It Thinks Me: Esoteric Mantras and Spiritual Development

GA 266II — 8 November 1912, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

After practicing for a long time, some people will feel that they have not made any progress in experiencing the spiritual world. Nevertheless, this may be based on a mistake. It can happen that you do not notice anything during or after meditation, but when you then return to your usual activities and are not completely absorbed in your external work, you may suddenly have the feeling that something is thinking within you! It can also often happen that a meditator thinks they have fallen asleep during their review, but when they wake up again and try to follow what has been going on inside them, they will often find that the review has continued in the meantime. It is very important to feel this. This does not contradict what has always been said, that we should not attach any value to what happens without the ego. For by recalling it in our memory, we incorporate it into the ego.

Those who have had such experiences may, at special moments, be permeated by the awareness: It thinks — it is not I who thinks, but it thinks, and indeed: It thinks me. This is esoterically the same as what was expressed exoterically in the words: “World thoughts live in your thinking.”

With this thought, “It thinks me,” one can permeate every moment, even if only for seconds, when one is free in [daily] life: the thought that world thoughts have created through their thinking what otherwise appears to me as “I” — that even my sense of self is a thought that thinks me. But this thought should never arise without being accompanied by a certain feeling. The person who stands in the world thinks that one can think anything; the esotericist knows that there are certain thoughts that must not be thought unless they are accompanied by the corresponding feelings. The sensation or feeling that should accompany “It thinks me” is that of piety. Only when we connect this feeling with that thought do we think the thought in the right way. The esotericist should consider it his greatest sin if he can have the thought: “It thinks me,” without the feeling of piety.

Then another awareness may dawn on the esotericist, which is connected with the words: “World beings are at work in your will.” This can transform into the thought: It works on me. How all forces flow together to work on human beings, how human beings are composed of the past and the future, all this lies in the fact that it works on me. But here, too, the thought must never be thought without being accompanied by a certain feeling, the feeling of reverence for the beings who bring about human beings.

What we have made of ourselves through our karma collides with what the higher beings have brought about in us. Human beings should never forget that whatever may befall them is just as much their own doing as it is they themselves who close a door.

Powerful mantras are: It thinks me — and: It affects me — and those who are most advanced on the esoteric path were those who were most able to permeate themselves with this at every moment of their lives: It thinks me, It affects me — and always accompanied by the corresponding feelings.

Those who have practiced this for years will receive something like a gift, so that when, for example, an external circumstance causes someone to say, “It's raining,” they will simultaneously feel that it is raining. It affects me — has practiced this for years will automatically receive something like a gift, so that — when, for example, due to an external circumstance, someone says: it is raining — one simultaneously feels the spiritual forces connected with the rain and working in the rain. Another sensation may come to those who have developed in this way, a sensation connected with the third: “World forces are weaving in your feelings.” That is the sensation: “It is weaving me”; and in doing so, one feels that just as the world thoughts think the thoughts of our ego, so these world forces weave our higher self. Therefore, the sensation that should always be associated with this is that of gratitude.

It is possible that meditation on these words: It thinks me, It weaves me, It works me, combined with feelings of piety, gratitude, and reverence, can replace all meditation and lead us into the spiritual world on its own. (However, one should never think of the three at the same time, but only one after the other.)

However, we are greatly helped by what we learn from theosophy when we study what is said about the states of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, for then we can understand what the “It” is of which it is said: It thinks me. It is theosophy (anthroposophy); that is this “It.” Theosophy is the world thoughts that have thought me as I am. This in turn sheds light on our motto and on the feelings we should cultivate. We are not always capable of these feelings of piety, gratitude, confidence, and reverence that should accompany Ex Deo nascimur. In Christo morimur. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus – but only if we can connect these feelings with the saying can we use it in the right way.

Record B

The experiences of the esotericist usually occur in a very subtle way. It is therefore necessary to pay close attention to the processes in one's own soul. When the meditation is over, the esotericist should let it go, empty his soul and consciousness completely, and wait quietly to see if anything, a message or insight from the spiritual world, comes to him. Then, often during trivial daily activities such as washing and dressing, a feeling may arise such as: "What was that just now; was it a dream? That wasn't me.“ The esotericist must learn to pay attention to such moments, to realize that there is something beyond his known being and self.

In life, we say, ”I think“; the esotericist should learn to feel, ”You think in me,“ or, more correctly in the esoteric sense, ”It thinks me." He must learn to understand “it,” the great, powerful It. Exoterically, this is said in the mystery “The Guardian of the Threshold”: “World thoughts live in your thinking”; esoterically, in “it thinks me.” It, the great, powerful spiritual-divine, thinks me. As soon as the esotericist allows this word, this sentence “it thinks me,” to pass through his soul, the feeling that we describe in our language as piety should arise in him. No greater sin—the esotericist should be aware of this—than to think the sentence “it thinks me” without at the same time awakening the feeling of piety within himself.

A second sentence is: It affects me, exoterically: “World beings are at work in your will.” When uttering this sentence, the esotericist should evoke a feeling of reverence. (Just as a fly flying toward our eye and the defensive movement we make belong together as a matter of course, so these sentences belong together with the corresponding feeling.)

The third sentence is: It weaves me, exoteric: “World forces weave in your feeling.” The esotericist must feel his ego as part of the divine-spiritual worlds, his ego, which is actually nothing more than a web of thoughts. In this “It weaves me,” a feeling of deepest, most intense gratitude must arise. Gratitude toward everything divine and spiritual should fill the soul of the esotericist; especially when thinking about this sentence, “It weaves me.”

