# Progress in Esoteric Training: Consciousness, Dreams, and Rosicrucian Mottos

## GA 266III — 6 January 1913, Berlin

### Esoteric Lesson

Record A

There are many esotericists who believe that they are not making any progress. This is impossible for anyone who diligently performs their exercises. We must distinguish between progress and noticing progress. Those who are dissatisfied and would like to speak to Meister Eckhart: “What good is it to me that I am a king if I do not know it?” must develop a more refined sense of perception and listen to what is going on in their souls.

Above all, people complain that they fall asleep while doing their evening exercises. Suppose someone fell asleep during their review; they will wake up again. When they then remember how far they had gotten, they will realize that, even though their daytime consciousness was extinguished, their meditation continued during their sleep. Under certain circumstances, this can be more useful than meditation with full consciousness, because what is significant here is the fact that his consciousness continued to work in a disembodied state, that a transition took place from ordinary daytime consciousness to a higher state of consciousness. This is already an expansion of consciousness, and it is in such an expansion that real progress lies. In another, otherwise identical source, the following sentence follows here: “This is not a matter of the subconscious, but rather that what is experienced in this way is raised into consciousness.”

Dreams also show that the esotericist is making progress; he only has to observe his soul and be attentive to what is going on in his soul.

It can happen that someone sees a coffin in a dream shortly before waking up, or a house with a door, or even an angel handing them a chalice. Before a person is truly able to see their body, they see it in images, and these images will always correspond to their disposition. Someone who is serious, sometimes melancholic, and frequently preoccupied with thoughts of death will see a coffin with a corpse in it as a symbol of their physical body. Someone who is more cheerful and optimistic will see a house in front of them, through whose door they will re-enter their physical body. A person with a religious disposition will see an angel handing them a chalice. This is [a symbol of] the waking consciousness returning to them.

Of course, such symbols only appear at the beginning of esoteric training. The esotericist who is more advanced will no longer see these images, but will feel how his etheric body grows more and more out into the cosmos, how streams pour out from the individual organs of his physical body far into the world space — he feels that he is a cosmic being.

We have already spoken about how the sensations and feelings of the esotericist change. In the Essene order that existed in Jesus' time, and in which Jesus also spent some time, two rules applied. First, one was not allowed to speak about worldly things before sunrise and after sunset. For the brothers of the higher degrees, this also extended to their thoughts. As long as the sun was in the sky, they were allowed to indulge in worldly thoughts, but they had to remain silent as soon as it set. And the second rule: before sunrise, they had to ask the sun to appear, and in the evening they had to thank it for shining. Modern people today will not be able to follow these rules to the same extent. But should he not, just as the Essene looked forward to the appearance of the sun with gratitude and devotion, be grateful to return to his physical body in the morning? For it was no more certain that the Essene would see the sun again than it is certain that modern man will return to his physical body. The materialist knows nothing about this; but we have heard how our physical body has been so artfully constructed by all the beings above us, drawing on the forces of the worlds of all times and spaces, through the development of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. This temple for the soul was formed by gods, arising from the spiritual: Ex Deo nascimur.

Then there is a second feeling that we must develop, namely this: there once existed an ancient heirloom, a remnant of the primordial divine, into which human beings poured themselves after death. This enabled them to maintain their consciousness. This divine substance has become less and less. It varied in different epochs and among different peoples, but in the fourth epoch of the post-Atlantean period it had almost disappeared. Not the ego, but the souls were dead [as a result]. The Greeks were probably aware of this, which is why they said: Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows. But this substance has been newly formed through the mystery of Golgotha. After death, we now enter into the Christ substance and regain our consciousness there. Just as Adam is our physical ancestor, so Christ is the ancestor of our souls: In Christ we die. Or, because the name means something so sacred to us that we dare not reproduce it in sounds, we say only: In --- morimur.

