon come to feel something within ourselves that corresponds to what we see in nature: in spring and summer, germination and growth; in autumn, the melancholy of dying. We will experience this when we wake up in the morning and fall asleep in the evening. Just as we fall asleep in the evening, so the plants enter a vegetative night in autumn. Only the seeds remain, containing the abilities acquired during the summer life. These abilities awaken again in spring to new activity, just as our powers and abilities awaken in the morning from the previous evening. Again and again we must fall asleep and wake up, use our abilities during the day and gather new strength at night. Behind the physical plants are higher spiritual beings who must repeatedly embark on new activity in spring and, in autumn, when only the seed of the plant remains, submerge themselves in a plant night. But these beings are so advanced that they only need to undergo this change once a year, while human beings must go through the change of falling asleep and waking up every twenty-four hours. For those higher beings, it is simply no longer necessary to do so often.

Feeling at one with the universal spirit, with the spiritual, must not remain mere words. One must truly feel and experience within oneself what lies hidden in the succession of spring, summer, and fall, in the revival and dying of nature.

During meditation, spiritual life flows into us. In order to be able to properly receive this spiritual life, we must prepare ourselves in the appropriate manner. We do this through study. Just as the sun, which sends out its rays and its power, would find only an empty spot if the earth were not prepared and ready to receive and utilize this power, so our meditations would find no ground for effectiveness; they would find, so to speak, an empty spot if we did not prepare ourselves through study, if we did not make ourselves receptive to the spiritual life that flows into us through meditation. Thus we can see the macrocosm in the microcosm.

The student should devote himself to his meditations with complete fervor, with complete devotion and concentration. He should completely and utterly put aside his everyday thoughts and open himself only to the high spiritual forces. The meditator should regard every meditation as a sacrifice, like sacrificial smoke rising to the gods. In this way we contribute to harmonization and progress, while low, selfish, egotistical thoughts give rise to catastrophes, and no human means of protection can prevent these catastrophes, such as we have had many of lately and such as will come even more terrible; one may do what one will against them—they will come nonetheless.

We must keep the spiritual in mind and in our feelings in all our actions and thoughts. We have descended from the spiritual, and we will ascend again to the spiritual, enriched and perfected.

The seed of my body lay in the spirit ...
In my body lies the seed of the spirit ...

Record B

Sun, Earth, Meditation, Study

If spiritual exercises are not effective, this is never due to the exercises themselves, but always to the person practicing them. The latter must immerse himself deeply in them, and he must become a completely different person.

In ancient times, people were given a choice: success or death!

Those who were not ready to pass the test could hope for better success in the next life. This was guaranteed by passing through Devachan.

Today, however, the student must at least become indifferent to external life; he must become a different person.

First and foremost, the student must truly turn against himself, then learn patience. The example: the patience with which the sun constantly shines on everyone and everything.

The Lord's Prayer as meditation material

A master said: I take only one request as meditation once a month; the rest of the time I seek to make myself ripe and worthy to understand this request.

Theosophy is living practice. We must perceive everything physical as a parable of the spiritual that underlies it.

In this way we come to feel a change within ourselves like that of spring, summer, and fall: the sprouting and growing in nature and the melancholy of dying in fall. As we fall asleep in the evening, so do the plants in fall; only the seeds remain, and in them the abilities acquired in summer. In spring these forces awaken again, as ours do every morning.

Behind the physical world are high spiritual beings. These are so advanced that they only need to undergo this change once a year, which we all go through every day.

Preparation for meditation through study to make the ground receptive.

The meditator should devote himself to the exercise with full concentration of his being. He should put aside all his everyday thoughts and open himself only to the high spiritual forces.

He should regard meditation as a sacrifice; he should see in it, as it were, a sacrificial smoke rising to the gods.

In this way, we should always keep the spiritual in mind in all our lives and actions. In this way, we should contribute to the harmony of the greater whole to the best of our ability.

We come from the spirit and we are spirit. (This should be expressed in our entire being.)