Anyone who had nothing but this exercise and did it persistently could, with its help, grow into the spiritual world to a high degree. It is an exercise that anyone can do, even the busiest person. Every free moment can be used for this. By closing a door, one can let one of the sentences flow through one's soul with the corresponding feeling. But of course, only one of the sentences at a time, [not all three] at once. Something else must be added to this: the study of theosophy. There we learn everything about the earth and the nature of human beings, how they came into being through Saturn, the sun, and the moon. We learn how we have been influenced and made into what we are now. We contemplate with gratitude the miraculous structure of the physical body, which is the most perfect thing in all of creation. In this way, the esotericist must learn to feel what he has become without his own doing and what the hierarchies have created for him, without his own personality. And in addition, he must learn to feel what he himself has done to become exactly what he is. In this way, he can understand karma.

These three sentences thus lead to a true understanding of our main motto: E.D.N. - L.C.M. - P.S.S.R.

In the morning, man wakes up and finds himself consciously in his physical body, which he has received from the Father Spirit: E.D.N. After death, man should wake up in the spiritual world into what Christ, what the Mystery of Golgotha, has brought about for these spiritual worlds: L.C.M. (do not pronounce the name). Then follows the P.S.R., the resurrection in the Holy Christ Spirit. Before awakening, humans who are not yet clairvoyant are unconscious. But the clairvoyant will never awaken without first saying the prayer: Thank you, spiritual-divine worlds, that I may now enter again into the temple of my physical body.

The Bible has a word that is spoken twice. And it is not the same thing; it depends on what kind of being utters it. Once Lucifer says, “You shall be like gods” — that is a curse; the other time, Christ says, “You shall be like gods.” —

Record C

We should always take care to create a state of rest in our souls during our esoteric life after meditation or between our daily activities. Then one day we will experience how something from the spiritual world can flow into our souls and that it is not we who think, but rather: “it thinks in us.” Even if we fall asleep in the evening before we have finished our review, we will find, when we wake up after a while, that we have continued this review in our sleep, that something is going on in our soul in which our consciousness does not participate. We must learn to understand more and more deeply the passage from “The Soul's Examination”: “World thoughts live in your thinking. World forces weave in your feeling. World beings work in your will.” This is the exoteric version of these occult mantras, which can help us especially on the esoteric path.

The first is: It thinks me. But it is not enough to let these words live in the soul; the esotericist must strictly forbid himself to let them arise in the soul without permeating himself with a feeling of piety. The second: It acts upon me must be felt in such a way that one has the feeling that the world beings are working into me from all sides in rays and forming me; we oppose them with what we ourselves have created as our karma.

It affects me must only be experienced with a feeling of deep reverence. The third: It weaves me must always be connected with a feeling of gratitude. If we allow these three to live within us individually during the course of the day while creating peace of mind, it will help us to move forward. In the same way, we should always experience our core motto: Ex Deo nascimur. In Christo morimur. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus—or the explanatory motto given to us by the masters:

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

Record D

The fact that we sometimes feel as if we are not making any progress is often due to the fact that we are not attentive enough. After our meditation, we must always make our soul completely empty and peaceful in order to try to catch what is coming to us from the higher worlds. But it may also be that nothing is revealed to us in these moments, but that later in the day or while dressing and washing after our exercises, something suddenly passes through us that we know is coming to us in a different way than our ordinary experience. We may then feel this in such a way that we say: It is thinking me. And this feeling of ourselves as being thought by the divine beings around us must always be accompanied by a strong feeling of “piety.” This disregard for our own ego and the feeling of ourselves in piety as a thought of the divine beings can bring us very far forward in our esoteric life. And in every free moment we can rise to this mantric saying: It thinks me, which represents, so to speak, the esoteric of: “World thoughts live in my thinking.” But this thought must never be in us without the accompanying feeling of deep piety.

And then, in the same way, we can learn to feel the esoteric meaning of “World beings work in my will” in the mantra: It works on me. We can feel ourselves as created by the effects of higher beings flowing into us from all sides. Coming into conflict with this, we can feel what we ourselves have made of ourselves, our karma. And if we can truly experience ourselves in the saying “It works on me,” then this must create a strong feeling of awe and reverence within us. The awareness “It works on me” must always create this mood of reverence by itself.

And finally, we will be able to notice something third, namely what is esoteric about the words “world forces live in my feelings”: it weaves me. And this being woven by ourselves through the world forces must be accompanied by a feeling of great gratitude.

Through these three mantric sentences: It thinks me — It acts upon me — It weaves me — the spiritual worlds can be opened to us if we allow them to work upon us again and again in connection with the corresponding feelings. But we must also take into ourselves everything that is given to us in theosophical teachings. And when we ask ourselves what the theosophical teachings are, we can say: They are “it” because they are world thoughts, and they also shape us. And when we can experience all this again and again within ourselves, this tearing away from ourselves in order to feel truly embedded in the spiritual beings that shape us, then we will also understand more and more the words: E.D.N. - 1.C.M., and in particularly gifted moments we will then also know with hope: P.S.S.R. If we can experience our saying in this way, we can know that moments of great grace have been given to us.

Record E

1. It makes me think in a pious mood

2. It weaves me into a grateful mood

3. It affects me in a reverent mood

in view of the fact that the karma we have created for ourselves stands in opposition to the actual divine (fateful) will

Exoteric:

1. “World thoughts live in your thinking.”

2. “World forces weave in your feeling.”

3. “World beings work in your will.”