But when we attain consciousness in the Christ force after death, we do not yet have self-consciousness. We recognize the things around us, but we cannot see ourselves. We can only attain this by preparing ourselves on earth. Just as I can find a button here in the physical world if I consciously place it in a certain place, so it is after death. We cannot expect to remember something we did not do with full consciousness. However, we are given the means to do so through the teachings of Rosicrucian theosophy. If we seek to understand the spirit of the theosophical worldview, if we permeate ourselves with the spiritual, then the spirit will awaken us in that life after death: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Let us feel that this Rosicrucian motto is no ordinary saying, but that it has been given to us by the masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings. They have imbued it with world forces. It is not there to be repeated, but to be experienced; and through years of practice we will gather more and more knowledge from it. The trained clairvoyant sees how, in a person who has immersed himself in this motto, the etheric body begins to expand more and more and connect with the forces of the macrocosm; in the process, his organs become centers of power into which streams flow from the spiritual world. Let us permeate ourselves with this saying when our soul is in complete peace and serenity. And when we need comfort, when our soul is depressed, it will give us courage and strength. But let us not use it only as a means of comfort, but also when our soul is completely still; then it will increasingly become a friend, a helper on our esoteric path.

Record B

When beginning esotericists often think that they are not making any progress, this is absolutely no proof that progress is not being made. Often it is simply not noticed. It is often complained that the student falls asleep during the evening exercises, but it can happen that he later notices upon waking that he has continued his exercises in a different state of consciousness. Remembering that the exercises were continued in a different state of consciousness is very important. Such a memory can be more important than simply performing the exercise with daytime consciousness. One must also pay more attention to one's dream life. Towards the end of sleep, one can sometimes see one's body in symbolic form, either as a house one must enter, or as a grave (this vision occurs in people who often think about death and the transience of earthly life), or as an angel with a chalice in his hand (this occurs in people who have a religious disposition and are aware that the body is created by the gods).

But later one will see one's body more as it really is, and how much reality differs from the maya of the physical. One then sees the physical and etheric bodies as greatly expanded, growing out from the heart like a tree into the whole universe, and we understand how our heart has cosmic significance, while our head, like the starry sky, spans half the cosmos. But it takes a long time to progress from the first stage of symbolic vision to this view.

When we think of the Essene commandment that one should not concern oneself with worldly things from sunset to sunrise (and for the higher degrees, not even think about such things), we can transform this for our esoteric life so that we should fall asleep with holy feelings. And the second Essene commandment, to ask every morning that the sun may rise, can become for us a feeling of holiness and gratitude toward the gods who gave us our bodies, gratitude for finding our way back into our bodies every morning. If we truly realize how impossible it would be to regain our consciousness upon waking without our bodies, then we can feel gratitude for finding our bodies again and think with reverence of the saying: Ex Deo nascimur – and connect it with the sacred feeling we can have towards our bodies, which were given to us by the gods. If we contemplate the E.D.N. in this way from time to time, we will make a wonderful discovery, namely that shortly before waking up we pray that we may find our body again. This discovery that we pray in this other state of consciousness in which we still are before waking up is of great significance. (The E.D.N. with gratitude for our body.)

When contemplating I.C.M., we can then feel gratitude in the same way for what does the same thing for us at death as when our body awakens, namely for the spiritual substance into which we then immerse ourselves as when we awaken into our physical body. And this spiritual substance, which had been exhausted before the mystery of Golgotha, is now, for the esotericist, the Christ substance.

But we must also learn to develop our self-consciousness. We will do this more and more as we take in what is given to us as theosophical teachings as a living force.

These theosophical concepts are living forces, and depending on how our soul life is shaped by them, we will also retain our self-awareness in the life after death if we remember all that we have learned here as truth. That is the Holy Spirit: P.S.S.R.

Thus, by meditating on this saying, which is the core of our Rosicrucian esotericism, we can gain more and more strength through it. The more we meditate on this saying, these “magic words” in the true sense, the more it brings us into contact with spiritual forces and spiritual beings. And this coexistence with the spiritual worlds must become a reality for us. And even in times when we are sad, heavily burdened, and oppressed, this saying can be a source of comfort to us. But this will only happen if we truly connect with it in moments of serenity and joy, when living with this saying becomes the path on which angels come to us, bringing us comfort and strength even in dark moments. In this way, our teachings can build us up spiritually, recreate our soul life, and we will become more and more aware of the holiness of everything and settle into the saying with pious and serene feelings: E.D.N.—I.C.M.—P.S.S.R.